How to Change the custom body of a follower

[willwhitt56]

i have been searching everywhere for an explanation for how to change the body shape of a custom follower via CBBE Bodyslide, and have had ZERO results for it. just mostly tutorials on how to change a follower's body from unp to cbbe or vice versa. So, since you guys almost always answer my questions always, i must ask, how do i do this?

[zapotek2034]

I don't think you can directly change a follower's body shape using Bodyslide like you can with the player character,  You may need to create the body the way you want for the follower using Bodyslide, then have it generate the femalebody_0.nif and femalebody_1.nif meshes.

 

Provided the follower mod creates it's own folder structure under common\Skyrim\Data\meshes\actors\character, you should be able to copy over the two mesh files to the follower's folder and replace the existing femalebody meshes.

 

I have done something similar for a custom race mod I'm using to add support for bouncing breast/butt and the belly node so the pregnancies show up correctly.

 

I can't remember offhand if updating the skeleton files would also be needed.

 

If the follower mod is packed into a BSA file, I'm not sure what would be involved for that.

[valcon767]

exactly as Zapotek2034 said

 

create the body and have it make the femalebody_0.nif and the femalebody_1.nif meshes then replace the existing femalebody meshes in the follower mod.

 

if it has a custom skeleton it will need updating also.

 

if it is packed in a BSA your can try unpacking the BSA to loose files and then replacing them (this works sometimes but not always).

 

some mods will not work correctly anymore if their BSA is unpacked (I don't know why).

 

I have actually done this process quite a few times, for loose files I have not had a failure doing it this way, but for BSA files if the mod works unpacked it works, if the mod breaks

by unpacking the BSA well the bodyshape works ...but the mod is still broken (due to it breaking before I changed the shape).

 

[willwhitt56]

it worked! thanks guys, now i just need to find a good heavy armor set  with bodyslide that looks sexy/protective that would looks good witha tannish yellow half dragon. you guys know any sites with different armors?

[ppp]

exactly as Zapotek2034 said

 

create the body and have it make the femalebody_0.nif and the femalebody_1.nif meshes then replace the existing femalebody meshes in the follower mod.

 

if it has a custom skeleton it will need updating also.

 

if it is packed in a BSA your can try unpacking the BSA to loose files and then replacing them (this works sometimes but not always).

 

some mods will not work correctly anymore if their BSA is unpacked (I don't know why).

 

I have actually done this process quite a few times, for loose files I have not had a failure doing it this way, but for BSA files if the mod works unpacked it works, if the mod breaks

by unpacking the BSA well the bodyshape works ...but the mod is still broken (due to it breaking before I changed the shape).

 

In the case of a BSA mod breaking as loose files, have you tried creating a filepath to the file you want to replace, and just having a loose file there? It's my understanding that Skyrim prioritizes loading loose files before those in BSAs, and I would think that this would allow you to replace the desired file without having all the files unpacked. You could also try unpacking the BSA into a separate folder, replacing the desired file, then repacking it with the Archive program in the Skyrim folder (the folder above Data).

[valcon767]

it worked! thanks guys, now i just need to find a good heavy armor set  with bodyslide that looks sexy/protective that would looks good witha tannish yellow half dragon. you guys know any sites with different armors?

 

ummm you might try here first

 

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/55151-bodyslide-armor-and-clothes-list-v3-no-requests/

 

it has links to v1 and v2 lists as well.

 

nexus could also be a good second choice.

 

@ppp

 

replacing the individual files with loose version will normally work as well ....you are correct in that

 

the problem I had run into is I was trying to merge a few follower mods that have a BSA, and somehow the filenames would not match up if I unpacked the BSA.

it did not matter if I unpacked it there or elsewhere, the files just did not match anymore.  somehow the names inside the BSA were different than what the

mod was actually looking for but it would work as a BSA but not as loose files.  I just found different follower mods to use to replace those as my easy solution.

[ppp]

That is weird. I think I'd need to see an example for myself to really try to understand what was going on there. I've never run into that problem, myself. But then, I don't use followers much. Was it only Follower mods that had it?

 

As for armor, the recent Bodyslide conversion thread has had a lot (over 100) of conversions lately. I think it's been mostly clothing, but I'd think there's probably something in there.

 

Silverlight is an old standby. R18pn's Shanoa Armor looks pretty good and there's a BodySlide conversion floating around somewhere.

[Gameplayer]

When I want to change the body of a custom follower,

 

Unpack the Archieve for the custom follower to the desktop (could also be a folder that you use for unpacking mods too)

 

This will allow you to see the folder structure that the mod maker used for the follower,

You should be able to now search the folders and find that the meshes (files that determine the characters shape) are in data\meshes\character\characterassets\

Of course it could be named after the character or Author it just depends on how the author set it up and so place to look is pretty much data\meshes\ Some random folder...

 

Now once you find those....

Your Bodyslide program exports body files to data\meshes\actors\character\character assets\

Using Windows Explorer you simply copy and paste over files to another folder to change the characters body.

 

In the case of a BSA file,

You would download BSAunpacker actual program available on Nexus to first unpack the BSA which will give you the folder structures and the files of the character.

From there you just move the meshes over.

 

After all that merge them into your Skyrim\data folder.