[LE] Follower / Marriage mod with additional dialogue

[notnearlysane]

I'd really like to make a mod that uses an existing character/npc in Skyrim and makes them a follower and marriageable with story. Personally i'd like to do this for Ancano.

I'm aware that you can just use console commands to make them a follower/marriageable , but the character will be stuck with certain dialogue. I want to be able to give the character more dialogue so it would be more interesting (maybe by using existing game lines from same race or same voice actor). Also, i'd like to make it a little more immersive. Like for Ancano's case, maybe make it so he doesn't die or comes back to life.

Basically a more interesting follower and when dialogue initiated can be similar to the "Skyrim Romance" mod.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions that could help it would be much appreciated. I've read on quite a few forums that a lot of people wish they could have this with an npc ( including Ancano), so if i can get this to work i'd definitely take requests.

[cumbrianlad]

You're going to have to do a whole lot of work for that. There are a couple of good guides out there to help with making new followers/marriage candidates, but they deal with making entirely new ones.

 

First off, odd though it sounds, for an NPC to be a follower or marriageable, they need to have their voice types in the appropriate formlist. I've checked Ancano and he has a unique voice that isn't on either the 'VoicesFollowerAll' list or the 'VoicesMarriageAll' list.

 

Simply adding the voice type MaleUniqueAncano to these formlists will not be enough.

 

You would then need to alter Ancano's Factions tab and Relationships tab.

 

None of this is too hard but here's where I think it gets rough. Ancano is not set up to have any of the follower or marriage dialogue. To give him these is a lot of...oh no...voice acting required.

 

Maybe someone else here can think of a workaround for this, but I can't.

 

I'm making a marriageable follower but I'm doing the whole thing from scratch with new voice type and new NPC.

 

Are there other mods out there that already make vanilla characters into followers? If there are, you could check out how they achieved this in CK.

 

Lastly, you'd have to think about how modifying Ancano in this way might totally screw up the Winterhold college quests, such as the 'Eye of Magnus'

 

What you could do is make a copy of Ancano, call him Avalon (or some other high-elf sounding name of your choice), Ancano's long-lost twin brother and make him your follower, using your own voice acting. If you play around with something like Audacity and your accent, you should be able to get a reasonable high elf sort of voice.

 

Sorry if I can't be more use than this.

[notnearlysane]

cumbrianlad, thanks for taking the time to look into Ancano's files and the information you provided, it was helpful.

 

I agree. I found lots of helpful guides having to do with making new followers, but none to do with existing npc.

Ancano's voice is unique, i actually just noticed this yesterday. Its more high pitched than other high elves, so i will have to figure something out with his voice. Maybe i could take some files from the other high elf characters and tweak them to be higher pitched.

There is a modder called ViciousSARR who is making a new follower/romance mod with existing characters and using unused voice files as well, but unlike Ancano the characters don't have unique voices. From her YouTube updates shes made a lot of progress. So besides the voice files, i'll have to ask her how shes achieving the mod with those existing characters.

 

If anything else, i'll have to make Ancano a new npc. I was thinking maybe i could trigger him to appear after the College of Winterhold questline is finished. If i could make that possible.

 

Do you think it is possible to just name the character file a different one than Ancano's and keep his visible name for in game? It would kind of loose its purpose if i have to change his name aha

[cumbrianlad]

No problem.

 

Making a new character is certainly the easier option. How about the ghost of Ancano who comes back to offer his services as a way of making up for his sins?

 

By the way, you might want to download 'lazy voice finder' from Nexus Mods. It allows you to open and view all the voice files and even hear the lines being spoken...useful if you want to poach lines or partial clips of sound.

 

I'm using it to find lines of dialogue for my characters to say in a sort of gladiatorial final battle scene.