Ceruulean

Animations aren't saved so you can replace them and their behavior files whenever you want. However, the "female use male animations," an NPC flag, if checked on an NPC (like some orcs and Delphine) is permanent once the NPC has loaded in your game.

RaceMenu has options to increase eye size and widen eyelids, but I'm not sure if it works for Argonians. However, it's not compatible with ECE.

Some updates: In Data\meshes\animationsetdata\xxxprojectdata, the game needs an existing file for the precache to work. So in the case of a custom dragon, the name of the files in that folder are still "dragonproject.txt" and "fullcharacter.txt" In animationSetDataSingleFile.txt, the entry has to end with "dragonproject.txt" or similar. A custom named file like "MyDragonProject.txt" will not work. It seems ok, but in the Helgen scene Alduin glitches and does not land on the tower until I remove the altered asdsf. He can still shout and the quest will progress, but he flies past the tower and stays frozen in the air until his AI package changes. Unfortunately, I believe this is a bad sign and trying to add a clone of the dragon behavior messes the normal dragon AI. I guess the engine reads the file name and not the complete path, so two dragonprojects.txt will conflict. I've tested some dragons and it seems the game is reading from my custom behavior file for vanilla dragons! (my behavior is in a different folder than the vanilla files...) This frustrating method of my-way-or-highway is also the case for Movement IDs, where if you change the ID the game won't recognize it and use the default MTs even if you assign a custom MT to a race's Movement Data. Otherwise, when you keep the ID the same as vanilla the game overwrites the vanilla MT with your custom MT. Changing the horse MT breaks Helgen's cart scene but otherwise isn't too detrimental. Changing a dragon's MT; they would fly slower so some people may not like it. EDIT: Ok, I found a way to get the CK to recognize a custom-named behavior graph, which solves the filename conflict mentioned above. Downside is, the game does not register any ActorAction. No moving, no jumping. However, sending animation event console commands work! The behavior itself is integrated! Could the final component be SpeedDataSingleFile.txt?! Unfortunately, that file is indecipherable. I hope we don't need that file, but since none of the movement is working, that might be the link to game movement/action.

I think there was a Wyre Bash option that allowed you to craft in combat

Actor skins are a type of armor. Armor addons contain mesh and texture data. Where you see the filepath to the mesh, click "Select" and a new window will pop up. You can change the texture of individual parts of the mesh for that particular armor addon.

The Story Manager can start quests on certain events if the conditions are fulfilled. I think this is how 3dNPC makes follower commentary. You can create custom scripted events if the default options aren't enough (no skse needed). For responding to a vanilla quest without altering vanilla forms, you'd have to track when the quest starts, or have a condition on regular dialogue to only be spoken when the quest is active. Story manager has events like "Player obtain item" or something like that, which should help with your item acquisition trigger. The vanilla game uses trigger boxes in dungeons to activate the "is it safe?" and "beautiful view" dialogue.

Right click "Use Info" on the NPC, find the quests he is related to, open those quests, export dialogue to a txt file; it tells you all the file paths. Then google how to record dialogue for skyrim.

Yes, you can read behavior files to find the animation events that have a transition in a state. (List of programs to get started) If you are lucky, there would be variables attached to certain parts of the file so you can simply change the variable values by script to disable animations (stuff like bNoStagger == false would probably disable staggering, for example). Check the Updates.bsa or Dawnguard.bsa since crossbow animations are from DLC. Animations and behaviors are found in meshes/actors/character.

Haha, I can edit the graph, but not its filename. I copied behavior files into a new race but they still have the same name ("MyRace/behaviors/dragonproject.hkx" versus "dragon/behaviors/MyBehaviorFile.hkx"). Changing the name of the .hkx got me a root error...

I have no idea without downloading your whole data directory and checking myself. What animation are the jarls playing? If they're T-boning then it's one issue, but if they're sitting maybe they aren't slouching as much as you thought.

