Difference between revisions of "Adding a Follower NPC to Skyrim"

From Nexus Mods Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 20: Line 20:
 
[[File:Merchant_8_character_outfit.jpg|right|thumb|NPC outfit and inventory]]
 
[[File:Merchant_8_character_outfit.jpg|right|thumb|NPC outfit and inventory]]
 
[[File:FollowerTut_3_AIPackage.jpg|right|thumb|NPC daily routine]]
 
[[File:FollowerTut_3_AIPackage.jpg|right|thumb|NPC daily routine]]
 +
[[File:FollowerTut_2_Factions.jpg|right|thumb|Follower factions]]
 +
[[File:Merchant_11_chest_location.jpg|right|thumb|Editting the NPC location]]
  
 
The easiest way for adding new content, including new characters, for Skyrim with the Creation Kit is to copy an existing object and that is what we are going to do in this tutorial. So, we are going to use an existing NPC as a template for creating the new one.
 
The easiest way for adding new content, including new characters, for Skyrim with the Creation Kit is to copy an existing object and that is what we are going to do in this tutorial. So, we are going to use an existing NPC as a template for creating the new one.
Line 87: Line 89:
  
 
=== Assign the right factions to your NPC ===
 
=== Assign the right factions to your NPC ===
The most important thing you have to do is to assign the right factions to your NPC or he won't be able to sell/buy anything.
+
The most important thing you have to do is to assign the right factions to your NPC or you won't be able to recruit him.
 
You assign the factions to an NPC by dragging and dropping factions to the ''Factions and Ranks'' list of the ''Factions'' tab.
 
You assign the factions to an NPC by dragging and dropping factions to the ''Factions and Ranks'' list of the ''Factions'' tab.
  
There are two factions that any merchant needs to have:
+
There are two factions that any follower needs to have:
* ''JobMerchantFaction'': this adds the merchant dialogue to your NPC. Set the ''Rank'' to 0 as shown in picture ''Merchant factions''.
+
* ''CurrentFollowerFaction'': this indicates if the follower is now part of your team or is waiting to be recruited. Set the ''Rank'' to -1 as shown in picture ''Follower factions''.
* The services faction you created previously: this will allow your NPC to sell/buy the items from your container at the conditions specified by you when creating this faction.
+
* ''PotentialFollowerFaction'': this will allow your NPC to be recruited.
  
You can add other factions to your merchant. For example, if you are going to place him in Markarth it is good to add some of the Markarth related factions to avoid him having problems with the locals ;)
+
You can add other factions to your follower. For example, if you want him to be marriageable you can add the ''PotentialMarriageFaction'' or if you are going to place him in Markarth it is good to add some of the Markarth related factions to avoid him having problems with the locals ;)
  
 
==== Place your NPC in the world ====
 
==== Place your NPC in the world ====
The next step is to place the NPC in the world. To do that follow the same steps you did for placing the container in the world (except the one about placing it under the floor!).
+
The next step is to place the NPC in the world. To do that:
 
+
# In the ''Cell view'' window select the cell where you are going to place your follower. I decided to place it in the Silver Blood Inn, in Markarth, so I chose the ''MarkarthSilverBloodInn'' cell.
The next step is to place the container in the world. To do that:
 
# In the ''Cell view'' window select the cell where you are going to place the container. I decided to place it in the Silver Blood Inn, in Markarth, so I chose the ''MarkarthSilverBloodInn'' cell.
 
 
# Double click on the name of the cell you've selected and wait while the CK loads it in the Render window. Once it is loaded, select an object in the Render window (just select it, don't move anything!) and move around the cell until you find the place where you want to put your container. To move around the cell:
 
# Double click on the name of the cell you've selected and wait while the CK loads it in the Render window. Once it is loaded, select an object in the Render window (just select it, don't move anything!) and move around the cell until you find the place where you want to put your container. To move around the cell:
 
