How to create a Follower / Companion

[AyaKurasaka]

So as the title says that's the primary question.. I ask here for any Advanced info someone may have with this.

 

 

Other questions are as follows.

 

1. What's the dif between a Follower, and a Companion?

 

2. Can I make a Follower using a UNP body and custom look ? Or am I limited to specific things?

 

3. If I wanted to upload my follower, to Nexus or here, and use other peoples mods Example, UNP body. Can I do that? Or does it vary from mod to mod ? 

 

 

4.  Ideally I would love to also add a story quest to this follower. I imagine that will require some REAL modding skills however but I would like some good links and information maybe as a future update. 

 

 

 

thanks for the help guys  

[Shadowhawk827]

1)  Nothing as far as I know.  It's just same thing called by a different name.   IIRC some people use "companion" for animal followers though.

 

2)  Yep, you can.  Some of the best follower mods out there have custom everything.  I've been searching for tutorials on how to do this myself.  So far I've found tons of generic tutorials on how to put together a plain follower using vanilla resources and then attaching a "follow me" to it.   The closest I've seen to showing us how to make a full blown custom NPC is here at ElderScrollsGeneral

 

It doesn't answer all the questions for either of us, but it's a good start.  The key seems to be using that import button in the CK's Actor box to import all the custom textures & such.  That doesn't answer the question of using a custom body or skeleton though.

 

3)  Yep.  Once you figure out how to put it together the way you want, it's just a matter of making sure all the files involved in making the NPC make it into your follower mod upload.

 

4)  That's just a matter of learning to create quests, add dialogue to them and (the hard part) understanding how to set up the events that trigger certain dialog, etc..

 

If you want to see what REALLY can be done with a custom follower, take a look at Vilja.  She's an older mod at this point but still the gold standard in a fullly functional follower; full voice acting, multiple quests, capable of being romanced & married... you name it.  To the best of my knowledge, there are only 4 or 5 other NPC follower mods (in a virtual ocean of bad, generic ones) that go to that level.  Arissa the Wandering Rogue and Inigo being the two that come to mind now.   Just attaching a simple quest and a nit of non-voice dialogue will put any mod you make above 90% of them though.

 

The sad part is, all it takes to get a follower mod a thousand DLs or more at the Nexus is a cute face and big boobs.  Go beyond that and you'll have a successful mod for sure.

[Dillpickle]

Tutorial - Creating Standalone NPC's

 

Standalone Followers Tutorial

 

A couple of good tutorials on creating standalone followers using their own bodies/textures/etc...

 

 

[Shadowhawk827]

Thanks Dillpickle.