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About this mod
Simple NPC Outfit Manager allows you to have direct control over what your Skyrim NPCs are wearing. Create custom outfits and equip them to any Skyrim NPC. Powerful, functional, and lightweight.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
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Translations
- Turkish
- Spanish
- Portuguese
- German
- Changelogs
Motivation
Ever since I began playing Skyrim, I’ve been frustrated with the options given to us to manage what NPCs are wearing. The only option in the base game is to trade something to a follower, and even then they would unequip the outfit as soon as you dismissed them! And if you wanted to change the outfit on a character that wasn’t a follower? You were out of luck. A few mods over the years have made attempts to solve this problem, but (with all due respect to the authors and their hard work) I personally feel that they have all been very script-heavy or unnecessarily complicated.
Simple NPC Outfit Manager (my very first mod release!) addresses all of these problems. It does exactly what the title says: it allows complete customization of Skyrim NPC outfits. It’s dead simple and completely conflict-free. It’s extremely lightweight, with only a few single-run scripts and zero performance impact. Best of all, it actually works. All the weird bugs you'll find in other outfit managers just don't happen here. The outfit changes are done at the engine level, so they are seamless and 100% reliable. And this is all done natively; you do not need SKSE installed. Yes, that means it works perfectly with SSE out of the box.
How To Use
The mod is operated entirely through dialogue. All you need to do is talk to any NPC, look for the option “Let’s talk outfits...”, and you will be able to fully customize fifteen different outfits at a time. (Note that you can equip those fifteen outfits to as many people as you wish.) If you grab the "Utility" version of the mod, you also have the option of browsing through a broad selection of generic vanilla Skyrim outfits to equip.
That's it. Simple as pie.
I made a video to demonstrate the mod’s functionality, which you can check out here. I’ve included some text commentary in the subtitles, so be sure to turn those on as well. This video was made for version 1.0, so some things may look a bit different, but it should get the point across.
Versions
As of version 1.1, the mod now comes in two different versions that vary only on restrictions to the outfit dialogue.
Installation
The only requirement for this mod is a fully updated version of Skyrim. Installation is just like any other mod. Download with your favorite mod manager, install it, and then play away. If installing manually, just extract the .7z and be sure to drop both the .esp and .bsa into your Skyrim/Data folder. Load order should not matter at all.
Uninstallation
The bad news: I cannot recommend that you uninstall the mod once you’ve started using it. Doing so won’t corrupt your saves or leave script artifacts or make your game unstable, but it will leave any NPCs whose outfits you changed to a custom outfit while using the mod naked after a while. This is the only real drawback with this mod: there’s no easy way to uninstall it without these adverse effects to your game.
The good news: fortunately, there is a sort-of-workaround. The generic outfits included in the mod (i.e. the vanilla outfits you select from a list under “Equip a generic outfit.”) are safe from this problem; any NPCs wearing generic outfits will continue to wear those outfits after uninstallation. (In fact, the nudity issue was the initial reason I included generic outfit selection.) So, you need to find anyone whom you gave a custom outfit and tell them to wear something generic instead. (If you have the Immersive version, you can enable the generic outfit picker with the command
Beyond that workaround, I cannot provide any further support for uninstallation. Believe me, I’ve tried to figure out a good way to support automated uninstallation, but any method would be massively complicated and would likely require SKSE--and that would kind of defeat the point of making a “Simple” mod.
Compatibility
Simple NPC Outfit Manager should be compatible with everything. It does not edit any vanilla records; the only thing it actually touches is the NPC's outfit (via script) when a new one is assigned, so there should be zero conflicts.
Since launch, there have been quite a few people specifically asking how well the mod plays together with follower overhauls such as AFT and EFF that also do outfit management. I do not personally use either, but several people have commented that they work just fine together; others have said that they have run into some issues when using both systems on the same NPC. My personal recommendation, should you choose to use my mod, would be to disable AFT or EFF's outfit management and use my mod in place of it to avoid any hiccups (and also since my system should just work better and be more reliable). Apart from the outfit manager, there should be absolutely no problem using them together otherwise. In general: use one outfit system per NPC, and you should be OK.
Recommended Mods
FAQ
Q: Do you have any plans to add more outfit slots?
A: No. Fifteen slots should be plenty for most people.
However: for those that do need more, there is a way to change arbitrarily many NPC outfits, which I'll detail here.
