New Vampire NPC Tutorial

This is a General tutorial to enable you to make changes for yourself to modify new vampire NPC added to your game by another mod to closer match the appearance changes of existing when used alongside CVO

This is only applicable if you also have access to any external assets used by the author and can safely edit the appearance of them in Creation Kit. For any mod which the author has chosen to use assets which are their own (The most common being character preset using extended sliders from a character creation mod) and do not share them then you are limited to making changes directly to the existing facegen which is a separate process altogether not covered here

This may be edited at anytime by me to correct, clarify or remove if no longer applicable to current version

Tools Required
Creation Kit
Xedit

1) To ensure that you know what external assets will be used when modifying NPC and to avoid un-intentionally using those you do not wish to then you should do the following. If there are already loose files inside installed from other mod(s) then rename your existing meshes and textures folders inside game data folder. Ex. I just stick leading zeroes so Meshes is renamed 00Meshes, Textures is renamed 00Textures. You will revert this step when you are finished

2) Using Xedit pull up CVO and edit the File Header -> Record Flags and select ESM. Do the same for the other mod if it is not a master. You will revert this step when you are finished

3) Now while still in Xedit it is time to create a new plugin. Expand the mods esp that adds new vampire and click the + to expand Non-Player Character (Actor)
All actors added or modified by that mod will now show beneath. Select all new vampire actors holding ctrl so they are all highlighted and selected then Right click on one of them -> copy as override into... -> new file -> Now choose a name that makes sense Example "XX CVO Patch"
Now right click the new plugin you just made and choose Add Masters...
select CosmeticVampireOverhaul.esp then click ok. The original mod may have already been added as master when you created your new plugin but if it is not you will also add it.
Select your new plugin and right click choosing Sort Masters.
You are done and can now close Xedit saving changes

4) In your game directory there is a file named CreationKit.ini which you will need to edit. At the end of [General] add the following to allow multiple plugins to load if you have not already done so

bAllowMultipleMasterFiles=1
bAllowMultipleMasterLoads=1

At the end of [Archive] add , CosmeticVampireOverhaul.bsa

This allows the CK to see and use files from my mod without the need to extract into loose files

4a) This step is only for faces from EFM. If you want faces from EFM then install it. After it installs delete any loose vampire eyes nifs as the ones you want are already in CVO's BSA

Edit the mouth nifs EFM installed using a program like nifscope to change the texture paths from player to CVO

meshes\actors\character\character assets\mouth

textures\actors\character\mouth\MouthHuman.dds -> textures\CVO\mouth\mouthhuman.dds
textures\actors\character\mouth\MouthHuman_N.dds -> textures\CVO\mouth\mouthhuman_n.dds

After you make this change you may wish to save the nifs in a seperate folder outside game for future use

5) Launch CK, File -> Data in the window that comes up set your new patch as active and click ok. Now sit through the usual startup spamming yes to all for usual errors that come up

6) Find the actors you added to your patch from step 3. Double click them to edit. Saving after each edit is recommended as CK crashes alot atleast for me. There are many tabs which control settings for the actor here but only 2 of which you will be concerned with. Character Gen Parts and Morph tabs

While in the parts tab check settings and change as desired using preview head

Tint Layers click SkinTone.dds and to the right using the preset dropdown under Face Tinting Color check/change, lower number preset is lighter, higher is darker

Under Base Head Parts click Face choose (fe)maleheadXXvampire with XX being the race that actor is assigned. Below that you can click Eyes to change which of the 2 vampire eyes they will use

The morphs tab can be used to check/change headparts and shape of those not in parts

After you have finished inspecting and making any personalized edits to each actor record save. Before closing CK for all actors which your patch includes from step 3 regardless of whether or not you chose to make your own edits to them you now need to re-fresh all their facegen. You may select multiple holding ctrl and then hit CTRL+F4 which will export the new facegen into your data folder. Exit CK

7) In both meshes and textures folders you should now have the new facegen files which you exported

In textures delete tga files and leave the dds

7a) If EFM or any other mod was used as Modders Resource for facegen creation that installed its files as loose they should now be removed. You only want files inside the facegendata sub folders in meshes and textures to remain

8) What you do now is entirely dependent on how the original facegen was shipped from that mod

If original mod shipped as BSA

Run Archive.exe

Legacy path - Skyrim\
SE path - Skyrim Special Edition\Tools\Archive\

In the window that opens up drag and drop both textures and meshes folders into it. Check the boxes above that say Meshes and also Textures then File -> Save As and name it the exact same name as your new patched plugin

Create a new folder outside game directory and name it whatever you want. In your data directory copy both the esp and bsa you made and place it inside. Now use a program like 7zip and compress it in a format that is readable by your mod manager. Place your new zipped file where you download mods so that your mod manager can easily find it as you will be installing it manually

If original mod shipped as loose files

Create a new folder outside game directory and name it whatever you want. In your data directory copy both the new esp and both meshes and textures folders and place it inside. Now use a program like 7zip and compress it in a format that is readable by your mod manager. Place your new zipped file in same location you download mods so that your mod manager can easily find it as you will be installing it manually

9) This step is to revert your game directory back to where it was before you did any of this. Delete both meshes and textures folders in your data. Delete the new esp and also bsa if you made one. Revert steps 1 and 2

10) Using your mod manager install your new patch file. Your new esp should be sorted so that it loads after both original mods