#cinnabunmods

Paths:

If you don't like typing out paths or manually making folders for your mods, you can copy all but the file name (ie: chara/common/texture/eye/), click create directory (I usually go to the Texture editing tab since that's fastest for me), and paste the path in, like this:

Also, if you want to temporarily remove a path from your mod - but NOT delete it, you can put any character at the end of it to make it an invalid path. I personally use underscores but anything works! ie: chara/common/texture/eye/eyebase_01.tex+

Textures:

If you're using a solid color for a texture in your material file, you can use placeholder dummy files to make the mod much smaller! If you've looked at the files of my mods, you'll notice I don't pack the files either - which is a generally better practice (especially since Penumbra updated to restrict modifying certain common files). Here's a non-comprehensive list of some dummy textures you can use, as well as some possible use cases. Remember to not actually save the texture to your modpack! Just referencing it in the material is fine.

chara/common/texture/black.tex - Index texture, if you want your entire mod to be set to colorset row 1B. chara/common/texture/red.tex - Index texture, if you want your entire mod to be set to colorset row 16B. Also maybe mask for shiny/metalness. chara/common/texture/blue.tex - Not sure? If you have ideas, let me know. chara/common/texture/green.tex - Index texture, if you want your entire mod to be set to colorset row 1A. chara/common/texture/white.tex - Diffuse/base, mask. chara/common/texture/transparent.tex - Note: also black, so if your material uses color stored in transparency, keep that in mind. chara/common/texture/null_normal.tex - For normals, or maybe base/diffuse if you want a nice blue color. chara/common/texture/skin_mask.tex - Skin mask dummy.

Also, here's a skin base dummy texture I use for some mods that reference the skin shader, but don't necessarily need to use skin textures (ie: nails, horns, etc). I like calling this chara/common/texture/skin_base.tex to follow vanilla pathing. This may need adjusting for Viera and Au Ra (Raen).

alt text for the image above since it's too small for me to click on the alt text button: a square of a salmon color.

Models:

Custom attributes very useful! They are very very versatile! I like using them for hair and faces especially, to toggle pieces on/off. To use custom attributes, you can assign them in the Penumbra model editor, or in TexTools under the model editor.

One example of custom attribute usage is the ability to turn facial features off/on without tying them to vanilla toggles, allowing more versatility. I use custom attributes on my WoL's sculpt to turn horns off/on, as well as Archon marks, facial hair, etc.

Also, neck connectors seem to be a sort of permanent solution to adding features onto your WoL without having to always wear an accessory. The downside is, not every race and model combo have working neck connectors (as of 7.4) - off the top of my head: both models of Midlanders, both models of Lalafells, masc model Roegadyn. Additionally, it seems you can use the Midlander neck connectors in addition to your race's neck connectors (as far as I can tell anyways - it worked on my masc Viera actor?)

My shagcoat cat whiskers mod uses neck connectors to add permanent whiskers to WoLs, and I have a couple of neck connector mods that add claws, horns, and even tails!