If you want the creature to cast spells and shout with animations, then you have to edit the behavior files. Otherwise, they can use lesser powers. Add lesser power to their arsenal, then create or assign a CombatStyle favoring magic. You can also attach spells to the melee attacks. Here's a mod with a creature that casts: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/10304/? Attaching spell to melee attacks (take a look at transformation section): http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31485/?

There's FNIS which is the best for your single custom animation for the priest. Now a custom creature... Creating new animations has a lot of tutorials, but you're basically going to need 3DSMax and official Havok tools, or if you're using the free Blender, you should take a look at Anton's tools. I'm not an animatior so I have no clue how to make them, but there's plenty of animation replacers so its possible. The tricky part is making sure the animations sync well and implementing them. Animations follow a behavior graph (.hkx) and I've written a brief article on behavior graphs. You'll have to copy the animations and all behavior files from an existing race, then replace animations and edit the behavior if needed. When you make new animations you also need to use the same skeleton as the creature you are copying. It seems creating a completely new graph for a completely new creature is nigh-impossible; I've tried renaming the graphs but the CK does not recognize it (cannot find root or whatever, it's been a problem since 2012, where the new animations part of a totally new behavior graph play in the CK but not in-game). Lastly when you have a working behavior project, the animation events are connected by the Idle Manager, found under "Gamplay > Animations." Basically whenever the actor performs an action, like moving, attacking, the plugin sends the animation event to the behavior and the connected animations plays. Anyway, I certainly wish you luck! It's definitely possible to add unique creatures. I urge you to google the Skywind Guar; there's some hilarious videos out there.

To find the Daedric cloak in Cloaks of Skyrim...

OH MY GOODNESS IT WORKS WITH CUSTOM RACES I am jumping with joy right now! Thanks so much fore the help! I added an entry to animationsetdatasinglefile and created a corresponding folder in animationsetdata, then changed the fullcharacter.txt animation file paths just like in asdsf. I'm not sure what it does but since all the DLCs have done it, I thought it would do no harm since the folder is custom-named anyway.

Today the google search for calulator gave me a different list than before, and I found one with seed input. I'm just dumb and I still cannot get the same values as listed in asdsf. I've tried converting string "hkx" (without quotes) to hexidecimal, setting seed to 0 on a crc calculator, messing with all sorts of parameters I don't understand lol. Does Windows Process Monitor show you how crc32 parameters are set, like how you figured Skyrim uses 0 as a seed, or was that discovered from experimenting? EDIT: Ah I found the right parameters! Oh boy, I'm excited! In case anyone is wondering: CRC calculator: http://www.zorc.breitbandkatze.de/crc.html CRC Order: 32 CRC Poly: 4C11DB7 Initial value: 000000 Final value: 000000 Check "Direct," "reverse data bytes" and "reverse CRC result before final XOR" In data sequence, you can put the string of the animation name and path as fore mentioned in this thread. Use lowercase since that seems to be the standard form. And i didn't understand his comment about "hkx" until now: the string "hkx" does not create the same checksum as the number in the animationsetdatasinglefile which is why I was stuck for a few days. Inputting "hkx" (without quotes) into the calculator returns 9E13D1FA (hex) = 2652099066 (dec). But the file lists 7891816 in the part that is assumed to be "hkx." A curiosity indeed. This process is only helpful for animation file paths and names, but that is all that's needed thankfully. Finally, the result is in hex; convert to decimal for use in the asdsf. Still have to see if asdsf will accept a new race.... Side note: I tried creating new behavior files within the existing actors/dragon folder, but even if you rename the file paths in the respective behavior files (vanilla dragon has 'dragonproject.hkx' link to 'characters/dragontest.hkx' which links to 'behaviors/dragonbehavior.hkx' and 'character assets/skeleton.hkx') and assign a race the new file paths, the CK throws an error "unable to find the root behavior." It doesn't make sense; maybe each race is confined to one set of behavior files, or maybe there's other stuff I haven't discovered...