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Guide to Custom Races


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A guide to Custom Races in Skyrim

 

Why? - Different body mesh, different textures, different Racial Abilities, play as a kid, just for fun

 

 

 

Major Races available:


OK so there are a lot more races I didn't list here, including some found only at LL

 

What you need to know:

 

In order to use a custom race, they need to be recognized by the game engine.

 

A modder named expired6978 came up with a way to have these custom races integrated called RaceCompatibility which provided an esm and some scripts:

 

companionshousekeepingscript.pex

genericracecontroller.pex

 

This was expanded on for Dawnguard, Hearthfires and Dragonborn and now includes:

 

PlayerVampireQuestScript.pex

PlayerWerewolfChangeScript.pex

 

Problems you may encounter with Custom Races

 

Skeletons - various Race mods install their own skeleton to a custom location, they may not provide all the features you require, such as BBP, TBBP, Pregnancy,HDT support, and more often than not won't be detected by an automated skeleton installer such as XP32's Maximum skeleton mod. They will require manual installation of the skeleton you require.

 

Body Meshes - each mod author will have a favorite body type they like and will supply that body mesh. Again that mesh may not have all the features you require and will be located in a custom location. Manual installation of your mesh required.Some races (Temptress for example) even provide custom armor and clothing that may need to be altered for the mesh you choose.

 

Hair, Eyes, Warpaint - Some Races won't have access to enhanced selections of hair, eyes, warpaint, tattoos, etc, without some manual work. This isn't as bad as it used to be with the new versions of RaceMenu, CharGen, and Enhanced Character Edit.

 

This is THE biggest problem you may encounter with Custom Races - script conflicts


RaceCompatibility tends to be distributed with  a lot of the Race mods and there are different versions of it floating around. Some scripts depend on a particular version of RaceCompatibility.esm to function, and are for the most part NOT interchangeable.

The following scripts tend to be the ones that cause the most havoc:

 

companionshousekeepingscript.pex

genericracecontroller.pex

PlayerVampireQuestScript.pex

PlayerWerewolfChangeScript.pex

ski_playerloadgamealias.pex   --this ones from SkyUI, but is distributed by a lot of mods???

 

companionshousekeepingscript.pex originates with vanilla Skyrim, also comes with the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, some of the race mods, Enhanced Character Edit, and other undiscovered sources

 

genericracecontroller.pex originated with expired6978's first release of RaceCompatibility, Custom Races, Enhanced Character Edit, the other two releases of RaceCompatibilty on the Nexus, and some of the Race mods

 

PlayerVampireQuestScript.pex originated with the Dawnguard DLC, also comes with the Unoffical Dawnguard Patch, just about all of the "vampire" mods, some of the Race Mods, Enhanced Character Edit, the various releases of RaceCompatibility, and undiscovered as yet sources

 

PlayerWerewolfChangeScript.pex also originated with Dawnguard, other sources similar to PlayervampireQuestScript.pex


These scripts may have the same name from mod to mod, but typically are different scripts, requiring a particular version of RaceCompatibility.esm. They are not interchangeable.

 

Some of the problems you may encounter:


No BBP or HDT jiggle - usually caused by your skeleton and/or meshes being in a different location - check for where your mod installed yours

 

Ugly textures - again caused by custom texture location - check for where your mod installed yours

 

Missing eye/hair/warpaint/tattoo options when creating your character - some beautification mods install for the standard races, some race mods provide their own selection - check with individual mod

 

CTDs when wearing certain armor/clothing - probably a skeleton and/or mesh issue location, location, location

 

Weird responses from NPCs (thinks your a ghost, etc) - racial script conflict  - make sure the appropriate RaceCompatibility for your Race (and scripts) take priority

 

Can't change to a werewolf/vampire - again script conflict  - make sure the appropriate RaceCompatibility for your Race (and scripts) take priority

 

Weird body parts when changing to a werewolf/vampire - racial script conflict or missing(unfindable) resources

 

Papyrus logs spammed with errors about companionshousekeepingscript, playervampirequestscript, playerwerewolfchangescript - racial script conflict - make sure the appropriate RaceCompatibility for your Race (and scripts) take priority


 

That was the bad news. The good news? Some mods like the Ningheim Race use custom named scripts and an esm/esp that calls for the dominant scripts on the system to run. Enhanced Character Edit's package is very proficient at allowing other races to use it's esm and scripts. 

 

Before you go ahead and install a Custom Race check to see what currently exists on your system and see if they are compatible.

 

Enjoy!

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