This is a masterful job of subtly tweaking a character and producing a vast improvement while retaining the original vision and aesthetics.
However, it's not packaged in an MO2-friendly way (not good for Wrye Bash/BAIN or Vortex either, I'd wager), and I would think that the vast majority of users want it with the female walk and with the lower specularity, so she doesn't awkwardly stomp around like a dude and look like she sweating off a fever. LOL.
Here's a version also with USLEP compatibility. Adds cleanup-on-death script, and USLEP's custom Breezehome wander package for her. (But keeps her generic one, for mod houses.)
YW. I patch F-loads of stuff as I'm installing, and it only started occurring to me around 2018 that others might want the results. :-) Most of my uploaded "mods" are tweaking patches like this.
Hello Rudy, thank you so much for your mod it's a beautiful redesign of Lydia best out there! I was also wondering what armor mod you used in the picture if you don't mind sharing?
I finally did it! I changed Lydia's hair AND got the textures I wanted on her without creating any neckseams! And I did it without following anyone's advice and two days worth of googling.
First thing's FIRST! Add bAllowMultipleMasterLoads=1 and bAllowMultipleMasterFiles=1 to your SkyrimEditor.ini located in your Skyrim installation directory AFTER you install Creation Kit. It's so obvious, I know, that's why nobody ever tells you this so you have to google for a couple of days just to find out.
To change Lydia's hair: Use Creation Kit. Doesn't work with NPC Editor for some unknown reason. In CK, select Skyrim.esm, select the plugin for the hair you want (I use ApachiiHairFemales.esm), and obviously select this mod's plugin (LydiaPrettyFace.esp) and make this the Active File so that all changes you make are saved onto this mod, of course. Nobody ever tells it this simply. Just keep clicking "Yes To All" then when Creation Kit is finally done loading click on Actors and look up HousecarlWhiterun in Creation Kit (because Lydia is a Vanilla follower so she has a Vanilla ID tag like this) and double-click it to open up the Actor Edit screen. Navigate to the Character Gen Parts tab and simply change her hair under Base Head Parts. Change hair color is way up at the top because why make it easier when you can make it harder to find? After this, click OK at the bottom. Then make sure the Actor tab on the left column is highlighted and select HousecarlWhiterun so it's ALSO highlighted and then press CTRL+F4 to export all FaceGeom and FaceTint data. I don't know why! It's like the Konami Code or something! Finally, for some unknown reason Creation Kit creates a facetint that you don't want because it causes dark faces! Because why make it simple when you can make it more complicated??? So now you have to go to your Skyrim\data\textures\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint\Skyrim.esm and delete Lydia's FaceTint 000a2c8e and REPLACE it with the one from this mod because Bethesda, that's why.
How to fix Lydia's neckseam if you have it. Use Gimp and do a lot of cutting & pasting from the femalebody_1.dds you want to this mod's femalehead.dds located in a NEW folder under Data\Textures\Lydia\Face.... and use that finger tool to blend the colors together as best you can. It's really the easiest and best way. Bodyslide Texture Blender can cause horrific problems because you don't know how it will turn out and most of the time people don't want the colors to be applied to everyone in the game. It only took me 2 years to find out but this mod uses the body textures from Data\Textures\Actors\Character\Female and it uses the head textures from the folder this mod creates under Data\Textures\Lydia so keep that in mind and it will make things simpler!
Done. No weird programming technological riddles to decipher with an ancient codex, no need to google for days because I've already done that for you, no assumed curse of knowledge, no strange and mysterious grammatical errors that could mean a thousand things. Just a quick step-by-step guide that everyone finds useful but nobody seems to want to make anymore.
Hi maidude First of all I appreciate your help with this guide.it was very useful. when I got the new Lydia there was not big difference between her face and body at the neck part.I just thought to try using gimp,you know one can never know :-) so my problem is when I wanted to load the femalebody_1.dds the gimp couldn`t find that so the window was blink. what could I do wrong? thx your answer.
Sorry for the long wait. You can just write to me directly next time.
femalebody_1.dds is in the folder Data\Textures\Actors\Character\Female so after you install GIMP, right-click on femalebody_1.dds and select Open With --> Choose Default Program --> and then find and select GIMP. If you don't know where GIMP is located, re-install GIMP and just remember where you install it this time.
