Creating Custom NPCs Without CK

[GomuGomu64]

Note, before reading, all this does is allow you to change NEARLY everything about a character (Facials, body size, voice, skills, etc) That is possible using the Skyrim NPC Editor. I am making an assumption that the created NPC may/may not break the original that was used as a template. I am not responsible for your save becoming screwed up.

 

Tools you will need :

 

FallOutModManager

Skyrim NPC Editor

 

Open up NPCEditor, choose your NPC of choice (Your template, so to speak), and remove/add what you want (As a forewarning, DO NOT take any weapons out of the NPCs inventory using the editor. Doing so will cause your NPC to fight with their fists rather than any weapon you may give them. Commands won't fix it either). Once your happy, export the npc.

Run FOMM and open up that customised .esp

Expand all of the fields, and go to the very bottom one (Should be the npc you edited). Double click it, and edit the FormID to something that is not being used in-game (I used 0A099999 as there are no NPCs with that formid), click save.

Now, at the bottom-left of the window, there should be a bunch of 4 character long words in a long list. If you noticed, you'll see that selecting one will show a "String" (A set of letters). Most will be gibberish, but some (Depending on your npc, the size of the 4-letter address will vary between 0-80, with the majoirty at a size of 2,4 and 8. Look for the strings that are atleast 8+ in size, or just skim through all of them to be safe) will have the name of the NPC.

I recommend changing all instances of the name to something that you want. You can do that by double clicking the 4-letter long thinymajigger.

 

Por Ejemplo (I used Brenya Marlon (Or whatever that Dunmer's name is)) :

 

-Where a string comes up as BrenyaMarlon, you would type DarkElfGuardian (NOT Dark Elf Guardian, DarkElf Guardian, D A R K E L F G U A R D I A N, etc), whilst making sure to leave that little dot at the end of the sname.

 

-Where the string comes up as Brenya Marlon [brenyaMarlon], you would type DarkElf Guardian [DarkElfGuardian]

 

-etc.

 

A couple (Not all. I highly recommend searching through the list of 4-letter words for strings with the name in it) of the four-letter words are :

EDID - Editor ID, I presume this is what comes up in the console when spawning the character

SHRT - The "Short" name. This is what they are called in the subtitles.

FULL - The "Full" Name. This is what comes up when you are interacting with them (Trading, selecting, etc.).

 

Once your happy, click save. Move that esp to the data folder, and launch skyrim.

Open up the console and do a typical help search for the name of your npc. In my case, that was "Help "DarkElf Guardian" 4", which gave me the baseid 0A099999. I spawned that character, which was intended to be a follower, did "setrelationshiprank player 3" and now I had a DarkElf Guardian following me around Skyrim. Great :D

 

Hope this helped. Will post screenies later.

[jet4571]

You can have them spawn in your house by copying the grup cell info for your house and changing the housecarl to the new NPC. That will have the housecarl and the new NPC spawning at that location.

 

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f257/JET-WTF/cellexample.jpg

 

I used the firepit for the spawn location in Breezehome....

 

*edit

The form ID highlighted in the window is the NPC's new form ID, that is all you change to make them spawn at that location rather than the console command to spawn a clone. If you are making an NPC that wanders about a town then you would find grup cell location that suits it and make the AI packages from that original NPC the same in your new one. Yes you could have Ysolda and Bart Simpson(Formerly known as Ulfric) doing the same hanging about Whiterun.

Edited January 30, 2012 by jet4571

[LiamFarley1998]

Bookmarked, going to make a ton of people for the dark brotherhood, and theives guild, modelled after character from previous games. I also want to make the thalmor embassy my base.

[jet4571]

Liam, be sure to copy the NPC_ from one and paste into another esp's GRUP to consolidate to 1 esp instead of 2+.

[markofthedog]

so.. i made a chicken to follow me around, works fine, unless i fast travel then he's gone. anyway to make him fast travel?

[jet4571]

Thats the reason I stopped working on doing this about 3 weeks ago is because the only way they will fast travel is if you give them regular follower faction info. for a person you would add potentialfollowerfaction and they will fast travel, but if you set them to playerfaction, playerfollowerfaction and AI Pack playerfollowerpackage with all other factions and AI packs removed they wont fast travel. So i suggest give the chicken the same faction as a dog that will follow you and see if that works.

 

Another issue I have with doing this is the tintmask for the face does not load anymore even if you copy it and rename the same as the ID for the new NPC. example is Muiri who I renamed Muirine in the pic below. I have the tintmask with the warpaint on it renamed to the same as her new ID and in the correct folder. but you can clearly see there is NO warpaint and hard to see is her head has a grey tint compared to her body.

 

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f257/JET-WTF/Muirine.jpg

 

So there must be another piece to the puzzle to add the tintmask.

 

*edit this also affects NPC's if you copy them directly from the Skyrim.esm and follow the same steps.

 

**edit again

I decided to do another pic to show the differences. 1 is the real Muiri with potential follower faction added(same as my uploaded mod), 2 is the same Muiri from the NPC editor made into a new NPC, and 3 is Muiri copied directly from the Skyrim.esm with only the ID number changed. all 3 has a tintmask unique to the ID number in the correct folder. On number 3 you can see the head discoloration compared to the body so this is not the NPC editor creating the problem.

 

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f257/JET-WTF/Muirine2.jpg

Edited January 30, 2012 by jet4571

[GomuGomu64]

@Jet I love you. Totally going to do that :P

 

It might just be me, but I hardly notice the difference between the default Muri and the clones. Also looks like you've got some pretty-faces mod or something.

[jet4571]

@Gomu, I love you too!!! your place or mine to share the triplets? lol

 

I use Bella's mod for faces. Muiri was not the best choice but I had her file readily available. she has a darker skin tone as is compared to most bretons or nords. the difference is wayy wayyyyy more noticeable on fair skinned NPC's like Lisette or Elisif. But if you look at #3 and go from chin down along the neck you see a line there where the tone changes. that's the seem between the head mesh and the body mesh. that is also where the tintmask on the head (\data\textures\actors\character\facegendata\facetint\skyrim.esm\0001406B.dds) ends and the body begins.

[GomuGomu64]

Huh. Don't have any idea on what could be causing that.

 

On another note, how did you get the cell group into the npc's esp? I've tried copying/pasting, click'n'dragging between the editors, but I can't get that CELL group into the esp. How didja do that? XD

[jet4571]

Copy and paste the whole group then delete everything I didn't want. yes a whole shitload of deletes to get the tree to have only what you want, but cell is in subgroups rather than 9k deletes in one group so its faster than if you tried the same on the NPC group by a factor of 100 or so. hard part is finding the cell and relevant parts. You can not copy and paste parts or it will be all screwed up, I tried that. if someone can... GFY!!! nice acronym for what i was saying lol......

 

I learned the cell trick from looking at the "Female bard for you house" mod*. BTW that's the first new NPC mod, I did this one a while ago, you made a tutorial for the same thing I did and we are a few weeks and quite a few dollars short for being the first to have a new NPC mod. Fun isn't it?

 

*edit,

I think I may need to clarify, in my pic way above the .esp name is Lisa.esp. I click that once(where it says Lisa.esp) to highlight it. then i do the paste for the copied cell group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

disclaimer bs:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=3100

I have not copied or used anything from it so nobody can accuse me of stealing, just learning from it. I have not uploaded anything based on it. so no mods with credits. credit is right here given for the learning experience.

Edited January 30, 2012 by jet4571