In a nutshell, changing what is in an outfit slot doesn't change existing instances of that outfit equipped on NPCs already. As an example: if I equip outfit 1 on NPC 1, then change the items in outfit 1 and then equip that outfit to NPC 2, NPC 1 will still be wearing the original outfit you gave them -- they won't have switched over to the new outfit. In effect, this means you can equip as many different outfits to as many NPCs as you like. The only limitation is how many "recent" outfits you can store: up to 15.
Q: Can you add this cool new feature I thought of?
A: Unfortunately, no. I believe this mod strikes a good balance of functionality and simplicity as-is, and I have no plans to continue development at this time.
I'm happy for others to build features on top of what I already have and release it as an augmentation to this mod, as long as you reach out to me beforehand (see below) and give appropriate credit (as in, linking back to this mod).
Q: How the hell did you make this work?!
A: Creative use of data structures :)
If you’re curious about how the mod works technically, I’d love to chat about it. Just shoot me an email at [email protected] or send me a PM on reddit. I’ve also included the source code for the mod in my BSA if you want to have a look at that; you just need to extract it.
Q: Can I integrate your outfit functionality in my mod?
A: Absolutely! As mentioned before, just get in touch with me using the methods above, and I’d be happy to discuss and provide guidance.
If you do decide to integrate this, I ask that you credit me.
Q: Can I translate your mod?
A: Of course. If you’re interested in providing a translation, get in touch with me using the means outlined above; I’d be happy to upload translations to the mod page.
Credits
Thanks to Bethesda for creating an amazing game and for providing the tools to make this mod happen.
A huge thanks to everyone who helped me throughout the mod’s development, including:
And a huge thanks to YOU for taking the time to check out my very first mod!
Ever since I began playing Skyrim, I’ve been frustrated with the options given to us to manage what NPCs are wearing. The only option in the base game is to trade something to a follower, and even then they would unequip the outfit as soon as you dismissed them! And if you wanted to change the outfit on a character that wasn’t a follower? You were out of luck. A few mods over the years have made attempts to solve this problem, but (with all due respect to the authors and their hard work) I personally feel that they have all been very script-heavy or unnecessarily complicated.
Simple NPC Outfit Manager (my very first mod release!) addresses all of these problems. It does exactly what the title says: it allows complete customization of Skyrim NPC outfits. It’s dead simple and completely conflict-free. It’s extremely lightweight, with only a few single-run scripts and zero performance impact. Best of all, it actually works. All the weird bugs you'll find in other outfit managers just don't happen here. The outfit changes are done at the engine level, so they are seamless and 100% reliable. And this is all done natively; you do not need SKSE installed. Yes, that means it works perfectly with SSE out of the box.
How To Use
The mod is operated entirely through dialogue. All you need to do is talk to any NPC, look for the option “Let’s talk outfits...”, and you will be able to fully customize fifteen different outfits at a time. (Note that you can equip those fifteen outfits to as many people as you wish.) If you grab the "Utility" version of the mod, you also have the option of browsing through a broad selection of generic vanilla Skyrim outfits to equip.
That's it. Simple as pie.
I made a video to demonstrate the mod’s functionality, which you can check out here. I’ve included some text commentary in the subtitles, so be sure to turn those on as well. This video was made for version 1.0, so some things may look a bit different, but it should get the point across.
Versions
As of version 1.1, the mod now comes in two different versions that vary only on restrictions to the outfit dialogue.
- The "Immersive" version will restrict outfit dialogue to Allies and higher, and will not have the generic outfit picker available. Best for role-players that need muh immersion.
- The “Utility” version will make the dialogue available to all unique NPCs and will have the generic outfit picker available by default. Useful for those that want to tweak the outfits on everyone in their game, or who may want to use it as a debugging utility.
- Both versions can have all restrictions lifted (including the restriction on changing non-unique NPC’s outfits -- do this at your own risk!) by entering the console command
set CCORestrictOutfitDialogue to 0. You can put the restrictions back by runningset CCORestrictOutfitDialogue to 1.
Installation
The only requirement for this mod is a fully updated version of Skyrim. Installation is just like any other mod. Download with your favorite mod manager, install it, and then play away. If installing manually, just extract the .7z and be sure to drop both the .esp and .bsa into your Skyrim/Data folder. Load order should not matter at all.
Uninstallation
The bad news: I cannot recommend that you uninstall the mod once you’ve started using it. Doing so won’t corrupt your saves or leave script artifacts or make your game unstable, but it will leave any NPCs whose outfits you changed to a custom outfit while using the mod naked after a while. This is the only real drawback with this mod: there’s no easy way to uninstall it without these adverse effects to your game.
