Help, custom NPC creation with racemenu

[DareDemon666]

Hi,

 

So I've wanted to create some of my own NPCs for a while as I've made several pre-sets for characters which I like.

I Have absolutely no experience in this area however. I have looked for tutorials but they all seem to use ECE or CharGen or something.

Ideally I'd like to create standalone NPCs but baby steps first right.

 

I use a whole host of mods but the ones that effect my character's appearance(s) are: SGHair, The eyes of beauty, CBBE + HDT and XPMSE skeleton. So I'd like to be able to preserve all of those things in the new NPC. I presume it is possible to make sure all the slider data from racemenu is applied to the NPC (stuff like height, weight, etc).

 

I've tried following other tutorials But I hit an impasse when they started using a tool/mod that I don't use.

I'm sure the process is not too different in my case from other situations (like using ECE instead of racemenu, or 7B instead of CBBE) however I am so out of my depth that I can't problem solve these things at all.

If someone could point me towards a good tutorial or perhaps explain what to do that'd be fantastic, and maybe then I can start making follower mods to put up here or on the nexus!

 

Cheers, DareDemon666.

[CPU]

Moving the face definition from RaceMenu (the player face) to a new NPC is easy: do the face for your player, use it, then open the console and type SPF, then go in CK, create the NPC, and use "import Preset".

Adding the extra eyes, hairs. Is still easy enough if the race of the NPC is the same as the player.

If not you need a little bit of manipulation in CK.

 

About body proportions, these are extremely difficult to move them from the player to a NPC.

This is because the skeleton of a NPC is global.

 

If you want this, then you need to create a custom skeleton, and apply it to your NPC in one of these two ways:

* Create a custom race with this skeleton, and use it for the NPC (but then you have to create everything)

* Create a custom skin that can apply to the race of your NPC, and have the skeleton to the skin instance

[DareDemon666]

Ok that seems somewhat easy, Ill have to look into some CK tutorials.
I've seen various standalone followers with custom body proportions and such so I assume they use one of the methods you've suggested.

This helps quite a lot but I'll need to find some more technical info somewhere to guide me!

Cheers 

[CPU]

If you have any question, feel free to ask.

 

I did it a few times (both asking questions and creating NPCs with custom faces/bodies) 

[DareDemon666]

Ok if it's not too much time could you talk me through what to do?
It'd really help if you could, but If you don't want to spend that much time writing a tutorial for one guy I can understand that entirely.

Thanks

[CPU]

I can write some guidelines here, for a tutorial I have not enough time.

Just let me know what you are NOT familiar with and I will write some help lines. Maybe with some screenshots.

[DareDemon666]

Essentially everything, sorry!
I understand you have other things to do so help with body proportions is probably most helpful since you say it's the hardest part!
Cheers

 

[CPU]

Whoa! Ok let's start.

 

I hope you are familiar with the CK and how to create a generic NPC.

 

So start the CK, open just Skyrim.esm, wait the load, then save and give a name to your "follower mod". Decide three or four letters that will identify your mod, and be prepared to use them A LOT!

Open back your mod in CK, and create your main NPC, select the race you want, start giving it some main characteristics. Forget about the face, and the body. This will come later.

Now start the game, go in racemenu and create your player face (same race as the one you selected before for the NPC, that is important.)

When you are ok, exit racemenu, open the console and type "spf <npcname>" (be sure you tyme something for the npc name.

Exit Skyrim, go back in CK, edit your NPC and click on the Import button on the Character Gen Parts.

This will give the face you selected to the NPC. You may need now to select the eyes, the hair, the eyebrows (the beard, if it is male.)

Close the Actor edit window, select it in the list of actors and click Ctrl+F4, this will generate the face (nif and textures) for your NPC.

 

As soon as you will be comfortable with this we can go to the second step: using custom hair and a custom body.

 

[DareDemon666]

Thanks a lot man, i'm indebted to you. bit busy at the moment so will try this later but thanks!

[CPU]

You welcome. Today and tomorrow I am pretty free. (Just trying to finalize one of my mods for a big release.)

[DareDemon666]

Ok, I've done those steps. I noticed that at the end when I imported the drop-down menu for eyes only had a small list and not the whole list for "The Eyes of Beauty" however the eyes did look like the right colour as far as I could tell. I guess it wont matter much!
When you have the time I'm ready for step 2 but please don't feel pressured. Thanks again!

[CPU]

Let start with the eyes.

