Skyrim: How to use different mods on different characters?

[LesboIsBesto]

Haven't gotten an answer on Nexus forums so if anyone who uses Nexus Manager extensively can help, answer me this:

 

On my current & only playthrough, I don't use any texture replacer mods that change NPC faces, hair, or skin quality of their bodies other than CBBE & BodySlide. Reason why is cuz to me personally, all those mods that change faces & shit just make them look like anime characters to me from those popup ads you get on anime streaming sites or porn sites which I don't like. Mods like Better Vampires, pretty much any of the mods I've seen so far that "update, re-texture, or replace" vanilla faces I just don't wanna use. I don't mind using the vanilla faces & shit, even though most female NPCs like vampires have a fairly visible neck seam right where my CBBE body preset starts but it's easily ignored.

 

Point is, I recently found certain mods that let me look like characters from other games like Widowmaker from Overwatch or 2B from Nier that require certain face texture mods or a different body preset from what I have. But I don't want to have to go through the process of turning those texture mods & body presets on/off everytime I want to play either my main character or those characters using said texture mods (plus it'd probably break my game). So my question is Is there a way to use some mods on one save but not have those mods affect other saves I have? Also is there a way to use one CBBE preset in BodySlide on only yourself while other NPCs use a different preset?

 

I was looking through Nexus Manager & it had something called "New Profile". Haven't touched it yet cuz I don't wanna break anything but is that something that would let me use different mods from the save I currently play on? If yes, how exactly does it work? If not, is there another way to use those mods on a separate save without them affecting my normal playthrough?

[Irrational]

For the first part of your question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_tsq4KfHKs

I use Mod Organizer for managing my mods. It's a lot more modular and versatile.

 

Second part of your question:

Either this mod

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40280/?

or this mod

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37546/?

[BringtheNoise]

For you questions...

 

To the question: how to use custom textures for the player that are different from the npc's.

Answer: Use a custom race for the Player, that uses a custom texture path for the race....

There are many out there (Temptress, Nihelm, etc).

This will allow your character to use a different set of textures (diffuse, normal, specular) from the rest of the game characters (npc's).

With the custom race, place the textures you desire to use in the paths for the custom races textures (which is different then the default texture path).

Note: Make sure the body used works with the textures you are going to use... in other words, don't use a UNP body in the custom race path and cbbe textures in the custom race path.

 

 

To the question: How do I use a different body shape for the player in game from the npc's.

Answer: Use "In Game" body morphing with CBBE.

For this you will need to do the following:

a. Rebuild all of the female outfits in bodyslide with the bottom left check box set "Build Morphs"

Note: Set the Preset to " -Zeroed Sliders- " This will give all of the outfits the base CBBE shape in game.

b. Enable the CBBE esp in your load order.

c. Inside the game you will need to go into Racemenu and go into the CBBE sliders menu. In that menu you will need to set the sliders to match your preset in bodyslide.

 

Optional for "In Game" Body morphing...

You can setup Bodygen (part of Expired's Racemenu mod) to allow females within the game to have different preset shapes.

I would suggest googling "Skyrim Racemenu Bodygen". Which will bring you to pages like https://www.loverslab.com/topic/53531-unofficial-bodygen-docs/ and https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/87843 and so forth.

 

I would also recommend programs like Lossless Race Change https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33968

As this will allow you to bring up the racemenu in game via a special ability and it should retain your perks, and choices in a save if you switch races (ie your skills don't get set back to the default after switching races) down the line. Say your at level 30 with x amount of points in light armor, spell type xyz, one hand, two hand etc, and you've open up perk a, b, c... and so forth, LRC copies the list of perks, and your levels and applies them to your character if you change your race so as to not loose those perks and levels within each skill tree.

 

[chatblanca]

with Mod Organizer you can set up separate 'mod profiles' with localized save games to keep your data separate, which would allow you to have multiple characters with different mods, if thats what youre looking for. with MO's profiles if you have Mod A, Mod B, and Mod C installed, you can keep Mod A and B activated on one profile, and B and C on another, and C wouldn't show up on the first profile's saves.

youd have to be careful you dont leave debris in Overwrite though- files that get put in there can actually affect your other profiles if you switch profiles and leave the stuff in overwrite.

 

MO isnt without its issues but as it is now it is a far better alternative to the NMM, and much less buggy

[LesboIsBesto]

37 minutes ago, chatblanca said:

with Mod Organizer you can set up separate 'mod profiles' with localized save games to keep your data separate, which would allow you to have multiple characters with different mods, if thats what youre looking for. with MO's profiles if you have Mod A, Mod B, and Mod C installed, you can keep Mod A and B activated on one profile, and B and C on another, and C wouldn't show up on the first profile's saves.

youd have to be careful you dont leave debris in Overwrite though- files that get put in there can actually affect your other profiles if you switch profiles and leave the stuff in overwrite.

