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About this mod
This mod offers "Vanilla+" changes to many of the College of Winterhold NPCs, ranging from subtle tweaks to re-imaginings.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
My initial goal was to tweak certain pairs of College NPCs, such as Phinis and Arniel, Faralda and Nirya, and Colette and Mirabelle, so that they were easier to tell apart at a distance, saving the player time when searching the College for the correct trainer or merchant. Like many other modders before me, I started to get into the fun of tweaking the faces, and so I tweaked and tweaked until I was happy.
This mod contains edits to Phinis, Arniel, Faralda, Nirya, Colette, Mirabelle, Onmund, J'zargo, and Brelyna. (For Sergius, I recommend Consistent Older People.) It features only vanilla hair and has no external dependencies. The three apprentices have been switched to the hoodless variations of their outfits. Mirabelle has been given master robes, and Nirya adept robes. As of version 1.2 the Immersive College NPCs are now featured (requires ICNs version 1.1), with subtle tweaks to facial features and new detailed tint masks for all characters.
The archive includes an installer which allows you to select your version based on other mods you have installed. All plugins are in the ESP-FE format. The files contained in the archive are loose, as this reduces the chance of face bugs, so manual installation or using NMM is not recommended.
I've included several variations which merge my face changes with the skills, stats, or schedule changes of other mods. Though the versions offered only support one of these at a time, advanced users should be able to use xEdit to create customized versions so you can, for example, use the stats from one mod, with the schedules from another, and the outfit from a third, and the faces from mine.
Additional Notes:
- This mod is designed to work with Obscure's College of Winterhold version 1.4.06 and later. If you're still using an earlier version, please consider updating.
- Armor and Clothing Extension for WACCF features its down outfit changes which will overwrite mine, no matter where in your load order you put them.
Spoiler:
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Q: Why remove these face edits from Obscure's College of Winterhold and make it standalone?
A: After making dozens of patches for NPC face compatibility, I learned how to use quests to set NPC schedules, eliminating the need to edit the NPC records for that purpose. By removing my edits of the vanilla NPCs, I was able to discontinue 29 patches and free myself from making more. However, this also required putting my face edits in a separate mod which can be installed and sorted in your mod manager independently from OCW.
Q: Help! I have a black face bug!
A: It may help to follow these steps.
1) Compare the order of mod priority (i.e. which files overwrite which) to the plugin load order. Both orders should match.
2) If you're using a mod manager which uses a virtual file system (I highly recommend that you do), you may have loose files in your Skyrim install folder or overwrite folder which are causing a problem. If you think those files should be there, you can follow these steps to identify the exact files that are bugging the NPCs' faces.
a) Look up the NPC with a buggy face on an Elder Scrolls Wiki.
b) Find the character's BaseID. For example, Onmund's is
c) Search your Skyrim Data folder (or MO2 overwrite folder) for any filename by that name. For example,
d) Delete those files. If you want to be safe, just re-name them, like
3) You can always come by and ask. I don't mind helping. :)
Q: I want to use this mod but I don't like how one character looks.
A: It's safe to open up the plugin and simply delete the record of the NPC who doesn't look right to you. If you do so, you must then note the BaseID of that character, and then find the .nif and .dds either in the mod's install folder or in the game folder and delete or rename them.
A: After making dozens of patches for NPC face compatibility, I learned how to use quests to set NPC schedules, eliminating the need to edit the NPC records for that purpose. By removing my edits of the vanilla NPCs, I was able to discontinue 29 patches and free myself from making more. However, this also required putting my face edits in a separate mod which can be installed and sorted in your mod manager independently from OCW.
Q: Help! I have a black face bug!
A: It may help to follow these steps.
1) Compare the order of mod priority (i.e. which files overwrite which) to the plugin load order. Both orders should match.
2) If you're using a mod manager which uses a virtual file system (I highly recommend that you do), you may have loose files in your Skyrim install folder or overwrite folder which are causing a problem. If you think those files should be there, you can follow these steps to identify the exact files that are bugging the NPCs' faces.
a) Look up the NPC with a buggy face on an Elder Scrolls Wiki.
b) Find the character's BaseID. For example, Onmund's is
0001C194.c) Search your Skyrim Data folder (or MO2 overwrite folder) for any filename by that name. For example,
0001C194.nif and 0001C194.dds.d) Delete those files. If you want to be safe, just re-name them, like
_0001C194.nif.3) You can always come by and ask. I don't mind helping. :)
Q: I want to use this mod but I don't like how one character looks.
A: It's safe to open up the plugin and simply delete the record of the NPC who doesn't look right to you. If you do so, you must then note the BaseID of that character, and then find the .nif and .dds either in the mod's install folder or in the game folder and delete or rename them.
Character Facegeoms and Tintmasks have been built with the following resources:
- Ultimate Eye Meshes Ruhmastered
- Better Makeup for SKSE *
- ENB Brow Fix
- Seamless Males
- Eyes AO Clipping Fix
* All players will benefit from the more nicely drawn tintmask templates offered by this resource, but you'll only be able to see the tintmasks rendered at high resolution in-game if you're using SKSE with the ini tweak proposed by this mod.
I used the following optional mods while taking screenshots to showcase this work:
Shiva182 gave me a lot of advice when I was first learning about face editing, how to avoid bugs, which resources to gather, and how the entire system works.