Generating pre-edited character faces for use in the CK

[Trykz]

Okay,

 

I figured some of you might find this bit of info handy, to help you with generating new custom face presets (for player characters AND NPCs) in the Creation Kit. So here goes:

 

While in the game:

 

1) enter the race menu using the showracemenu command

2) customize the character face to achieve the look you want for use as a character preset or NPC face

3) once you have the look you want, type the following "spf 01" - This will generate a saved file of your character's face to the Skyrim directory called 01.npc, which you can then import into the Creation Kit. You can repeat this any number of times, as long as you keep using sequential file names (01, 02, 03, etc..)

4) exit the race menu and either save if you want to keep the face changes, or reload your last save to undo the changes

 

In the Creation Kit:

 

1) open the preset form of the preset you want to edit (this can be a character gen preset OR an existing NPC)

2) on the Character Gen Parts tab, you'll find a button labeled "Import". This is what you're looking for:

 

 

3) click the Import button and a window of your Skyrim folder will appear

4) select the npc.01 file and click "open"

5) the face data you saved in the game will be applied to the NPC or preset form you are editing

6) save the form to a new plugin with an appropriate name, such as "NewAela.esp"

 

Voila! Your new follower/character will look exactly as you wanted.

 

I use this method to save preset faces for my race mods. It's a tremendous time saving feature

 

Anyway, hope you find this useful,

 

Trykz

[Queen Bee]

Oh thanks! This will come in handy for sure.

 

One question, will it also copy armor/weapons? If not, how do you dress your NPC?

[maload]

its copy face , it mot copy item .

 

dress mpc ? commandconsole equipitem ......

 

or add item to thier inventory in ck

[Queen Bee]

Ah okay, thanks!

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

Very useful info! Ta!

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

... as a brief follow up...

 

This may seem like an odd question - but is there a way to extract ".npc" facegen data from an NPC rather than from the player? Or is this accomplished differently?

 

Reason being - I am re-building from scratch a new follower mod I made & would like to keep the same face.

[Trykz]

... as a brief follow up...

 

This may seem like an odd question - but is there a way to extract ".npc" facegen data from an NPC rather than from the player? Or is this accomplished differently?

 

Reason being - I am re-building from scratch a new follower mod I made & would like to keep the same face.

 

It can be done, but it's a pretty long and complicated process, that requires turning the follower into a playable character preset.

 

Perhaps when I have some time, I'll put together an illustrated tutorial of how to do it. Unfortunately, I have too much other stuff on deck right now, and no real time before the Dawnguard DLC launches.

 

Trykz

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

No worries - and thanks for the speedy response! It's a busy time of the year, and I fully understand! I'll keep an eye out in the meantime!

[Trykz]

No worries - and thanks for the speedy response! It's a busy time of the year' date=' and I fully understand! I'll keep an eye out in the meantime!

[/quote']

 

Well, if you don't want to wait, just attach the file for the old follower mod here, and I'll post back the .npc file so you can import it to the new follower mod.

 

I've done it enough times that it goes pretty quick. It's trying to explain the process so someone else could do it that would take forever LOL

 

Trykz

[Jexsam]

Ooh. Excellent, I've been wanting to make some personal use followers for a while now. Thanks.

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

OKAY! Revisiting this...

 

Tangentially - I actually worked out how to easily re-create player characters from old saves using spf .NPC files & presets & showracemenu, without having to keep the preset once it's done. So that was very useful - I'd been wondering about that a while back.

 

I actually forgot what I was originally trying to do - I just re-read the thread & remembered. I'll revisit this again in a day or two!

[LifeandEd]

Sounds useful. Now that I'm running multiple Skyrim characters, the thought keeps crossing my mind to turn the inactive one into an NPC follower for the active one. This would be a good way to do it. Thanks!

[zonzai]

I've been trying to use this method to create character presets but the CK just crashes whenever I select the import button. Anybody know what's going on?

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

I've been trying to use this method to create character presets but the CK just crashes whenever I select the import button. Anybody know what's going on?

 

Yeh' date=' that does happen from time to time. No idea what causes it - but to be on the safe side, don't rush the CK too much.

 

Is it crashing EVERY time? Or can you get the import through on the next try?

 

 

ALSO - on the off-chance that people DON'T already know about this, here's a very useful and fun tool:

 

"MODDER RESOURCE - EASY NPC CREATION - 'NPC PHOTOBOOTH'"

[Kyoichi2204]

Thanks a lot for this ! However, it doesn't work if we try using a .npc that was made from mods... (like pretty face mod and apachii hair), it's always saying .tri missing and so on... anyway to figure out how to fix it ?

Anyway thanks a lot!

[Abraxsis]

Tried it but get a cannot find bone structure error also everytime a hair mod is involved the preview window has the head and the hair miles apart.

[Absurdity]

Tried it but get a cannot find bone structure error also everytime a hair mod is involved the preview window has the head and the hair miles apart.

Seems to be normal, atleast for me it's the same even with the FaceGen mesh after exporting but ingame it looks completely fine...My preview window doesn't even work by the way >.<