Inspired by: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/44938

This mod allows the player to use a separate body and face from the NPCs. It does not come with any bodies or textures, but it does come with some bodyslide slider sets for CBBE. You do not have to supply a head model (installer options), but must supply a face texture.

Now with custom werewolf support! And beast races!

Installing/Uninstalling

Install with a mod manager, mid playthrough if you like.

You can yeet the mod out of your load order at any time, just change your character to a different face part beforehand or you might get a bit frightened when you next load in.

This should be as late as possible in your load order. Or at least, after anything that modifies races or the player record because it will conflict with them. This mod touches all the races including vampire variants. Overridden records do include changes from USSEP. I wish there were a way to avoid modifying these records, but it seems that the player's complexion provides the normal map and the face part provides the diffuse texture, and it was the only way I found of adding to the complexion slider.

Whatever you do not supply in the file tree below will be invisible/purple! This includes the werewolf transformation!

Shove the relevant files in, switch to an included face part in RaceMenu, and move the complexion slider all the way to the right (you choose what the facepart is looking for when installing the mod). To use the tintmasks, you will need toset all the regular makeup colors to fully transparent, and then use the makeup tab in RaceMenu(hover over a warpaint option in the makeup tab and press T to assign it to one of the options prefixed with "CPA"). The tintmasks are entirely optional and will not prevent the mod from working.

The mod is configured to look for these paths:

├───meshes
│   └───CustomPlayerAssets
│       ├───female
│       │       1stpersonfemalebody_0.nif
│       │       1stpersonfemalebody_1.nif
│       │       1stpersonfemalehands_0.nif
│       │       1stpersonfemalehands_1.nif
│       │       femalebody_0.nif
│       │       femalebody_1.nif
│       │       femalefeet_0.nif
│       │       femalefeet_1.nif
│       │       femalehands_0.nif
│       │       femalehands_1.nif
│       │       femalehead.nif
│       │       femalehead.tri
│       │       femaleheadchargen.tri
│       │       femaleheadraces.tri
│       │
│       ├───female_argonian
│       │       1stpersonfemalebody_0.nif
│       │       1stpersonfemalebody_1.nif
│       │       1stpersonfemalehandsargonian_0.nif
│       │       1stpersonfemalehandsargonian_1.nif
│       │       femalebody_0.nif
│       │       femalebody_1.nif
│       │       femalefeet_0.nif
│       │       femalefeet_1.nif
│       │       femalehandsargonian_0.nif
│       │       femalehandsargonian_1.nif
│       │       femaleheadargonian.nif
│       │       femaleheadargonian.tri
│       │       femaleheadargonianchargen.tri
│       │       femaletailargonian.nif
│       │
│       ├───female_khajiit
│       │       1stpersonfemalebody_0.nif
│       │       1stpersonfemalebody_1.nif
│       │       1stpersonfemalehandsargonian_0.nif
│       │       1stpersonfemalehandsargonian_1.nif
│       │       femalebody_0.nif
│       │       femalebody_1.nif
│       │       femalefeet_0.nif
│       │       femalefeet_1.nif
│       │       femalehandsargonian_0.nif
│       │       femalehandsargonian_1.nif
│       │       femaleheadkhajiit.nif
│       │       femaleheadkhajiit.tri
│       │       femaleheadkhajiitchargen.tri
│       │       femaletailkhajiit.nif
│       │
│       └───female_werewolf
│               femalebodywerewolf_0.nif
│               femalebodywerewolf_1.nif
│
└───textures
    └───CustomPlayerAssets
        ├───female
        │   │   femalebody_1.dds
        │   │   femalebody_1_msn.dds
        │   │   femalebody_1_s.dds
        │   │   femalebody_1_sk.dds
        │   │   femalehands_1.dds
        │   │   femalehands_1_msn.dds
        │   │   femalehands_1_s.dds
        │   │   femalehands_1_sk.dds
        │   │   femalehead.dds
        │   │   femalehead_msn.dds
        │   │   femalehead_s.dds
        │   │   femalehead_sk.dds
        │   │
        │   └───tintmasks
        │           femaleheadbreton_lips.dds
        │           femaleheadhighelf_lips.dds
        │           femaleheadhuman_chin.dds
        │           femaleheadhuman_forehead.dds
        │           femaleheadhuman_neck.dds
        │           femaleheadhuman_nose.dds
        │           femaleheadimperial_lips.dds
        │           femaleheadnord_lips.dds
        │           femaleheadredguard_lips.dds
        │           femalehead_cheeks.dds
        │           femalehead_cheeks2.dds
        │           femalelowereyesocket.dds
        │           femalenordeyelinerstyle_01.dds
        │           femaleuppereyesocket.dds
        │
        ├───female_argonian
        │       argonianfemalebody.dds
        │       argonianfemalebody_msn.dds
        │       argonianfemalebody_s.dds
        │       argonianfemalehands.dds
        │       argonianfemalehands_msn.dds
        │       argonianfemalehands_s.dds
        │       argonianfemalehead.dds
        │       argonianfemalehead_msn.dds
        │       argonianfemalehead_s.dds
        │       femalebody_1_sk.dds
        │       femalehands_1_sk.dds
        │       femalehead_sk.dds
        │
        ├───female_khajiit
        │       femalebody.dds
        │       femalebody_1_sk.dds
        │       femalebody_msn.dds
        │       femalebody_s.dds
        │       femalehands.dds
        │       femalehands_1_sk.dds
        │       femalehands_msn.dds
        │       femalehands_s.dds
        │       femalehead.dds
        │       femalehead_msn.dds
        │       femalehead_s.dds
        │       femalehead_sk.dds
        │
        └───female_werewolf
                eyewerewolfbeastbrown.dds
                eyewerewolfbeast_n.dds
                mouthwerewolf.dds
                mouthwerewolf_n.dds
                werewolfbody.dds
                werewolfbody_n.dds
                werewolfbody_sk.dds
                werewolfhead.dds
                werewolfhead_n.dds
                werewolfhead_sk.dds


