Why do Mi’qote ears go through Snow’s hat but not Hrothgar ears?

[Arkfrost]

@Thread topic:

But Hrothgar ears do go through Snow's hat!:



Wait... that's a mod... that someone just slapped together in a couple of minutes/hours in June 2021... almost a year ago...

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It is because miquote default head is bald with no ear.
Hrothgar default head model comes with ear because this is an actual beast race and not really humanoid model that already existed.

I thought this explanation (which also was female Viera's case)

No, female Viera's default head model never came with ears tied to it. The ears are a completely separate parts, neither tied to the head nor the hair model. Those are 3 completely separate files. Viera heads are exactly like Miqote heads: Bald without any ears.



There's a switch in the Metadata of hat/helmet models called HeadShowEarViera that switches ears on and off.
There has also been another rumor that Viera ears use the same slot as hats/helmets, but this was also completely wrong and entirely made up by people who have zero clue how the game works and just assumed stuff without any basis. SE simply toggled helmet display for Viera off, with another metadata switch called HeadShowVieraHat. It took a modder 3 hours to enable every single helmet in the game for Viera by simply putting a check mark on this metadata option on every helmet in the game. Then it took them another 3 hours to disable the Viera ears on every helmet/hat to make a second version of the mod without ears.

Pretty sure that this was a design decision because SE didn't like how Viera ears clip through hats & helmets (meanwhile Moren's hair clip through his whole hood like crazy in an official cutscene, when he looks at the sky after you kill the first Lightwarden)