A favorite tool I discovered in GIMP is the Clone Tool. It's a circle that you place on the picture and if you press Ctrl+Left Mouse Click then everything you draw is a COPY of that circle area. Useful for blending neck seams. It'll make more sense when you use the Clone Tool.
The only problem with the stupid Creation Kit is it changes Lydia's face a little. Her cheeks are round like Vanilla Lydia and not slim anymore like this mod. But everything else is the same like this mod. I think MAYBE this face was not made with Lydia's weight set to 100, I'm not sure. Hopefully Rudy can tell us if he's not too busy making awesome ENBs.
You got the best "lore friendly" Lydia makeover out there. Hvergelmir's Redesigned Housecarls http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/14003/? has a really good Lydia, too; but she's got a neck seam, and the author isn't updating anymore.
Thanks so much for such a great mod! It's the best Lydia mod, hands down! I have an easy question: how do you edit this mod with Skyrim NPC editor? I added a new hair to Lydia and I also changed her stance to female and when I add the .esp and .bsa to my Data folder, Lydia shows up with her default hair and dark face. The modder for Skyrim NPC Editor states that to fix this issue, simply delete the facegendata for Lydia from the meshes and textures folders but Lydia doesn't have any Facegendata to delete... unless I'm looking in the wrong spot. So I just need a step by step instruction of how YOU would do this. Maybe I'm missing a step, lol! Anyway, please help if you can, if not don't worry about it, you're still cool in my book. Thanks again.
You need Skyrim NPC Editor - to extract the head mesh with the new hair and to make an esp file and Nifskope - to change the textures path - just copy them from my 000A2C8E.NIF file. For the Lydia Facegendata ( 000A2C8E.NIF and 000a2c8e.dds ) see how it looks in my mod ( the folder structure )
Wait, wait, wait, I know it's been like 6 months, but I think I finally understand what you're saying. Let me know if this is right:
First, use Skyrim NPC Editor and edit the head and the hair like I want.
Then use Nifskope to change the texture paths... change the texture paths in what? This was where I was confused but then I realize... maybe you mean to change the texture paths for the .esp that I created in Skyrim NPC Editor? Is this right? Why didn't you just say so? LOL. So confusing....
And then you say copy the texture paths from your 000A2C8E.NIF file. I have no idea what this file is. Then I looked at the files in this mod and found this same file. Then I realized .NIFs and files have texture paths to copy. Okay, makes sense finally but I just learned that .DDS files are texture files. Do I have to copy the texture path from 000A2C8E.DDS also? I can't find it.
So this is where I'm stuck on. I guess it almost makes sense, lol.
Actually, what I care about the most is how to convert this to CBBE? How do I do that?
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However, it's not packaged in an MO2-friendly way (not good for Wrye Bash/BAIN or Vortex either, I'd wager), and I would think that the vast majority of users want it with the female walk and with the lower specularity, so she doesn't awkwardly stomp around like a dude and look like she sweating off a fever. LOL.
I built a new archive with these options, https://mega.nz/file/BYQnnAzD#kdWTGErKmLUNFco9dj_V-R1kzEDceyuTlQAUPLBoTEY, set up for fire-and-forget installation, and I figured you might want to actually include it as an option here, maybe even as the default one.
[Edit: Updated link. I accidentally zipped up the original ESP the first time. Duh.]
https://mega.nz/file/FURj0SrC#WwliomcXbnI4kaUOPNddWmQuHzbGyCAThhoL2CuSRuA
First thing's FIRST! Add bAllowMultipleMasterLoads=1 and bAllowMultipleMasterFiles=1 to your SkyrimEditor.ini located in your Skyrim installation directory AFTER you install Creation Kit. It's so obvious, I know, that's why nobody ever tells you this so you have to google for a couple of days just to find out.
