Converting vanilla NPCs to custom races for body diversity?

[Berit's Ashes]

I can't seem to find the answers for these questions and any help would be appreciated.

 

1. Is it possible to change the race of a vanilla npc?
2. Moreover, is it possible to convert vanilla npcs to custom races? 
3. Is it, in principle, possible to change every NPC in the game into their own unique race, thereby allowing you to give every character their own unique body type?
4. Would it be a bad idea to do this? i.e. would it break quests, create problems, or generally alter the fabric of reality?

 

It seems to me somebody would have done this if it were possible, although I realize it would be a ton of work/long-term project. I'm interested in trying to create an npc replacer that provides body diversity for immersion, realism, representation, etc. 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

[Uncle64]

It should be possible, but it will take you some time, since there is many things to change.

 

There are some mods that try to do what you asking for. But dont think they can change race.

[avebrave]

Depends on which NPC, and in what quests they are involved. That's something you have to doublecheck for every NPC themselves. Done that myself with some NPCs in my game, and the only issue I step over was Aela, during one of the Companions quests she changes her race to werewolf directly back to nord (no matter what race she got before).

Since you are doing it for the matter of body diversity, keep in mind that you will need to create ArmorAddons for the armor/clothes they are wearing.

 

cheers. ave

[Pauduan]

Yes it is quite possible.

 

Look at NOG Replacers, they use a modified race.

 

You can achieve a similar effect using Bodygen (though I'm not sure how that works in practice)

 

One thing you can do is change NPC weight and height for every NPC (works only on new games) and have a very wide weight slider range in your body. For example if you set your 0 size at extremely slim and the 100 weight to giantess size, then you can have a fairly broad range of shapes and sizes, similar to real-world. I've done this for some child races where I am uncomfortable with very young characters, so the 100 weight body corresponds to adults, but with smallish frames - and I don't use the 0 weight at all. Obviously this is for PC only, for NPC you'll need a more comprehensive methodology.

 

You would definitely not need to make everybody into a unique race to achieve what you're looking for. The simplest way to do this would be to give everybody UUNP bodies and use a mod like Manipulator to change their shapes and heights when you meet them. But you'd need to repeat this for every PC (I play something like 5 PCs at the same time).

[Berit's Ashes]

Thank you all for your insights. I thought it should be possible, but I wanted to query the community in case I was missing something. 

 

I encountered those other mods, and I do think those are viable solutions. I currently use SAM and I find it's a great tool for adding body diversity (for males anyway). The idea behind this would be to avoid having to re-edit each character every time you start a new game. 

 

The point about ArmorAddons had occurred to me as well. I'm planning to use bodyslided SAM and UUNP meshes, so making custom outfits for each character shouldn't be a problem. Mainly, I'm planning on replacing non-follower characters, i.e. characters whose armor you likely wouldn't be replacing. 

 

I'm thinking I would start with Nords, and make 4 or 5 new races for different general body types. I'll start small and see how it goes. 

[zax]

Or you could simply use BodyGen feature of RaceMenu that does it for you by applying morphs to everyone at runtime?