Making my own followers

[allerius4]

Hello everyone, I just wanted to ask if there is a way to make your own followers. I start new game, get into character creation and create it, I am using CBBE Body and I still didnt find a way how to change the way this specific character looks during the character creation ( I dont know if its even possible) - For example how curvy she is, sizes of everything etc. After I create it I would go back on my already made character ( "main") and found the recently made character somewhere. It would be listed as NPC so I can just force recruit it with EFF. If someone knows how can I do that or if its possible please let me know. If its not, I would like to know if I am able to make custom body during character creation. Thanks a lot in advance.

[DeadFish__]

The ability to create bodies yourself comes from a tool called Bodyslide. (Although creating a body does not necessarily mean converting outfits to fit that body, you'll have to do that yourself by hand using Outfit Studio or if you're lucky, there'll be some outfits that have XML files for conversion).

Afterwards you can create a follower using this tutorial.

The task of creating a follower is more tedious than it sounds so you can just use Familiar Faces to speed things along.

[allerius4]

I tried many times to create my custom Bodyslide body but I dont know how to choose to who it will be added. Dont you know of some tutorial, I am probably doing just some stupid rookie mistake. Is there a way to make one kind of body to my char, npcs and then specific followers? Thanks for quick answer I will check the tutorial out.

 

[DeadFish__]

No, there's no way to change apply a body to all NPCs, characters and followers at the same time. Not without either changing the file directories in the Creation Kit or copy pasting to every single follower at the same time, both would be extremely tedious.

 

Bodyslide will save to the default directory (Skyrim/Data/Meshes/Actors/Characters/CharacterAssets) which will apply to the playable character (Assuming no mods have changed the directory for whatever reason) as well as any characters with no overwritten data, so using followers that don't use the defauly assets are out the window.

 

What you could do is copy paste the bodyslide to the followers you want but this requires knowledge of where that particular followers asset directory is. MO helps with this but if you're using NMM or copy-pasting in manually you can redownload the follower you desire to check its directory.

[Pauduan]

All followers have a resource set and an AI package.

 

Resource sets control how the follower looks and their inventory, spell lists and basic NPC data - voice types, factions, ranks and levelling characteristics. 

 

AI package controls their dialog, behaviour and routine.

 

The CK is used to create both of these things, and the starting point of this exercise is creating an npc data using the 'spf' command in Racemenu. The command is abbreviation for 'Save Player Face', it has nothing to do with the body. If you want to create a custom body then you have to have a separate resource path for the follower and point CK at it while creating the follower.

 

If not otherwise specified, female followers will use the exact same body as the rest of the default NPCs. If the body is specified, you have to build the body manually in Bodyslide (NOT in Racemenu), manually move the meshes to the followers' assets folder, and then build your default body again because you overwrote them when doing the custom body. It's simplest to rename the 'character assets' folder on both sides of the operation, so you don't need to re-create your base body type.

 

You could also use EFF to change their body characteristics in-game if you built the bodies with the morph option enabled. The menu is available under 'tattoos' feature, or you could use a mod like the Manipulator, which works on all NPCs and not just followers - as long as the morph option is enabled for all bodies and armors when you build them. The morph data is part of your save game so it will apply to all outfits the NPC wears.