Oh Maker... where to begin...

Welp, my name is TakuyaMonahato and this is my first ever modding endeavour. Not first as in first for Dragon Age... but first as in I-have-never-modded-anything-in-my-life-until-now first. So, I'm starting off simple with a few headmorphs I made for personal use (which I will continue to expand upon, since I have very weird views on how I want my characters to look) and thought I might share with you, just because. Constructive criticism and occasional mod testers are welcome :)



Human Noble - Male/Female (Work in Progress)

The Human Noble Origin is decent in story. Family, Friendship, Betrayal. When you start the game you get a clear sense of what mother, father and eventually your brother look like and yet, somehow, your character most of the time ends up looking like he was adopted when he was a wee laddie/lassie instead of being born into the Cousland household. So I found Fergus's head file amongst the wreck and tweaked it a bit (it actually customizes really well in the Chargen too so you can tweak eyes, nose and such) so you actually can look somewhat like a Cousland.

Duncan

The legendary Grey Warden who recruits us in every single Origin we choose. Personally for me, I felt Duncan's current appearance didn't really match someone who's been Warden-Commander for about 20 years (according to the wiki he become Warden-Commander in 9:10 Dragon and the Fifth Blight (DA:O's blight) started in 9:30 Dragon, that and he's voiced by a 79 year old man, so... yeah), so I tweaked him a bit. I made him look older, battle-scarred (I'm sure he's been in plenty of battles) and wiser whilst still trying to keep his Rivaini appearance. I also changed his eye colour to a greyish-silver to reflect his status as a Grey Warden (where I got the idea from the Sacred Ashes trailer with the Warden's glowing eyes, as I'm sure many of you modders have as well.)

Alistair

We first meet this innocent, almost childish Warden at Ostagar after the prologue of chosen origin. After you-know-what happened at the Battle of Ostagar and the scene at you-know-who's Hut, we arrive in Denerim where we find out Alistair is actually you-also-know-who's you-also-know-what. (You'll find out eventually). Considering Alistair's history, I wanted to give him that I'm-related-to-this-guy-but-I'm-also-a-Warden type look, hence the shaggy hair and once again, Warden-grey eyes. (See what I did there? >_>)

Morrigan

Another character we meet during Ostagar when we're tasked with finding... ingredients for a magic potion that turns us into a toad Warden. Morrigan in a sense is as much of a Witch of the Wilds as her mother is, but I didn't know quite what to do with her. All I did here was adjust her make-up and slim her face a bit trying to go for a more Lore-y look (and I guess add a little bit of Mother to her features), but I think I failed. You can decide.

Loghain

If you haven't read The Stolen Throne and The Calling, you need to. Now. Despite what he does to you during the Battle of Ostagar, I don't think King Maric's best friend was a drug addict. Sure, he probably didn't sleep much but note to Bioware: Too many wrinkles and blotchy patches are not always a good idea. So I gave him a sliiiightly more youthful apperance, gave him a Ponytail since I thought it suited him more and changed his eye colour to blue since according to official comics, that's his eye colour. Need I say more?

Flemeth

Whoever cast Kate Mulgrew for this character is a genius. The voice fits so well... except she either had a major face-lift in Dragon Age 2 or Varric was exaggerating. Again. I get the whole "I've lived my entire life in a forest" look but... geez. I drastically changed her appearance here to closer match her DA2 counterpart and to a certain extent find the connection between her and Morrigan so it doesn't look like she adopted our favourite snarky mage instead (that and according to the legends, Flemeth was a woman who captured many hearts back in her "Golden Days"... she'd be lucky if she caught a fly with her current appearance)

Sten

During our first visit to Lothering, we meet this Qunari Warrior who sadly, was born sans horns. After the Sten trusts you enough to reveal his history, I felt that the beaten-up-looks-like-he-had-too-many-turkey-dinners-for-someone-who-is-supposed-to-be-sentenced-to-death Qunari didn't quite give me a sense of honor and discipline. So I tightened his facial structure, whitened his hair and added a goatee (ala SA Trailer) and gave him a slightly younger, more honorable warrior look. All fear the Sten! (And I totally gave him the Butterfly Sword *cough*)

Oghren

Everyone's favourite drunk dwarf. We first meet Gimli Oghren in the main quest line when we go to Orzammar to ask the dwarves for their help in defeating the blight. After reading up on his history, I realise he's very well-kept for a supposed Casteless dwarf. Makes sense realistically considering he used to belong to a House, but if he spends all his time and money drinking... I don't remember passing by any barber's on my way through Thedas. So, I decided to give him a rougher, surface-dweller look complete with longer hair, scruffier beard and facial tattoo to represent his old nobility.

