How do I replace the bodies of mod followers?

[LordNyron]

I have a lot of followers that I really like, however, most if not all of them use a different body than I use for normal NPC's. I use the UUNP body, but every follower tends to use either CBBE or a variant of UNP that isn't UUNP. Which means that all my other mods that require UUNP don't take effect on my followers. So I was hoping that someone here could enlighten as to how I may do one of two things or point me to a tutorial on how to do it:

 

1) Delete the preset body the follower comes with, which give them the vanilla body which can then be overwritten by UUNP

 

2) Delete the preset body the follower comes with and replace it with UUNP.

[Perraine]

The "bodies" used are the armor/clothing meshes they equip, so any armor/clothing meshes that come with followers just need to be changed to your preferred body type. Or equip them with a different armor/clothing.

[LordNyron]

I don't know how to do any of that.

[AraFox]

Just find and use an armor/clothing replacer mod for your body type. Like this for instance (just an example). Then, if your follower wears steel, the steel armor she wears will be the replaced steel armor for uunp instead.

[LordNyron]

I think you misunderstood me. I'm trying to change the body itself, the nude body, not the armor/clothing that goes over top. Changing the armor is simple, but it doesn't change the nude body, not to mention clipping issues.

 

On vanilla NPC's, the body will change automatically to whatever I install, and mod followers that use the vanilla body or aren't standalone will also change. But a lot of the followers I like are standalone, meaning the mod author picked out a body mod they liked and merged it with the follower. This prevents the follower from being automatically overwritten with my choice of body, leading to incompatibilities. As an example, I love making my game as realistic and immersive as possible, so having breast physics is a plus. The UUNP body has a set of XML's that make breast movement realistic rather than exaggerated and it works without me having to install fifty different mods and shuffle around the load order. But that's only for the UUNP body. If a standalone follower doesn't use UUNP(And 9 times out of 10 they don't.), then the physics don't work and trying to install other mods for that followers particular body leads to issues. So I want to change the body on a standalone follower so all of my UUNP related mods work properly on all my followers, and not just me and vanilla NPC's.

Edited June 2, 2016 by LordNyron

[AraFox]

I think you misunderstood me. I'm trying to change the body itself, the nude body, not the armor/clothing that goes over top. Changing the armor is simple, but it doesn't change the nude body, not to mention clipping issues.

 

 

Oh I did misunderstand. My bad. Whenever Perraine advised you to replace/change the armor/clothing meshes, you said you didn't know how to do that so I didn't realize that you did. It's an easy mistake to make, please forgive me.

 

Good luck with changing the nude body though, it's a bit of a headache and you'll undoubtedly end up with texture and neck seam issues. With a little diligence and a lot of patience, you should be able to work it out. As far as how to do it, well I know how I would do it, which may not be the best way for you to do it so I'll leave this to the experts and go to work instead :) Have a good one!

[Perraine]

If the follower is using a unique Nude body then it MUST be part of the installation files, either in a separate directory or in a .BSA file included with the mod.

 

If it's a separate subfolder, that's easy, juts copy/paste your UUNP bodies and textures from actors\characters\character assets\female and replace the ones in the mod's directories. If it's inside a BSA file, that's a bit trickier, as you'll have to rebuild the mod afterwards.

 

Of course you could also ask the mod author for a UUNP version of the follower.