If you're open to requests, any chance you could do the Pale next? I've found suitable overhauls for the other holds missing from your series, but not the Pale. Seems like everyone forgets about Dawnstar, and I don't want to download mods that overhaul all of Skyrim just to get Dawnstar NPCs to not look like potatoes.
Anyways, these are the best overhauls for Skyrim and I eagerly look forward to seeing more releases from you :)
If your using High Poly Head just make sure you select the EFA patch in the HPH installer so it installs the correct .tri files.
My mod comes with the .tri files necessary for the NPCs but they are the exact same files you would get if you installed HPH and selected the EFA patch. So if you install HPH and select the EFA patch it doesn't matter if it overwrites Northbourne.
Hiya, loving yer mods and had a question. From what I could find, you're still working on more NPC overhauls which is awesome!
But, when you're done, are you planning on making a AIO mod pack for your mods?
If that's possible, you'd save 8 .ESP slots for the price of one. Now that may not mean to you, but for big modded load orders(like 500+mods), That's a god send to have.
Yes, I plan on doing an AIO. It may also be possible to esl flag them, but I don't want to mess anything up by doing that right now and having issues later ( like I will likely exceed the 2048 record limit when everything is combined)
Glad you like them. All NPCs from the Dawnguard DLC are already covered in their respective holds they are located in (vampires in Haafingar and dawnguard base in the Rift)
Dragonborn DLC will be done after the mainland is finished.
Outstanding job with your NPC overhauls, the only ones i'll ever use. Sadly I got invisible faces in Whiterun because of AI overhaul and the patch is not getting updated. I tried using synthesis but still not working. I hope the patch gets an update
If you are getting invisible faces that happens when some mod tries regenerating the facegen of the NPCs. Face Discoloration Fix is the primary mod that does this and isn't compatible with NPC overhauls that were created using Racemenu.
I can't wait for all npcs to be remade, these are the best overhaul mods to date but I'm one of those people who needs consistency across all the regions so wont be touching these yet. In any case, great work, you really are talented.
Yeah, I hear ya. That was one of the main reasons I started this series. There just weren't very many decent overhauls that covered everyone.
So I've made it my goal to overhaul everyone that has a unique facegen I can edit. If nothing else I will have created a very good base overhaul that covers every unique NPC in Skyrim that users can then layer their favorites for main NPCs on top of.
I'll just have to find some kind of solution for generic NPCs in the future...
Would there be an issue if we convert this to an ESL-flagged esp? I can "technically" do it on SSEdit with the usual conversion scripts without any errors, but not sure if changing formids would break its use with your other mods
Well the NPCs in the Whiterun release will be referencing the hairparts from this resource package by their form id. So changing the form id would cause a discrepancy.
But, the hairparts and such are baked into the NPC facegen nif, they are not added at runtime, the game engine just need the names of the faceparts in the facegen to match the name of faceparts listed in the esp.
So you may be able to get away with that discrepancy with no ill effect.
Since load order shouldn't matter for a resource pack (other than being above dependents), I personally find it is usually ideal to have them as ESMs, or if there's no plan to go over the record limit (2,048 unique/non-vanilla records) ESMs flagged as ESLs, or pure ESLs. Packing the resources in BSA format is also usually optimal but not necessary.
But for simply converting this plugin to an ESPFE (flagged as ESL) all you need to do is have the Northbourne NPCs of Whiterun plugin also loaded in xEdit when you compact the FormIDs of the master plugin. They will automatically be updated. Nothing else to it. If Forms don't need to be compacted, then ESL-flagging won't do any harm at all.
All of the individual Northbourne NPCs mod plugins themselves should also typically be ESPFEs for non-VR mod users, since they are pretty much just vanilla record overwrites and don't in any way require taking up ESP space.
All of this can easily be done on the user's end as well as the author's, and performed in a matter of minutes with no hassle (just right-click the plugin in xEdit, select "compact FormIDs for ESL", wait the seconds it takes to complete, then flag the plugin as an ESL in the header). But Southpawe has already been gracious enough to share these extremely well-done faces with us, and users should learn to do these basic optimization steps for their own good anyways.
Thanks for the info. I'll look into seeing if I can do this on my end as well. I'd thought there was a reason for not using espfe for NPC based mods but I may be mistaken.
I'll be sure to test thoroughly at any rate before publishing that change.
I'm no expert, since I've never made an NPC overhaul myself. If there is a special reason for NPC replacers, I've simply never heard of it. The ESLifying process for all mods in general is only limited by the 2,048 unique record count (not counting overrides), and containing no new cell spaces. Most NPC replacers I've downloaded these days are ESPFEs, such as those by lilson, eeekie, and nightmarezone. I just assumed similar mods still in ESP format were so simply because they're old, or because many of us are still not used to working with ESL plugin formats. In the early days, there were a lot of misconceptions.
So, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong and the process is in fact not that simple. If FormID updates within reliant plugins is the only problem, that is automatically done for you by xEdit, so it's a non-issue. It's conceivable for a big AIO NPC overhaul to have more than 2,048 unique records related to unique head parts and alternate textures or body meshes for those NPCs, but not typically for ones limited to named NPCs in a single hold, especially if they are going to rely on an external resource pack.
I just happened to have a thought while installing overhauls for unique mod NPCs, and think I realized where the idea that you "shouldn't ESL-flag NPC-based mods" comes from.
If the NPCs are unique to the mod (such as a population mod adding new citizens), then I believe compacting the FormIDs and flagging the mod as ESL would mean you would have to regenerate or manually rename all of the FaceGen to match the new FormIDs. Hence, that would the kind of "NPC-based" mod that would be off-limits for casual ESPFE conversion.
However, that doesn't apply at all to mods like yours only affecting vanilla NPCs, since the NPC records involved are not unique (they are vanilla overwrites) and as such are not affected by compacting your plugin's unique FormIDs (which would be the headparts, textures, etc.)
Be aware, you'll need to compact IDs, which will break saves, and change the plugin type to ESL-flagged, which will break saves. So, making the shift before releasing other updates means people can update this when convenient and be less likely to have to start a new save to get new faces when those arrive.
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Anyways, these are the best overhauls for Skyrim and I eagerly look forward to seeing more releases from you :)
Can you make a all in one merged mod like PAN, or at least mark them as ESLs
My mod comes with the .tri files necessary for the NPCs but they are the exact same files you would get if you installed HPH and selected the EFA patch. So if you install HPH and select the EFA patch it doesn't matter if it overwrites Northbourne.
See my reply on the Whiterun page for BUVARP.
But, when you're done, are you planning on making a AIO mod pack for your mods?
If that's possible, you'd save 8 .ESP slots for the price of one.
Now that may not mean to you, but for big modded load orders(like 500+mods), That's a god send to have.
Thanks for making these mods!
Dragonborn DLC will be done after the mainland is finished.
Sadly I got invisible faces in Whiterun because of AI overhaul and the patch is not getting updated. I tried using synthesis but still not working. I hope the patch gets an update
Thanks for your work!
If you are getting invisible faces that happens when some mod tries regenerating the facegen of the NPCs. Face Discoloration Fix is the primary mod that does this and isn't compatible with NPC overhauls that were created using Racemenu.
So I've made it my goal to overhaul everyone that has a unique facegen I can edit. If nothing else I will have created a very good base overhaul that covers every unique NPC in Skyrim that users can then layer their favorites for main NPCs on top of.
I'll just have to find some kind of solution for generic NPCs in the future...
Ps. keep coming back to look at that Irileth/Balgruff screenshot on the whiterun mod, they look so badass together now
But, the hairparts and such are baked into the NPC facegen nif, they are not added at runtime, the game engine just need the names of the faceparts in the facegen to match the name of faceparts listed in the esp.
So you may be able to get away with that discrepancy with no ill effect.
But for simply converting this plugin to an ESPFE (flagged as ESL) all you need to do is have the Northbourne NPCs of Whiterun plugin also loaded in xEdit when you compact the FormIDs of the master plugin. They will automatically be updated. Nothing else to it. If Forms don't need to be compacted, then ESL-flagging won't do any harm at all.
All of the individual Northbourne NPCs mod plugins themselves should also typically be ESPFEs for non-VR mod users, since they are pretty much just vanilla record overwrites and don't in any way require taking up ESP space.
All of this can easily be done on the user's end as well as the author's, and performed in a matter of minutes with no hassle (just right-click the plugin in xEdit, select "compact FormIDs for ESL", wait the seconds it takes to complete, then flag the plugin as an ESL in the header). But Southpawe has already been gracious enough to share these extremely well-done faces with us, and users should learn to do these basic optimization steps for their own good anyways.
I'll be sure to test thoroughly at any rate before publishing that change.
So, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong and the process is in fact not that simple.
If the NPCs are unique to the mod (such as a population mod adding new citizens), then I believe compacting the FormIDs and flagging the mod as ESL would mean you would have to regenerate or manually rename all of the FaceGen to match the new FormIDs. Hence, that would the kind of "NPC-based" mod that would be off-limits for casual ESPFE conversion.
However, that doesn't apply at all to mods like yours only affecting vanilla NPCs, since the NPC records involved are not unique (they are vanilla overwrites) and as such are not affected by compacting your plugin's unique FormIDs (which would be the headparts, textures, etc.)
I've been working on updating Falkreath in between playing through Fallout 4 again.
Be aware, you'll need to compact IDs, which will break saves, and change the plugin type to ESL-flagged, which will break saves. So, making the shift before releasing other updates means people can update this when convenient and be less likely to have to start a new save to get new faces when those arrive.