[LE] Guide to Digitigrade Paws with a Custom Beast Race while still allowing the use of jewelry designed for human only races

[Strawberrytail]

A little backstory.

 

Hey there, if you want the guide and don’t want to read how it came to it, skip down just a little bit.

 

The wiki tutorial page seemed interesting, but might as well have been written in Greek. It seemed overly complicated compared to just posting, so if anyone wants to add this there, feel free to do so.

 

I’m the Lead Game Developer at SnowdropLeopard Studios and I have been playing Skyrim on and off since it came out in 2011. You can check out our website at Arkalica or view our teaser trailer at Arkalica Teaser Trailer

 

I currently run a stable build with 184 active plugins/mods. A few mods have caught my attention throughout the years such as the Khajiit variants and digitigrade mods popping up in a few places. Yet, even with my favorites from both, there were always some things that didn’t quite work right.

 

I could either never get the paws working, or if the paws worked, my Immersive jewelry mod lost a lot of glamour, because beast races can’t use items solely designed for human races unless it reverts to a default mesh or it just never shows up. So after a nearly year of developing Arkalica, I started playing Skyrim in my free time again and decided that I’ll give this another shot. I was amazed at how easy it actually was.

 

I’ve seen a lot of people wondering how to add digitigrade paws to races like the Dagi’Raht and so forth, so I decided to make a guide that could help you either to create your own race from scratch, or just to get those darn pesky paws on your favorite races. I want the paws and immersive jewelry both on a race similar to the Dagi’Raht, so that is what I’ll be showing you today.

 

Now I am by no means an expert with the Creation Kit, so there may be some bugs to iron out and definitely improvements to be made, but this is just a basic guide to get you either digitigrade paws, jewelry or both.

 

There are some images at the bottom of the guide to show the end result.

 

 

What you’ll need

 

Basically you will need some mesh files and textures. Now to prevent people from trying to hunt me down due to some silly “Don’t use my mod for anything!” giant ass red letters plastered over the mod page, I won’t be linking to any files, but I will mention what I used for my character. You can use the default textures in the game if you want, but I can’t guarantee the results.

 

If you want similar results to mine, I used the Dagi’Raht mod (the newest version), Compleat Khajiit v1 and 2 by Bad Dog and texture files from Feminine Khajiit Textures (Grey Cat and Leopard) for CBBE.

 

You may use your own, but regardless of what you use you will need:

 

Mesh files:

A beast skeleton. (I use the one from Compleat Khajiit v1)

Hand mesh. (Compleat Khajiit v2)

Digitigrade Feet Mesh. (Compleate Khajiit v1)

Ear Mesh. (You don’t need this, but since the new Dagi’Raht update came out with a mesh for ears, I’m using it.)

 

Texture files:

Body Textures. (Feminine Khajiit Textures, Leopard)

Foot Textures. (Compleat Khajiit v1)

Hand Textures. (Compleat Khajiit v2)

Head/face Texture. (Dagi’Raht)

Ear Textures. (Same as Dagi)

 

Optional files:

Tail Mesh. (You can just use the default Khajiit tail if you want, I used the Female Khajiit Tail Fix Mesh)

Whatever you felt was missing, like custom eyes or hair.

 

To prevent any clashes I went ahead and renamed everything to match my race. Place these files in a texture and meshes folder in your Skyrim Data folder, we’ll remove them later when we pack the mod.

 

Now if you have everything you need, let us get started.

 

 

The Guide

Setting up your race

 

I’ll try and keep it detailed and simple so that people with absolutely no experience with the CK will be able to make use of this too.

 

Open up the CK and load Skyrim.esm. For my mod I also loaded Update.esm and Dawnguard.esm and even though you might not need it, but just want to be safe rather than sorry, I also loaded RaceCompatibility.esm. Always hit Yes to All if prompted.

 

If you can’topen any of the DLCs in CK, I’ll list a way to fix that at the end of this guide under Bugs.