 

MO isnt without its issues but as it is now it is a far better alternative to the NMM, and much less buggy

some of my mods aren't compatible with MO so its not an option for me

[chatblanca]

3 minutes ago, Destroyah340 said:

some of my mods aren't compatible with MO so its not an option for me

fair enough, but how arent they compatible?

if its an issue with the installer then you could disable or enable the fomod thingy in settings, some mods require you to do that

[LesboIsBesto]

19 minutes ago, chatblanca said:

fair enough, but how arent they compatible?

if its an issue with the installer then you could disable or enable the fomod thingy in settings, some mods require you to do that

They don't explain how, they just say something like "install method: NMM or manual install, don't use MO"

[LesboIsBesto]

1 hour ago, BringtheNoise said:

For you questions...

 

To the question: how to use custom textures for the player that are different from the npc's.

Answer: Use a custom race for the Player, that uses a custom texture path for the race....

There are many out there (Temptress, Nihelm, etc).

This will allow your character to use a different set of textures (diffuse, normal, specular) from the rest of the game characters (npc's).

With the custom race, place the textures you desire to use in the paths for the custom races textures (which is different then the default texture path).

Note: Make sure the body used works with the textures you are going to use... in other words, don't use a UNP body in the custom race path and cbbe textures in the custom race path.

 

 

To the question: How do I use a different body shape for the player in game from the npc's.

Answer: Use "In Game" body morphing with CBBE.

For this you will need to do the following:

a. Rebuild all of the female outfits in bodyslide with the bottom left check box set "Build Morphs"

Note: Set the Preset to " -Zeroed Sliders- " This will give all of the outfits the base CBBE shape in game.

b. Enable the CBBE esp in your load order.

c. Inside the game you will need to go into Racemenu and go into the CBBE sliders menu. In that menu you will need to set the sliders to match your preset in bodyslide.

 

Optional for "In Game" Body morphing...

You can setup Bodygen (part of Expired's Racemenu mod) to allow females within the game to have different preset shapes.

I would suggest googling "Skyrim Racemenu Bodygen". Which will bring you to pages like https://www.loverslab.com/topic/53531-unofficial-bodygen-docs/ and https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/87843 and so forth.

 

I would also recommend programs like Lossless Race Change https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33968

As this will allow you to bring up the racemenu in game via a special ability and it should retain your perks, and choices in a save if you switch races (ie your skills don't get set back to the default after switching races) down the line. Say your at level 30 with x amount of points in light armor, spell type xyz, one hand, two hand etc, and you've open up perk a, b, c... and so forth, LRC copies the list of perks, and your levels and applies them to your character if you change your race so as to not loose those perks and levels within each skill tree.

 

That Temptress one, it uses a different body that wont be affected by my CBBE preset that affects NPC's? I ask cuz the mod that lets me look like Widowmaker uses Temptress as an optional mod which could make this easier...

[Frankfranky]

1 hour ago, Destroyah340 said:

They don't explain how, they just say something like "install method: NMM or manual install, don't use MO"

Let me guess. This is one of Arthmoor's mods? He doesn't like MO. To be fair, he knows massive amounts about what is going on, and is unlikely to have said it just for shits and giggles. If you go looking, you will find threads explaining that the way MO handles .bsa files is not ideal. The explainations are a bit technical, I am happy to admit I didn't really follow exactly what the issue is, but from what I can gather, MO gets confused with .bsa's and loose files and can load them in the wrong order, sometimes, causing weirdness.

 

I am not sure I have ever had a problem with this. I have always used MO, regardless of what the mod author has said.

[Frednotbob]

On ‎1‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 5:03 PM, Destroyah340 said:

That Temptress one, it uses a different body that wont be affected by my CBBE preset that affects NPC's? I ask cuz the mod that lets me look like Widowmaker uses Temptress as an optional mod which could make this easier...

The Temptress mod places the meshes and textures in a separate folder, which is unaffected by changes to NPCs.  If you want the NPCs to have the same body mesh and textures, you can copy them to the mesh/texture folders for your UNP body (I use Dimonized UNP).  Also, Better Bounce and Jiggles has a Temptress-specific mesh and textures for HDT...well, 'bits' (it's available on the Nexus, but you have to do some digging through the Optional Files list). You can copy them over from the BB&J folder, as well, and they should work out-of-the-box, as it were.

If you're looking for seamless body textures, I'd suggest Mature Skin Texture; I've never been able to get the mod's textures working without seams.  There's a seam-fix on the mod's Nexus page, as well as a CBBE body 'adaptor', but I've tried them and they only partially work (for me, at least).