How to change my Custom Follower's appearance?

[mrkasperable]

So following this tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlepT3rQ8LI

 

I made a custom follower from the face data of one of my dovahkin.

 

Creation Kit didn't have the apachii hair that I use for him, so I just made him and plopped him into my game with the hope that I'd be able to edit his make up/hair in the NPC Editor. Problem is, when I load up his .esp file the NPC editor encounters an error, and locks up the hair and make up selections.

 

here is the text in the little details box:

************** Exception Text **************

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

at Skyrim_NPC_Editor.frmMain.UpdateHeadTextureMakeups()

at Skyrim_NPC_Editor.frmMain.UpdateHeadTextureStructure()

at Skyrim_NPC_Editor.frmMain.UpdateHead(UInt32 NPCFormID)

at Skyrim_NPC_Editor.frmMain.cboNPCs_SelectedIndexChanged(Object sender, EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox.OnSelectedIndexChanged(EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox.set_SelectedIndex(Int32 value)

at Skyrim_NPC_Editor.frmMain.btnSwitchNPCSource_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, I

wat do

[jrk922]

As a programmer myself I could explain what's causing the exception but instead I'll just tell you not to use NPC Editor.

 

 

What I do is use race menu to create my NPC (skse, race menu plugin, char gen plugin, race menu pre-cache killer)

 

This allows you to create your NPC in-game. When done altering your appearance, before accepting changes, use export head (from char gen) which will save a mesh and tintmask to the skse/chargen folder. You'll need this later. Accept changes to your character. Open console and type "spf somename" The name doesn't actually matter, the spf command will save your character's preset to a file in the root skyrim folder (same as tesv.exe) that you can use to import into CK. I'm not going to go into much more detail since there's plenty of other tutorials available on how to do this. However, after you generate the tintmask in CK, replace it with the one exported using chargen. CK seems to have an issue with saving tintmasks in the correct format to allow any lip/makeup/other facial appearances to show up.