The good news: fortunately, there is a sort-of-workaround. The generic outfits included in the mod (i.e. the vanilla outfits you select from a list under “Equip a generic outfit.”) are safe from this problem; any NPCs wearing generic outfits will continue to wear those outfits after uninstallation. (In fact, the nudity issue was the initial reason I included generic outfit selection.) So, you need to find anyone whom you gave a custom outfit and tell them to wear something generic instead. (If you have the Immersive version, you can enable the generic outfit picker with the command
set CCORestrictOutfitDialogue to 0.) After doing so, you can safely uninstall the mod through your mod manager or by removing all the mod files from your Skyrim/Data directory, and you should be all set. It can be tedious, but it should get you around the nudity issue.Beyond that workaround, I cannot provide any further support for uninstallation. Believe me, I’ve tried to figure out a good way to support automated uninstallation, but any method would be massively complicated and would likely require SKSE--and that would kind of defeat the point of making a “Simple” mod.
Compatibility
Simple NPC Outfit Manager should be compatible with everything. It does not edit any vanilla records; the only thing it actually touches is the NPC's outfit (via script) when a new one is assigned, so there should be zero conflicts.
Since launch, there have been quite a few people specifically asking how well the mod plays together with follower overhauls such as AFT and EFF that also do outfit management. I do not personally use either, but several people have commented that they work just fine together; others have said that they have run into some issues when using both systems on the same NPC. My personal recommendation, should you choose to use my mod, would be to disable AFT or EFF's outfit management and use my mod in place of it to avoid any hiccups (and also since my system should just work better and be more reliable). Apart from the outfit manager, there should be absolutely no problem using them together otherwise. In general: use one outfit system per NPC, and you should be OK.
Recommended Mods
- Outfit mods to dress up your NPCs with! The ones I used in the demo video are:
- Fuz Ro D'oh: Though not as necessary anymore with version 1.1 of the mod, Fuz Ro D'oh will still be useful if you intend to use Simple NPC Outfit Manager on an NPC with a non-standard voice type (since those lines will be unvoiced).
FAQ
Q: Do you have any plans to add more outfit slots?
A: No. Fifteen slots should be plenty for most people.
However: for those that do need more, there is a way to change arbitrarily many NPC outfits, which I'll detail here.
In a nutshell, changing what is in an outfit slot doesn't change existing instances of that outfit equipped on NPCs already. As an example: if I equip outfit 1 on NPC 1, then change the items in outfit 1 and then equip that outfit to NPC 2, NPC 1 will still be wearing the original outfit you gave them -- they won't have switched over to the new outfit. In effect, this means you can equip as many different outfits to as many NPCs as you like. The only limitation is how many "recent" outfits you can store: up to 15.
Q: Can you add this cool new feature I thought of?
A: Unfortunately, no. I believe this mod strikes a good balance of functionality and simplicity as-is, and I have no plans to continue development at this time.
I'm happy for others to build features on top of what I already have and release it as an augmentation to this mod, as long as you reach out to me beforehand (see below) and give appropriate credit (as in, linking back to this mod).
Q: How the hell did you make this work?!
A: Creative use of data structures :)
If you’re curious about how the mod works technically, I’d love to chat about it. Just shoot me an email at [email protected] or send me a PM on reddit. I’ve also included the source code for the mod in my BSA if you want to have a look at that; you just need to extract it.
Q: Can I integrate your outfit functionality in my mod?
A: Absolutely! As mentioned before, just get in touch with me using the methods above, and I’d be happy to discuss and provide guidance.
If you do decide to integrate this, I ask that you credit me.
Q: Can I translate your mod?
A: Of course. If you’re interested in providing a translation, get in touch with me using the means outlined above; I’d be happy to upload translations to the mod page.
Credits
Thanks to Bethesda for creating an amazing game and for providing the tools to make this mod happen.
A huge thanks to everyone who helped me throughout the mod’s development, including:
- Garthand, who helped test the mod on SSE and advised me on how to release it
- Chesko, who provided some valuable scripting help/motivation early on in the process
- OldMansBeard and migal for their helpfulness in tracking down some issues and providing appropriate fixes for version 1.1
- All the users that reported bugs and suggested fixes--you guys are awesome!
And a huge thanks to YOU for taking the time to check out my very first mod!