Changing between multiple body meshes?

[letstravelbackintime]

I wanted to be able to change the body meshes of npcs in my game whenever I want. I realize there are some mods that allow the change of body type to happen to MY character, but thats not what I want...I want it to apply to npcs. What are some good mods you recommend I could use for this?

[hellgeist]

I'd make a custom race, let's say the race name is 'Custom' - start with a duplicate race of the one your NPC is based on, and then create new body parts in the ArmorAddon list, where the SkinNakedCustomBody, SkinNakedCustomFeet, etc. point your custom meshes, and the selected race is your new race. Also add a new Form List for the race textures. Then in the race body tab, tell it to use SkinCustom instead of SkinNaked.

 

I'm skipping over a lot of details involved in making custom races, but there are many good tutorials on YouTube for this, just search 'Skyrim Custom Races Tutorial' and you will find them. Here is an example:

 

Doing this will ensure that the NPCs you create, assigned with your custom race(s), will have unique bodies not shared with any vanilla NPCs.