How to change NPCs appearances in CS

[IlConquerorIl]

Hi

 

I want to make my Allecia Ehothorn from the Tears of the Fiend-MOD look like Valeria (a CM companion) through CS.

Now I'm not good at working with the CS, but here's what I did but it didn't work:

 

Open Oblivion.esm, TOTF.esp and all CM files I could find and set TOTF.esp as active file

Searched for Allecia Ehothorns character in the menus on the left and for Valeria.

Since I couldn't find Valeria on the left, I found her through her location in the box on the right.

I copied her face and opened Allecias menu and pasted Valerias face.

I then changed hair-color, ... and saved the file.

When I played the game, I only had savegames where Allecia stood besides me and she looked like before.

When I opened CS again I got several notes about ....hair missing and stuff like that and she looked hidious.

 

Can someone post a step-by-step walkthrough on how it should be done?

 

Thx

 

P.S. I assume that changing her face and hair wont ruin her involvement in the quest itself

[jatneosen]

Well, races in CS is quite simple and straightforward. If you're using an already existing race, you just make an npc, then set the race, gender, name, and so on. Then you can alter the facial features and textures by going to the Face and Face Advanced tabs in the same window. You can also change hair and eyes at the bottom of the window.

 

However, if you want the npc to have hair not already existing in vanilla, you'll have to add the chosen hair into the game yourself, by going to hair, and then right clicking the list, new, choose a name for it, and then add textures and meshes. Then you have to open the Race window, and drag the new hair over to the selected race for your npc.

 

If you want the npc to have custom meshes, perhaps some earrings, and stuff like that, you should make a new race, and add the various stuff.

 

Hope this helps.

[IlConquerorIl]

Thx but how do I change an NPCs race (and hair, etc..) correctly? When I do (like described above) and save the plugin file, later on when I load, the NPCs race is changed to VampireRace. The race comes from another plugin, maybe that's the problem

[Rhiana]

I am far from an expert, i am trying to fix what i just broke, but maybe this page will help.

 

http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?showtopic=26340

 

It seems to give instructions on how to do what you are trying to do.

[Pursinta]

Several things could be causing the issue with missing hair. It sounds like you had a mod loaded along side the character you are editing that gave her custom hair, and that you neglected to load it the second time through. When you select all of the information from the mod whose face you are copying, make sure you select everything in the face you are pasting it into and hit paste. If the race is not identical, there will be great variance. (It can be comical to select face information from a Khajiit and paste it over a human head. Absolutely hideous!)

 

I also find when changing the face of NPCs in current save games that it requires simply cleaning the save to make everything take effect. That means disabling your mod, loading the game, saving, exiting, reenabling the mod, and loading the game again. The new saves should take effect. I had to do this when making changes to my own CM partner, whose old changes had already loaded in my present save game, at the time. They would not change until I "cleaned" the save as described above..

 

PS -- A custom race or custom info that comes from another mod is going to complicate your own mod. It means that folks who use your mod are either going to have to have that race previously installed, or you are going to have to incorporate it into yours via merging. It is better to simply use the custom race/custom hair/etc as a master file for your current mod.

 

To do this, you will have to use a program like Gecko4TES and convert the race file you are using for your mod to a master file, load this masterfile along with your active plugin in the CS so that the CS knows to rely on it, and then preferably (so that you don't wind up with duplicate races) use wrye bash to edit the masterfile to the .esp of that custom race rather than the .esm that you created with gecko. it sounds complicated but it actually works very well. If you have/use CM Partners, these instructions are probably laid out more clearly in the help file for creating custom partners. The method for custom race partners and any other custom race NPC is the same.