Creating an NPC questions

[flameshiva]

When creating an NPC's appearance, it's not easy as many things are not showed in the preview window, not until you get into game. Is there any easier way to do this so you can see all your changes as they happen or any tips would be welcome and If I create an NPC and then later decide I want to give them a weapon/item or hairstyle etc from another mod how do I incorparate that into the mod because when I activate other mods it never saves any changes from them into my plugin.

Edited March 5, 2021 by flameshiva

[niston]

If the other mods are ESP, Creation Kit will completely strip them from your mod on saving.

 

One way around this is to make a copy of the other mod(s), rename them .ESM and using Fo4Edit to change their flag to ESM as well.

You can then reference these copies in CK and it won't strip them.

 

Once done, you can use a hex editor (or an older version of Fo4Edit) to change the master table in your mod, so that it again references the .ESP and not the .ESM versions of the other mods.

[Zorkaz]

You just need to add the ESM flag to an esp, no need to change the ending

 

The preview window is pretty lousy but when you place them in a dummy cell and take a look at them, the results are usually better

[DieFeM]

You can create your npc's face in the game, then use Face Ripper to copy it from your saved game to your mod.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3878/

[niston]

I tend to copy/rename the files, lest I forget resetting the ESM flag on one of them :)

[flameshiva]

Ok thanks, I got that but I'm a little bit confused with the last stage. When I have flagged the esp's as esm's and made my changes I need to either keep them as esm's or use something like an older version of F4 Edit to reference them back to the ESP's ? and that would be ok ? I don't know how to change the master table but i can search for it.

 

 

 

 

[niston]

It may sound intimidating but it's rather easy.

If you open a plugin in a hex editor, you'll quickly spot the names of the masters at the beginning of the file.

Look for <PLUGINNAME>.ESM. Simply change the M in ESM to a P, but be careful not to add or delete any characters.

 

F4 Edit Version 3.2.1 was the last version (I believe) that lets you freely edit the master table.

 

If you don't do this, then your plugin will continue to reference the ESM copy, which might have unintentional side effects (ESMs load differently than ESPs) and which cannot be shared with other people (as their masters won't be ESM).

[flameshiva]

I went wrong somewhere. I flagged the plugins in F4edit to ESM's and also renamed them as here it said at some point the creation kit changed the way it looks for masters. https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/6360096-cant-make-esp-to-esm-anymore// but maybe that is out of date ? anyway when I used hex to change them back my changes were removed also. I think my problem was in the last stage somewhere as my mod did reference to look for the esp's I needed in the creation kit (and not the esm's) but then replacing/renaming the esm's with the esp's reset everything.

[niston]

Let's say you have myPlugin.esp and you want it to reference SomebodyElsesPlugin.esp as master:

 

1) Copy and rename SomebodyElsesPlugin.esp to SomebodyElsesPlugin.esm and flag as ESM in xEdit.

2) Load your plugin in CK and add SomebodyElsesPlugin.esm as a master.

3) Do your work in CK, adding stuff from SomebodyElsesPlugin.esm to your plugin or whatever you want to do.

4) Save myPlugin.esp in CK and close CK.

5) Open myPlugin.esp in Hex Editor or old xEdit

6) In the master table of myPlugin.esp, look for master "SomebodyElsesPlugin.esm" and change that to "SomebodyElsesPlugin.esp".

7) Save myPlugin.esp in Hex Editor or old xEdit

8] myPlugin.esp now references SomebodyElsesPlugin.esp as master. Don't open myPlugin.esp in CK after you done this, for CK will strip the SomebodyElsesPlugin.esp Master reference, damaging your plugin.

9) Optionally remove SomebodyElsesPlugin.esm if you are done with myPlugin.esp. Or, keep it around if you plan to do more work on myPlugin.esp in CK later. But DO NOT EVER activate SomebodyElsesPlugin.esm in your load order. Because that could/would be a very bad thing. Best to move it to some different folder if you want to keep the .esm around, and only move it back to DATA folder when you need it to work on myPlugin.esp.

10) There is no step 10.

 

 

But remember:

 

If you later find that you need to do more work on myPlugin.esp in CK, you'll have to use Hex editor or old xEdit to again change the master table in myPlugin.esp, so that it references SomebodyElsesPlugin.esm instead of SomebodyElsesPlugin.esp. If you don't do this and open myPlugin.esp directly in CK, it'll strip SomebodyElsesPlugin.esp from the master table and damage your myPlugin.esp.

[Zorkaz]

Again you can just add the esm flag to an esp and you can use it as a master.

That's what I did for making a Depravity(.esp) patch