To change Lydia's hair: Use Creation Kit. Doesn't work with NPC Editor for some unknown reason. In CK, select Skyrim.esm, select the plugin for the hair you want (I use ApachiiHairFemales.esm), and obviously select this mod's plugin (LydiaPrettyFace.esp) and make this the Active File so that all changes you make are saved onto this mod, of course. Nobody ever tells it this simply. Just keep clicking "Yes To All" then when Creation Kit is finally done loading click on Actors and look up HousecarlWhiterun in Creation Kit (because Lydia is a Vanilla follower so she has a Vanilla ID tag like this) and double-click it to open up the Actor Edit screen. Navigate to the Character Gen Parts tab and simply change her hair under Base Head Parts. Change hair color is way up at the top because why make it easier when you can make it harder to find? After this, click OK at the bottom.
Then make sure the Actor tab on the left column is highlighted and select HousecarlWhiterun so it's ALSO highlighted and then press CTRL+F4 to export all FaceGeom and FaceTint data. I don't know why! It's like the Konami Code or something!
Finally, for some unknown reason Creation Kit creates a facetint that you don't want because it causes dark faces! Because why make it simple when you can make it more complicated??? So now you have to go to your Skyrim\data\textures\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceTint\Skyrim.esm and delete Lydia's FaceTint 000a2c8e and REPLACE it with the one from this mod because Bethesda, that's why.
How to fix Lydia's neckseam if you have it. Use Gimp and do a lot of cutting & pasting from the femalebody_1.dds you want to this mod's femalehead.dds located in a NEW folder under Data\Textures\Lydia\Face.... and use that finger tool to blend the colors together as best you can. It's really the easiest and best way. Bodyslide Texture Blender can cause horrific problems because you don't know how it will turn out and most of the time people don't want the colors to be applied to everyone in the game. It only took me 2 years to find out but this mod uses the body textures from Data\Textures\Actors\Character\Female and it uses the head textures from the folder this mod creates under Data\Textures\Lydia so keep that in mind and it will make things simpler!
Done. No weird programming technological riddles to decipher with an ancient codex, no need to google for days because I've already done that for you, no assumed curse of knowledge, no strange and mysterious grammatical errors that could mean a thousand things. Just a quick step-by-step guide that everyone finds useful but nobody seems to want to make anymore.
First of all I appreciate your help with this guide.it was very useful. when I got the new Lydia there was not big difference between her face and body at the neck part.I just thought to try using gimp,you know one can never know :-)
so my problem is when I wanted to load the femalebody_1.dds the gimp couldn`t find that so the window was blink.
what could I do wrong?
thx your answer.
femalebody_1.dds is in the folder Data\Textures\Actors\Character\Female so after you install GIMP, right-click on femalebody_1.dds and select Open With --> Choose Default Program --> and then find and select GIMP. If you don't know where GIMP is located, re-install GIMP and just remember where you install it this time.
A favorite tool I discovered in GIMP is the Clone Tool. It's a circle that you place on the picture and if you press Ctrl+Left Mouse Click then everything you draw is a COPY of that circle area. Useful for blending neck seams. It'll make more sense when you use the Clone Tool.
The only problem with the stupid Creation Kit is it changes Lydia's face a little. Her cheeks are round like Vanilla Lydia and not slim anymore like this mod. But everything else is the same like this mod. I think MAYBE this face was not made with Lydia's weight set to 100, I'm not sure. Hopefully Rudy can tell us if he's not too busy making awesome ENBs.
Hvergelmir's Redesigned Housecarls
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/14003/?
has a really good Lydia, too; but she's got a neck seam, and the author isn't updating anymore.
First, use Skyrim NPC Editor and edit the head and the hair like I want.
Then use Nifskope to change the texture paths... change the texture paths in what? This was where I was confused but then I realize... maybe you mean to change the texture paths for the .esp that I created in Skyrim NPC Editor? Is this right? Why didn't you just say so? LOL. So confusing....
And then you say copy the texture paths from your 000A2C8E.NIF file. I have no idea what this file is. Then I looked at the files in this mod and found this same file. Then I realized .NIFs and files have texture paths to copy. Okay, makes sense finally but I just learned that .DDS files are texture files. Do I have to copy the texture path from 000A2C8E.DDS also? I can't find it.
So this is where I'm stuck on. I guess it almost makes sense, lol.
Actually, what I care about the most is how to convert this to CBBE? How do I do that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXRjCsbSsIk
The head mesh is always the same, for CBBE you perhaps should use "Texture Blender".