Change NPC's clothing?

[baelish85]

Is there a way to change the clothing NPCs are wearing? For example, if I wanted to put Sanga in a Chantry Robe (not that I do) or put Isabela in noble's clothing. I've looked all through the Toolset and help topics but I can't find the answer. Can anyone help me?

[DarkeWolf]

Heyas Baelish :)

Ok, essentially what you are wanting to do, is to find the .utc file for the character.

I'll use Sten as an example.

 

Open up the toolset, and then click on the icon for creature in that row of icons. This will narrow down the search for JUST the utc files. I'm gonna type in the name, or part of the name of the character that I'm looking for. So, typing in "sten" I have it search and come up with Sten's .utc file.

A tree will open up, and I'll hunt thru the directories til I come across where his file is located. In this particular case, since he's a main character, he'll be located under "global". But.... many sub characters are located in areas where they actually appear. So if I was wanting to change a character from Lothering, they'd be located in the Lothering area of the tree.

 

Findiing Sten's file, I right click on it, then choose open local copy

After opening the copy, I go up to File, then Export>Export without dependancies. Then save the file to another location on my harddrive.

I then close down the local copy, and then open the exported copy in the toolset. I scroll down the list of stuff in the file, til I get to an area that reads + Equip Item List

I click on the + next to that entry and I end up with at least one more entry like + 0, + 1, etc.

Clicking on the + next to that... I've got the entry for the stuff that Sten is wearing. There will be an entry for each body slot of his, that has a piece of equipment on it. One for the torso, one for the helmet, one for the gloves, boots, primary weapon hand, and then one for the offhand slot.

There will not be an entry listed there, if there's nothing worn in that slot. For instance, if the character is equipped with a two handed weapon, there will not be an entry for the offhand weapon slot.

 

Now, what I want to do, is locate the appropriate entry for the item that I'm wanting to change. So in Sten's file, I'll locate the entry that has it listed for the filename for common clothes. (I changed this file, so my entry will NOT be the same as the vanilla one. At the far right side of the entry would be something to the effect of gen_im_arm_cht_med_chn (this is the medium chain armor chest piece). And I would then change that field to the filename of the item that I was wanting to put on him.

Once that is done, I'd go up and click file/save. Then move the modified file into documents/bioware/dragon age/packages/core/override and then test it out in game.

 

Now, I always recommend making a "test" game save for stuff like this. Just to avoid any problems in the main game.

 

The biggest issues in doing this are finding the names. Some of the NPCs have extremely generic names which makes finding their files very hard to find. Same with clothing items. :(

 

I hope this gets you going in the right direction :)

Good luck :) :thumbsup:

 

 

PS- this does not work with characters that have already been spawned in the game. So if you say... change Duncan around, after you've met him, or he's been seen... the effect will only happen in a NEW game. But it works fine for characters who haven't been loaded yet.

This is not a problem with the modifications made, it's due to how the information is loaded into the game itself, and into your save game.

[CawCrowche]

I know I am replying to a forum that's really old, but in case anyone still checks for an answer to this issue - I found a way to change per-loaded npc's clothing without having to reload to an earlier save or start a new game. The solution is really simple actually and involves just using console commands to temporarily have the npc join your party (instructions on how to do that are here at 'runscript zz_addparty NPCname' or 'runscript zz_test_hire' whichever one works for you best) and then equipping the npc with new clothing in their inventory. Again, I may be just posting something that no one sees but hopefully this might help someone out there who like me, didn't want to play with a naked Arl Eamon their entire game!

[asamsaktha]

I know I am replying to a forum that's really old, but in case anyone still checks for an answer to this issue - I found a way to change per-loaded npc's clothing without having to reload to an earlier save or start a new game. The solution is really simple actually and involves just using console commands to temporarily have the npc join your party (instructions on how to do that are here at 'runscript zz_addparty NPCname' or 'runscript zz_test_hire' whichever one works for you best) and then equipping the npc with new clothing in their inventory. Again, I may be just posting something that no one sees but hopefully this might help someone out there who like me, didn't want to play with a naked Arl Eamon their entire game!

 

This is amazing, thank you! It's always awesome when someone posts new information like this. Appreciated!

[Studenten]

I know I am replying to a forum that's really old, but in case anyone still checks for an answer to this issue - I found a way to change per-loaded npc's clothing without having to reload to an earlier save or start a new game. The solution is really simple actually and involves just using console commands to temporarily have the npc join your party (instructions on how to do that are here at 'runscript zz_addparty NPCname' or 'runscript zz_test_hire' whichever one works for you best) and then equipping the npc with new clothing in their inventory. Again, I may be just posting something that no one sees but hopefully this might help someone out there who like me, didn't want to play with a naked Arl Eamon their entire game!

There's actually simpler ways to do it.

 

The reason NPC's clothing won't change with MODs if you've already visited the area where NPS is spawned, which is also the reason why DAO savegame files are so big (I got 15 MB for a whole playthrough, versus only about 700 KB for DAI savegames), is that once you visied a place, all the NPCs in it as well as their equipment lists will be written into the savegame.

 

To change NPC equipment in an area, simply save the game while in that specific area, then open the savegame with DA Toolset, find the last subtree under list "SAVEGAME_AREALIST", explore "SAVEGAME_AREA_CREATURES" under this subtree and search for all the subitems until you find the NPC you want to edit.