 

(I will indicate progression in the object window with a > and I’m not going to say when I use the filter, it should be pretty obvious)

 

In the object window head to Character > Race and double click BretonRace. You may use what you want here, as long as you avoid the Khajiit and Argonians, but I chose Breton.

 

Change the ID to your race, I’m calling my race the Kyiira’Raht (Just ‘cause) so I’m changing mine to KyiiraRace. Hit OK and Yes to create a new form. From here on in always hit Yes if it asks you to create a new form, unless you’re editing one of the previous forms you created. You can leave that as is for now.

 

Object window, Items > Armor find and double click SkinNakedBeast. Change the ID to your race, mine will be SkinNakedKyiira and hit OK.

 

Head to ArmorAddon and find NakedFeetKhajiit. Change the ID, Mine is NakedFeetKyiira and change the race from the dropdown menu to your race. Under additional races deselect KhajiitVampire and select both your race and your original race, BretonRace in my case.

 

Do the same for NakedHandsKhajiit, NakedTorsoKhajiit and NakedTailKhajiit. Create new forms for them and open your new feet file. Change the ID to NakedEarsKyiira (Where Kyiira is your race) deselect slot 37 and select slot 43 under Biped Object. Hit OK and create new form.

 

Go to Miscellaneous > TextureSet and double click SkinBodyFemaleKhajiit. Change the ID to your race and create new form. Open up your new body texture file and click on Diffuse and then Edit. Go to your body textures and select your normal diffuse. Usually it’s the one without any added letters. Mine was kyiirabody.dds.

Click on Normal/Gloss and Edit, then select your body_msn.dds, sometimes only tagged as _n. Lastly select Specular and Edit, then select your body_s.dds. Not a lot of texture files come with a Surface Tint or a Detail Map, so you can ignore that or add it if you have it. Hit OK.

 

Open up SkinHandFemaleKhajiit and rename to your race. Create form and to speed things up open up SkinHeadFemaleBreton and rename to your race, create form and reopen your new hand file. Rename to SkinFeetFemaleKyiira, create form, reopen and rename to SkinEarsFemaleKyriia (where Kyiira is your race).

Open your hand file and add your own textures like you did with the body, where the Diffuse has no tag, Normal/Gloss is either _msn or _n and Specular is _s. If you have a _sk file put it in Subsurface Tint. Do the same with Feet, Head and Ears.

 

Go back to Items > ArmorAddon and open up your Ears file. Change the Bipedal Model to your ear mesh and the Skin Texture to your new SkinEarFemale(Race). Make sure slot 43 is selected, untag afflicted and retag your race under Additional Races and hit OK.

Open up your other files and replace the Biped Models with your mesh files and the Texture Skin with your new texture files where SkinFeetFemale(Race) gets attached to feet and Hands to hands. Your SkinBodyFemale(Race) gets attached to both NakedTorso and NakedTail. By default the mesh for the tail will be set to the normal Khajiit tail and you can leave it at that, but you can also add your own tail mesh here. Under Torso just leave the body as the default body, DON’T change the mesh here.

 

In Items > Armor open up your NakedSkin. Change Race to your race and also select slot 43 under Bipedal Object. Without closing the window go back to Items > ArmorAddon and drag all 5 of your race objects into the little Model box on the bottom of your skin window. You should have Ears, Feet, Hands, Tail And Torso in there now. Hit OK and head back to Character > Race and open up your race.

 

Change Editing at the top to Female and under the Body Data tab, change Skin to your skin, SkinNakedKyiira in my case. Under Skeleton change it to your skeleton and hit Preview Full, Yes to All. You should now have a Khajiit body with a human head, digitigrade paws and kickass claws.

 

Under Biped Object Names click slot 43, count to 2 and click it again to rename it to Ears. Do the same with slot 40 and rename it Tail.

 

Back in General make sure to change both Morph Race and Armor Race to your default, Breton in my case.

 

 

 

Now to fix up the head.

