Changing a Guard's Appearance - How?

[LevisageDeDior]

Hello,

I’m currently working on NPC overhauls, but I’m struggling to find any Whiterun Guard actors whose appearance can be edited via the pop-up window. All I can see are AI data, stats, and traits - there’s no character generation (CharGen) data available. I believe this is because they are “randomly” generated. Is it even possible to modify the template on which their generation is based?

Searching for it in google gave me nothing.

I’d greatly appreciate any tips, as leaving “ugly” guards in a city full of redone NPCs feels out of place.

[scorrp10]

So I suppose you put in a mod that removes guard helmets so you can see faces.

Lets do a deep dive.    If I coc to 'whiterunorigin', there is a guard standing right next to gates with RefID 0003704E, BaseID AA8D6, as determined by the More Informative console.

With a bit of search in CK, RefID 0003704E is 'GuardWhiterunImperialPostNightRef7', with Base GuardWhiterunImperialPostNight2, 000D3154.
However, D3154 is fully templated on GuardWhiterunImperialTemplate (EA0A2).   
That, in turn, is templated on LvlGuardImperial (1FC62).   Of importance, however, is that it does not use template's inventory, so it retains the assigned Whiterun guard outfit.
And that is templated on LCharGuardImperial(E7B2C), which is a LevelledCharacter, and can be one of following:
EncGuardImperialM0(1-4)MaleNordCommander or EncGuardImperialM0(5-9)MaleGuard (9 options total: AA8D4, AA8D5, AA8D6, AA8D7, AA8D8, AA8FC, AA8FD, AA901, AA913 )
And specifically, EncGuardImperialM03MaleNordCommander is AA8D6, which was the current  Base ID of the guard in question.    

All 9 of the above options are templated on EncGuardImprerialTemplate (F6F37), but they do not inherit the Traits.   
Further, that is templated on EncSoldierImperialTemplate (1FC5D), which is not templated on anything.   

So, if I look into Skyrim-Meshes0.bsa,  I can see that there is a 000aa8d6.nif in it under meshes\actors\character\facegendata\facegeom\skyrim.esm, and it is indeed the head of the guard in question.
However, that guard could have easily been any of the 9 variants mentioned above, and your mod needs to visually overhaul all 9 of them to cover the possibilities.    The good news is, those 9 variants will likely apply to pretty much every single imperial style guard in all cities.   Likewise, there are 9 variants of 'Sons' (Stormcloak) guards defined under LCharGuardSons.    
 

 

 

[LevisageDeDior]

Okay, so if I understand correctly, I need to create new .nif and .dds files for all 9 of the mentioned NPCs: [000AA8D4, 000AA8D5, 000AA8D6, 000AA8D7, 000AA8D8, 000AA8FC, 000AA8FD, 000AA901, 000AA913]. Then, I’ll need to handle everything in the Creation Kit. Finally, the game will randomly assign their appearances based on these 9 variants - am I right? It affects every single guard that exist? Both sides, meaning Imperials and Stormcloaks?

Sorry if it feels like you’re talking to a wall - this whole "guards overhaul operation" is turning out to be way more complicated than I anticipated, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, lol.

Thank you so much for your reply!

I also decided not to remove their helmets, but I still have to create new faces because some of the helmets only cover half of their faces, leaving the other half visible. This is also important in case some of the players decide to use some kind of immersive mods, that for example make guards remove their helmets under certain conditions. I don’t mind creating it from scratch, even if it won’t be fully visible  

[scorrp10]

What I did here is I just took one random Whiterun guard, and traced his template 'lineage'.    And that is an 'Imperial' guard - Whiterun actually has a contingent of Stormcloak guards, which are to be activated should Whiterun fall to Stormcloaks during the game.    

So yes, for imperial side, those 9 NPC records are the ones for whom you need to create new heads.   As mentioned their EditorIDs are 
EncGuardImperialM01MaleNordCommander - EncGuardImperialM04MaleNordCommander and
EncGuardImperialM05MaleGuard - EncGuardImperialM09MaleGuard

It is still possible, however, that at least some 'special' guards might not be randomly selected from the above set and have a unique face.  But I could not really find any.
 

Now, for the Stormcloaks, the lineup is different.   For them, the selection is from 'LCharGuardSons':

Which, as you can see, includes 3 females, 3 males, and 3 male commanders.    

[LevisageDeDior]

Great, I’ll look into it when I’m on my PC. If you don’t mind, I’d love to mention you in the credits when I release the mod, as I wouldn’t have been able to make it without your help.

Thank you so much for your help so far.

Take care!

[scorrp10]

Ok, good luck with the mod!