Ser Cauthrien

Yes, I skipped a lot of NPCs, so sue me. When I first met Cauthrien, I didn't really see her as a platoon leader. Not because she's female (I'm NOT sexist!), but because she was too... feminine. You'd expect a woman who's been fighting under General Loghain's command for a while to have a rougher look to her whilst still exuding femininity (I really don't think they had facial creams back then... I mean come on, Aveline pulled it off way better than Cauthrien did). So I squared her jaw a little bit and gave her a few, faint scars whilst staying close to her original look and shortening her hair. I think, however, I ended up making Cauthrien look like Specialist Traynor from ME3... which is ironic since they're both voiced by the same person. Oh well.


Long wall of text over with, here's how to install the following files:

(For the Companion replacement files)

• Unzip CompanionMorphs.zip somewhere on your computer.
• Open the folder Companion Morphs and copy whichever morphs you want into C:\Users\-your name here-\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override\
  

• Start game up and profit!
  

(For the Human Noble preset and all other presets to come)

This requires editing the chargenmorphcfg.xml file in your override folder. BACKUP JUST IN CASE

• Unzip CompanionMorphs.zip somewhere on your computer.
• Open the folder Character Presets and copy whatever presets you want into C:\Users\-your name here-\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\AddIns\packages\core\toolsetexports
• Go into your Override folder (where you put the facemorphs) and open up the chargenmorphcfg.xml file with Notepad.
• Since the preset included inside the zip is a Human Male face {Human Male = HM_adkfjn.mop; Human Female = HF_aksfdf.mop; Dwarf Male = DM_asfdf.mop; Dwarf Female = DF_asfas.mop; Elven Male = EM_asfdsd.mop; Elven Female = EF_sfiasf.mop} we need to look for the <heads> <human male> string (I believe it should be the first one)
• In this string of long lines, there should be about 9 presets inbetween <human male> and </human male>
• Under the last preset <resource name="HM_PCC_B01.mop" /> add this line between that one and </human male>: <resource name="HM_NOBLE1.mop" />
• When you start up the Chargen ingame, the preset after the bald default guy will be the .mop file we just edited in
  
  

If anything is unclear to you, or you don't understand, follow the instructions up to point 3 then do what I did in this screenshot. Do this subsequently for every other preset you want to add to your Chargen, keeping in mind with the initial lettering theme I bracketed in step 4.

I have other stuff in progress but this is it for now.

For easier modding and to make it easier on newcomers, I have provided my own chargenmorphcfg.xml which already has all of the below mentioned mods compiled together.
 

All the Chargen mods you need to use the .mor files

Dracomies True Textures in Dragon Age Redesigned - Dracomies
CC Extra Tones and Tints - jaylo101
DAO - Anto Hairstyles - iampizzapanda (original file by Anto. Link to his creations on url link page)
HD Eyebrow and Stubble Presets - ViLiSSa66
New Skins DAO (Both normal and Special Pack) - ViLiSSa66
Look Hair - Risibisi
Bidelle's Cosmetics - Bidelle
DrDJ's Bandit Emporium - Boonside
Eyebrow Presets - marquiseondore
LOTCs Female Eyelashes - marquiseondore
Black hair is black - MidnightVoyager
HAIRSTYLE DAY - ShepShy
White Teeth - jog
More Hairstyles - kzelsama
Tucked Hair - tmp7704 (You want the first two files)
KaniHime's Textures - KaniHime (It's a few posts down. There's two files, you want the Textures only)
fmorgana's Face and Eye Textures - fmorgana (file hosted by Mochie of Ferelden Models; you'll find it in the miscellaneous section. Thanks Parcheetahzan for this information)

There are way too many people to name... I'm gonna quick list 'em. Please check them out <3

Dracomies, jaylo101, iampizzapanda (and Anto), ViLiSSa66, Risibisi, Bidelle, Boonside, marquiseondore, MidnightVoyager, ShepShy, jog, kzelsama, kani_hime and fmorgana

Honorable mentions: SpaceAlex, DahliaLynn, XTR3M368, hdhd, Immortality, Fialka, Ghost11, Seyt, whaddaflock, discos8an, Shadow_Dragyn, eclips3d, InBleedingRapture, makara5656, danscott84, jolly2807, xeltech, maddbomber83, Luchaire, TerraEx, monkeysnest, raughnut, nezroy, cgramnaes, Dante646260, orgolove, kianta405, charsen, Parcheetahzan, DarkenDe, cmessaz7, Altorian (for the DAO ModManager), Lady Olivia, julesL3, ElFreely. SvK151, Kutkh, TerraEx (for the ChargenMorpher), WyldSong (For his/her tutorials on modding various things to do with DAO) and finally, BioWare (FOR MAKING THIS GAME!)