 

 

 

Under Character > HeadPart find FemaleHeadBreton, open it up and rename to your race. Create form and reopen your new head file. Change the name to match your ID and change Valid Races to HeadPartsHuman. Change the Texture Set to SkinHeadFemale(Race).

 

Under Characters > Race open up your race, go to the Face Data tab (can scroll with the little arrows at the top) and keeping the window open go back to Character > HeadPart. Drag your newly created head over to the little window titled Base Head Parts and drop it over Face. It should now replace the Breton one with your race’s head, but don’t worry if the preview won’t update. I had to close the CK in order to get it to update sometimes.

 

 

 

Fine tuning our character a bit.

 

 

 

Go back to the General tab and under Skill Bonus choose what you want. To keep it balanced always try to aim for a total of 35, but otherwise go wild. You can edit your racial powers by deleting the normal Breton powers under Specials and head over to Magic > Spell > Ability. I want my race to be similar to Khajiit so I added the RaceKhajiitClaws ability by dragging it over to the Specials box. Then I went to Magic > Spell > Lesser Power and added the PowerKhajiitNightEye power as well.

 

Sometimes these powers aren’t saved when you hit OK on the race window. To fix this, just switch the tab to Text Data and edit your description and hit OK. When you open it up again it should have saved your race powers.

 

Go back to your Text Data tab and write a little story for your race and make sure to change the name from Breton to whatever you called yours.

 

To finish up and add some hair and eye choices to your race head over to Miscellaneous > FormList. There will be a lot of jumping between Race and FormList here. Find HeadPartsHuman, open in go back to Race and drag your race into the FormList window.

 

Do the same for HeadPartsBreton, HeadPartsBretonandVampire, HeadPartsHumansandVampire, HeadPartsImperial and HeadPartsNord. Also open up a list and rename it to HeadParts(Race) and another HeadParts(Race)andVampire. Add your own race to those as well and make sure no other races are listed.

 

For the eyes go back to Character > HeadPart. You can add any eyes to your race by opening up an existing file, renaming it to your race and by changing Valid Races to your race. Unfortunately you have to do this for every eye you want, but you can also add your own eye textures by creating a texture set first and adding it to an eye here. I will not be going over that in here. Avoid any and all beast race eyes here. They will pop out of your head and float around in midair.

 

Lastly, with race window still open under Miscellaneous > Keyword drag ActorProxyKhajiit over to your Keyword section as well as IsBeastRace.

 

 

Boots?! I want my paws!

I will not be going over how to edit boots for your new digitigrade race, and any and all boots will completely make a mess of your feet, but I can show you how to keep your paws at all times without being punished for not wearing boots for the extra bit of armor.

 

We will be creating boots that look exactly like your paws, so even when you equip them you will see no difference. I decided to pick Daedric boots, but you can pick whatever you want for this. I have realistic damage mods so extra armor at the start of the game doesn’t really mean much anyway.

 

First go to Items > ArmorAddons and find the boots you want to use. I want Daedric so I open up DaedricBootsAA. Rename it to (Race)LegGuardsAA and change Race to yours. Then deselect EVERY single race from the Additional Races box, make sure to scroll down and select only your base, Breton in my case, and your race. Click OK and create new form, then reopen your new boot item. Change the Biped Model (both male and female) to your digitigrade paw mesh and the skin texture (also both genders) to you race foot skin (It might take some searching to find it in the drop down menu). Under Biped Object you should have slot 37 selected for Feet. Make sure slot 38 for Calves is NOT selected, otherwise your legs will disappear when you use armor. Hit OK.

 

Under Items > armor open up ArmorDaedricBoots and rename it to (Race)LegGuards. Change the Default Race to yours and make sure slot 37is selected. Create new form and reopen, then without closing the window, go back to Items > ArmorAddons and drag over your AA file into the model box and make sure to delete any others. Under World Model (both male and female) select your digitigrade paw mesh and hit OK. Now you can go back and edit the armor value and item value to your liking.

