Description

The classic female NPC appearance overhaul combo (Bijin, Pandorable and Kalilies) doesn't cover all the unique female NPCs, so I made this mod following Kalilies' guide.

All NPCs in this mod are created with High Poly Head. Also, to some degree I kept some of the vanilla designs, for example I removed all the "use opposite sex animation" flag from the NPCs as in Bijin's and Pandorable's there are similar edits, but I kept this flag on the Orcs unchanged and some orc females will act like males.

I do not plan to add more NPCs to this mod, but I want to give some NPCs more facial details (like deeper nasolabial folds) in the future through either makeups or normal map so that their faces do not look too smooth. Currently I haven't found any mod that suits my need.

There are two versions under the Files tab: a lite version which only contains 48 NPCs that are not covered by the 3 mods mentioned above and a full version which changes 42 more NPCs based on my preference. The lite version will work well alongside Bijin, Pandorable and Kalilies with 0 conflict, while the full version will overwrite some NPCs from Pandorable and Kalilies. If you prefer their looks from other mods, you can remove the NPCs from the files and plugins, or use EasyNPC (I never used this, but I heard it works great).

You can find screenshots for every NPC I modified, and some NPCs with their families from Bijin and Pandorable.


NPC List

Lite version (48 NPCs):


Full version (all 48 NPCs above plus the following 42 NPCs):



Requirements

Skyrim Special Edition + Dawnguard + ccBGSSSE001-Fish (the free CC fishing mod that came with AE update)
High Poly Head
Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch (maybe not needed, but all edits from USSEP v4.2.7 are forwarded so it is better to have it installed)
KS Hairdos SSE(v1.9+)*
High Poly Curly Scalp Female Fix for KS Hairdo's is recommended.
The Eye of Beauty SSE or The Eyes of Beauty AI Remastered (and Vampire Eyes/Remastered if you are using the full version) *

*not hard requirement but I recommend using the mods. All the meshes/textures that are used in my mod are included in the option files.


Installation

Choose only 1 version to install with your mod manager. It can be added/edited/removed anytime. The plugin is ESP-FE.

This mod will use whatever skin you have and whatever hair texture you have for KS Hairdos. If you are using the files from the optional files, they are the ones from KS Hairdos SSE, High Poly Curly Scalp Female Fix for KS Hairdo's and The Eyes of Beauty AI Remastered (vampire eyes included for full version). You do not need these if you are already using the mods in requirements.

The load order should be like any other NPC overhauls: keep the one you like to see loaded later. For example, I am using the full version with High Poly NPC Overhaul, Bijin, Pandorable and Kalilies, the load order should look like:

Skyrim.esm
...
Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp
...
High Poly Head.esm
...
all High Poly NPC Overhaul - ... .esps
all Pan_NPCs_... .esps
all Bijin ... .esps
KaliliesNPCs.esp
meon1k NPCs.esp
...


Mods Used in Screenshots

Skins are NOT included in this mod. I am using a mix of Bijin Skin (main), Fair Skin Complexion (body normal map and teeth/mouth) and ALT2 (face complexion for older people). Some characters have sweaty textures which are from Wet Function Redux SE.

The ENB is Rudy's ENB for Cathedral Weathers (Zangdar's version).


Troubleshooting

This part is more like some learning notes I took when creating this mod. I think I didn't leave any bug I mentioned below but if there is any bug caused by this mod, do let me know which NPC is bugged and I'll fix it.

1. Conflict with other mods:
This mod will conflict with any mod that changed the same records. It is recommended to check the conflicts in SSEEdit after installation. Patching the conflicts with SSEEdit is really easy (Just several clicks or simply a drag and drop). I learned making patches from this video. In my load order I do not have any conflict, but if you made a patch for your load order and the patch can also be used by others, feel free to publish it.

2. Dark face:
An NPC showing a Dark face means the head parts of the NPC in the final load order do not match the head part names in the NIF files. When mod A, B both edit the same NPC, their mod order is A, B and plugin order is B, A, dark face occurs because game reads from plugin A but find files from B. If it is not caused by a wrong load order, then most likely there are some conflicts in the load order and another ESP loaded later changed the same NPC's record. In this case a patch is needed.

3. Pink/purple textures:
Texture not found. Check if all requirements are installed. There might be some oversight if you are using the resource pack as some of the meshes do not use the textures of the same name. I'll update it if anything is missing.

4. Neck seam:
There are 2 kinds of neck seam: the color difference is caused by the NPC's skin color value being different from the face skin color in the face texture, and the size difference is caused by the NPC weight being different from the one used in creating the head mesh. Any edit of the NPC's weight and skin color will cause the neck seam.

5. Some head part is stretching/flickering:
I do not think this will happen on this mod, but I met this during making it, so this is a tip for anyone who wants to mod an NPC: The problem comes with using mismatched meshes to create the face, like using a vanilla scar on high poly head, or rename a vanilla head part as a high poly one in the NIF file.


Credits

Kalilies for the NPC replacer guide and Kalilies NPCs as well as rxkx22, Pandorable for their amazing NPC overhauls that inspired me to make this one.
Expired for RaceMenu
Niroku for Expressive Facegen Morphs
ElminsterAU and the xEdit team for SSEEdit
NifTools' developers for NifSkope
G_k for Cathedral Assets Optimizer
KouLeifoh for High Poly Head
Kalilies and Stealthic for KS Hairdos SSE
LogRaam aka Gabriel Mailhot for The Eyes of Beauty, docteure for the SSE version and wammy for the AI remastered version
DomainWolf for Vanilla Warpaints Absolution
brad777no for High Poly Curly Scalp Female Fix for KS Hairdo's
Wenderer for FOMOD Creation Tool
PastChristmas for Verterans - Playable Elder Races
Koveich for the font Sovngarde used in the cover
Boris Vorontsov for ENB and Rudy102 for the Rudy ENB preset making the game look so beautiful
Bethesda for Skyrim and Creation Kit


My Other NPC Appearance Overhauls

meon1k NPCs - Cutting Room Floor
meon1k NPCs - Alternate Start