How to import face using CK

[ブルーベリーモーグリ]

Ok, so I am trying to make my own custom follower mod, based off of a couple other follower mods from nexus (namely, the Fredrika follower and Miqo'te followers) because they haven't been optimized for SSE and they have scripts that mess things up.... I just want them to be basic, simple followers but use those faces (I'm also watching tutorials on how to possibly give them custom voice files to keep their japanese voices, but otherwise vanilla followers just with custom faces and voices). This is just for personal use.

Anyway I can't figure out how to import their faces. I've seen several videos that detail the process - you go in game, write "spf (name of character)" and then it creates a (name).npc file. I did that. Then you go into CK, make a new actor, then go into face details and click "import" and then choose the file. I did that. In all the videos, the face should load up beautifully, even if the race, gender, etc. is completely different. But when I load it up, it gives me an altered version of whatever race I have chosen - so if the NPC is Nord, then it gives me a Nord face that has altered facial details and makeup. If I choose High Elf, it gives me a high elf with makeup, etc.

What am I doing wrong?!?

[Southpawe]

Your not doing anything wrong per se.

The Creation Kit can't load in custom sculpted faces. The import button only gets the face as close as the creation kit can make it, it can fully recreate the imported head if it was made using Racemenu.

If the face was made using Racemenu then you need to create the facegen with what you imported into the creation kit then you need to merge that .nif file with a Racemenu export.

[Southpawe]

Here this is a guide for replacing a NPC with a Racemenu preset that I wrote for another user. I know that you making a follower but the part about merging the Racemenu and Creation Kit Facegen is the same.

1. Lookup the race and weight of the NPC you want to replace.

2. Create a Racemenu preset using that race and weight, and design the face as you normally would using sliders or sculpt mode.

3. Save the preset. In the preset tab you will see the headparts and hair listed on the left, take a picture of this with your phone for later reference

4. Go to the sculpt tab and export the head.

5. Then apply the preset to your character by exiting Racemenu. After exiting Racemenu, open the console and type "spf yournamehere" (without parentheses)

6. Now exit the game and load up the creation kit (CK from now on). As soon as the CK opens, click the save button on the top left. This will create an empty .esp plugin for your NPC replacer. Name the plugin whatever you like.

7. Click the open file button to the left of the save button. A window will pop up with a list of plugins. Place a x mark by the Skyrim.esm, your new .esp plugin, and any mods you used to create the preset. (e.g. high poly head, hairmods, eyemods...)

8. On the esp plugin you created, click it and then select "set as active file"

9. You may get some error messages while these are loading into the CK. You can ignore all these and click yes to all when they pop up.

10. After everything is loaded in the CK click on the actors group on the left of the window that comes up. Then use the search bar just above that to search for the NPC you will replace. (If you don't select the actor group before searching it will search through every record in the CK which will take 10x as long)

11. After you search the actor should come up on the right side of the window. Double-click the actor to open their character window. You will see groups of properties of the NPC running in a row on the top right. Use the arrows to find the chargen parts properties.

12. In the chargen tab of the NPC, click the "import" button. In the window that pops up select the file with the name you created earlier using the spf console command.

13. After using import, you will now need to manually select the correct face parts (head mesh, brows, eyes, ect.). This is all done in the same window as the import button. Use the photo you took earlier of the head parts in racemenu.

14. Your character will not look exactly like your preset yet, but it's as close as the CK can make it. Click okay on the NPC character window. Then click save on the top left like you did to create the initial .esp plugin.

15. Exit the CK. Go to meshes/actors/character/Facegendata/Facegeom/
You should find a folder named after your esp plugin. This is where your npc facegen .nif was saved for your plugin.

16. Open this new Ck generated nif file and the nif file you exported from Racemenu side by side in two Nifscope windows. Expand the down arrows till you see the face parts. On the Racemenu export nif, right-click/block/copy branch on the first shape. Then on the CK generated nif, right-click/block/paste branch on the group all the shapes are under. Repeat for every other shape. The old shapes will be at the top, right-click/block/remove branch on every old shape.



(This is the process that NIF Merge was automating for Oldrim)

17. Save the nif. Then create a folder in the Facegeom folder called skyrim.esm. place the nif file in there.

18. Find the .dds file that was exported with the racemenu export. Rename this file to the same number name as the .nif file you placed in the Skyrim.esm folder (this is the NPC's id number)

19. Place this file in the textures/actors/character/FaceGenData/facetint/skyrim.esm

You will probably need to create the skyrim.esm folder.

20. Activate the esp file in your mod manager and you should be good to go.

[ブルーベリーモーグリ]

Thank you so much for the reply!!!! I will give this a try and let you know how things turned out!!!!