 

To add it to your character in game you can place it in a chest or use the console command. To find the ID open up the console with ~ and type in help (your race name). Search for the item tagged with ARMO and your item name and then type in player.additem (your item ID here) (the amount you want here). Always make sure to specify that you want at least 1 item after the ID or the command will fail.

 

 

Packing the mod.

 

This is relatively easy. If you have a mod manager then just copy the folders back into a folder with your race name on it. Inside you should have your .esp, Meshes and Textures folders with all your files inside. If you don’t have a mod manager, then just leave it as is in the Skyrim data folder and because you had your own files there shouldn’t be any clashes with existing textures and meshes.

 

Alas, sometimes it bugs out a little after first creation, especially if you already have a mod active that changes the feet mesh files of beast races, but opening up the CK and just reconfirming all the foot mesh files should fix it. Also try to load it before any other mods that alter body mesh files just in case.

 

 

Bugs, always with the damn bugs!

 

So the CK can be pretty iffy, especially so when you launch it through ModLoader. I’m gonna list a few things that bugged out after everything was said and done and how I fixed it.

 

 

Mod loaded, but not in game.

This one was really annoying. If you open up CK through ModLoader, your .esp file is saved in ModLoader’s Overwrite folder. Unfortunately even if you move it to the correct folder in your ModLoader Mods folder, ModLoader will still sometimes not know what the hell is going on.

 

To fix this I removed my custom race mod folder with meshes, textures and the .esp file completely, ran ModLoader and checked that it wasn’t on the list anymore, closed ModLoader down and moved everything back. ModLoader realized there was a new mod and actually loaded it into the game for real.

 

My paws aren’t…paws?

Gotta love the bloody CK. For some reason my feet texture file reset to the default Khajiit texture when I closed down the CK and the end result in game was not very pretty.

 

To fix it I just had to reapply the textures to my texture file and made sure that it was set to my race without any other modifiers.

 

I can’t load any of the DLCs into the CK

1. Go to your Skyrim Directory <\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim> or use the button at the top of ModLoader if you launch CK using that instead.

 

2. Open your skyrimeditor.ini file.

 

3. Under General add:

bAllowMultipleMasterFiles=1

bAllowMultipleMasterLoads=1

4. Search for sResourceArchiveList2 and at the end insert:

DawnGuard.bsa, HearthFires.bsa, Dragonborn.bsa

 

It should look something like this:

SResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Update.bsa, Dawnguard.bsa, HearthFires.bsa, Dragonborn.bsa

5. Search for SArchiveList and similar to above at the end of the line insert:

Dawnguard.bsa, Hearthfires.bsa, Dragonborn.bsa

6. Save the ini.

 

CK should now allow you to load the DLCs.

 

 

Closing

 

To end this guide I just want to say that I hope this helped some of you. It might not be perfect, but it’s good enough for me to enjoy the game like I want while still being, mostly, Khajiit.

 

If you have any issues, then you might have a mod clash somewhere or missed a step.

 

I don’t own any of these files mentioned here, so don’t ask me to distribute them. They are fairly popular and easy to find anyway, so you shouldn’t have any problems.

 

This was my first guide, and probably my last, so I won’t be taking any recommendations. If you have questions however you can find some way to contact me by following the links I left up top or by checking out my project at http://www.indiegogo.com/at/arkalica

 

Thank you for taking the time to read through this giant wall of text and I hope you have fun. Remember to check out the images below.

 

http://arkalica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-Screenshot-2017.12.15-15.39.22.27.png

My Digitigrade Paws

 

http://arkalica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-Screenshot-2017.12.15-15.39.07.92.png

My custom race wearing jewelry not intended for beast races.

 

http://arkalica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-Screenshot-2017.12.15-15.41.46.37.png

Now you see my pawsies...

 

http://arkalica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-Screenshot-2017.12.15-15.44.22.93.png

...even when seated.

 

http://arkalica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-Screenshot-2017.12.15-15.49.24.41.png

And it doesn't break mods affecting other races. Inigo and other Khajiit still have their own paws from the original Compleat Khajiit mod.