Compatibility Notes

• If you use Moonlight Tales and want the custom werewolf appearance, disable the appearance system with the ancient ring.
  

Limitations / Known Problems

Things I have not yet figured out how to do (but am trying):

• Stop the specular map and glow map on the face resetting to the non-custom version when loading a save, preset, or RaceMenu itself. A workaround for this is to use the fully custom head and edit the .NIF in NifSkope to point to the custom textures.
  

• Provide custom body morphs. It uses the non-custom ones, so if your custom body is CBBE, then the NPCs will also have to use CBBE if you want the CBBE sliders in RaceMenu to work. Don't worry otherwise, it is not a requirement. To have a different body size than the NPCs you can leave the in-game morphs untouched and just morph it in BodySlide.
• Unable to specify a custom khajiit mouth or eyes. This means whatever custom head mesh you choose must line up with the vanilla mouth/eyes meshes. This is not a problem for the texture only lifestyle.
  

Things I can't be bothered to do (Sorry! Maybe in the future?):

• Male characters.
• Vampire Lord form.
  

Things that it can't do but could be patched to do:

• Custom races. To make them work the race would need to be added to the SkinNaked armor addon records, and the race would need to be extended to include the face texture set as a complexion.
• Custom transformations. I think just adding the transformation armor addon to the armature of the CPA_SkinNaked armor record should do the trick.
  

When using Fully Custom Head option - Facegen Morph Extensions

If the facegen morphs you want to use have extensions, place them in `meshes\actors\character\facegenmorphs\morphs\CPA\{NAME_OF_MORPH}`, and run `tools\CustomPlayerAssets\UpdateMorphLinks.exe`. Do not move the executable from this folder, for it uses relative paths.

Example, for High Poly Head with Expressive Facegen Morphs to work in the custom face part you will need to place the following:

• femalehead_cme.tri
• femalehead_ece.tri
• femalehead_efm.tri
• femalehead_expr.tri
• femalehead_extra.tri
• femalehead_nuska.tri
• femalehead_race.tri
• femalehead_rans.tri
  

in `meshes\actors\character\facegenmorphs\morphs\CPA\femaleheadchargen` and run the tool.

Alternatively, you can manually edit the settings of course.