 

If you go in Character->HeadPart you will see a bunch of items. Probably you will see the eyes from "Eyes of beauty".

Copy the ones you want (just rename them and say that you want to copy them in the popup)

Edit the eyes, you will see a texture set. You have to duplicate it. It is in Miscellaneous->TextureSet. (Maybe you want to change NIFs and Textures but this will go a little bit too far.)

In the eyes select the Texture Set you just duplicated.

Then you will see on the top right a "Valid Races". Should be "headPartsHuman"

If you race is NOT human, is for this reason that you cannot see them.

You may need to pick the correct "Valid Race" (It is a form list.)

 

Now, let's add a special color for the hair (I will not change the actual hair, just the color.)

Go in Miscellanous->ColorForm and create a new one. Pick the color you want (for debug pick a bright blue or a bright red.)

Edit the form list "HairColorList" and add you new color

Then edit the race you are using and add also the color (be aware that male and female colors may be different.)

Now edit the NPC and you will see in the hair color the one you selected, pick it and do a quick preview.

 

Now you may want to do something similar for the body.

This is a little bit more complex, so do the eyes, the color for the hair, and then post another message for the next step.

 

[DareDemon666]

Thanks for the quick replies. I'm not seeing a head part file in my skyrim->data->meshes->actors->character. In CK i can see the headpart however there seems to be not many eyes there.

 

Nevermind I seem to have solved it

 

[CPU]

You mentioned "Eyes of Beauty".

When you edit your mod, do you check also this other mod?

If you don't you will not see its contents.

[DareDemon666]

The hair colour doesn't appear but it is definitely in both form list and race, however I was hoping to use the exact colour I made in race menu. Also no i don't check the mod when loading, should I do that? 

[CPU]

If you want to use a specific color used in racemenu for a NPC then you have to crate a custom color for the hairs.

 

If does not appear is because something is missing.

Go in the race of your NPC, be sure you select Male or Female (depending on the sex of the NPC), go in FaceData, there is a list of "Available Hair Colors", right click here and pick the color you defined.

 

About the mods to be checked.

CK loads only the mod you are editing and its references. So if Eyes of Beauty is not a reference it is not loaded and yoou cannot use its contents.

Open again your mod and be sure Eyes of Beauty is checked. Your mod should be the Active Plugin.

After loading you will see all the items provided by Eyes of beauty.

 

P.S. Select an avatar for yourself.

 

I don't like too much the generic avatar.

 

[DareDemon666]

I have fixed the issue with the custom colour not appearing now, however if you can it would be nice to know how to make the custom colour for using a specific colour from racemenu.

I have also correctly loaded all the mods.

Also changed my avatar, bit of a Civilisation themed joke!

I have now completed all the steps you've written so far so when you have time i'd like to learn the next part in the process.

[CPU]

Hello.

 

Nice avatar!

 

For the color you just have to set the RGB. When you pick the color in racemenu you can see its RGB values (in hexadecimal if I remember correctly.) You just have to use them as R[ed] (0-255), G[reen] (0-255), adn B[lue] (0-255)

 

I am not sure if I can write further steps today. I don't think I will have the required time, but for sure in future I will do it.

[DareDemon666]

No worries, the fact that you've helped me this far is great so whenever you want to do the next step no pressure! 

Yeah I thought I'd have to do something like that for the colour, I'll have to figure out how to decode the hex into RGB.

 

[CPU]

A RGG string is 6 numbers and letters.

The first two are the Red, the second two are the Green, the last two are the Blue.

 

Take the two items (like 00, A9, FF, 3D, etc.) and use the normal Windows Calc.

Click on View in the Clac menu, and switch to "Programmer", here you can just type the Hex value and convert it to a decimal number.

 

[DareDemon666]

Ok, I have copied and used the eyes and their textures. I have also created and used a custom hair colour. Everything seems to be going quite well, CK hasn't even crashed yet *touch wood*. When you have some time I'm ready for the next step!

[CPU]

Good job.

 

Probably I will write the next steps tomorrow (that will be an holiday here.)

 

[DareDemon666]

Ok cool, I look forwards to it!

[DareDemon666]

Hey not to rush you but do you know if you will have time soon to do the next step or not? just wondering but it is fine if you can't do it for a while 

[CPU]

Hello. Right now I am in Italy to renew some documents, and I have to work with clients during the night because of the time zone difference.

 

Not sure I can help this week. But never say never...