## Use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out.
 
## Use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out.
 
## Press the Shift key and move the mouse (without pressing any mouse button) to rotate the view.
 
## Press the Shift key and move the mouse (without pressing any mouse button) to rotate the view.
 
## Press the Space bar and move the mouse (without pressing any mouse button) to move the cell up, down, right or left.
 
## Press the Space bar and move the mouse (without pressing any mouse button) to move the cell up, down, right or left.
# Select your container in the object window and drag and drop it into the cell in the Render view window: now your container is in the world but it will be most likely floating above the ground or in a position you don't like. To fix that, the easiest way for me is to:
+
# Select your NPC in the object window and drag and drop it into the cell in the Render view window: now your NPC is in the world but him will be most likely floating above the ground or in a position you don't like. To fix that, the easiest way for me is to:
## In the Cell view window, select the copy of your container from the list of objects at the right side of this window.
+
## In the Cell view window, select the copy of your NPC from the list of objects at the right side of this window.
## Left click on this copy of your container and select ''Edit'' from the pop up menu. This will open a window like the one shown in picture ''Editting the container''
+
## Left click on this copy of your NPC and select ''Edit'' from the pop up menu. This will open a window like the one shown in picture ''Editting the NPC location''
## In this window, in the ''Position'' section change the X, Y o Z values to move your container around the cell. Or change the X, Y o Z values of the ''Rotation'' section to rotate it. You can see the changes in the Render view window.
+
## In this window, in the ''Position'' section change the X, Y o Z values to move your NPC around the cell. Or change the X, Y o Z values of the ''Rotation'' section to rotate him. You can see the changes in the Render view window.
## For a merchant's container, it is best to locate the container in an unreachable place, like under the floor as shown in picture ''Placing the container under the floor''. This way nobody will be able of looting its contents.  
 
  
 
After placing your NPC in the world you can always edit his statistics, outfit, factions, face, and so on. You won't need to place him in the world again: any changes you do to the NPC charactersistics will be automatically replicated to the NPC copy you placed in the world.
 
After placing your NPC in the world you can always edit his statistics, outfit, factions, face, and so on. You won't need to place him in the world again: any changes you do to the NPC charactersistics will be automatically replicated to the NPC copy you placed in the world.
  
 
Save your plugin.
 
Save your plugin.
 
  
  

Revision as of 16:10, 22 February 2013

Overview

This tutorial shows all the main steps you need to follow to add a follower NPC to Skyrim.

Required tools

  • Creation Kit: available on Steam (Menu option View -> Tools and then select Creation Kit)

Add a Follower NPC

The main steps for adding a merchant to Skyrim are:

  1. Create the NPC's appearance
  2. Set the NPC statistics
  3. Set the NPC combat style
  4. Assign the right factions to your NPC
  5. Place the NPC in the world

Create the NPC's appearance

Importing an existing face
Fixing the NPC face colour
NPC Disposition
NPC Statistics
NPC outfit and inventory
NPC daily routine
Follower factions
Editting the NPC location

The easiest way for adding new content, including new characters, for Skyrim with the Creation Kit is to copy an existing object and that is what we are going to do in this tutorial. So, we are going to use an existing NPC as a template for creating the new one.

  1. In the Object window expand the menu Actor and choose any of the existing NPCs.
  2. Double click on the selected NPC and a window will pop-up like the one shown in picture Importing an existing face.
  3. Change the NPC ID, Name and Short Name (the fields at the top left of the window) and type new values for your follower.
  4. Press the OK button, the CK will ask you if you want to create a new form: answer Yes.
  5. Now look for the NPC you've just created, and double click on it to open the NPC details window again.

Use the face of your player character for the NPC

I've decided to use the face of one of my player characters for my follower, to do this:

  1. Launch the game and load a savegame of the character whose face you want to use.
  2. Open the console and type spf + the name of the file where you want the face to be stored (for example, spf MyPC).
  3. This will save a file in the Skyrim main folder with the name you've typed + the extension .npc (in the example, it will create a file called MyPC.npc).

Back to the Creation Kit:

  1. Open the NPC details window again and go to the Character Gen Parts tab as shown in picture Importing an existing face.
  2. Press the Import button and select the face of your PC you've saved before. You'll see that the face of your merchant NPC will be now the one of your player character.
  3. In this tab you can adjust some of the features of the NPC like hair style and colour, eye colour, etc. You can see the changes in the preview window (check the Head flag to see them). In the Character Gen Morphs tab you can change also other characteristics of your NPC's face.
    Note: The preview window doesn't work if your mouse is set for the left hand. You won't be able to rotate the face. To be able to do that change temporarily your mouse settings to work for the right hand and once you are done you can revert the mouse settings to the left hand.

Fix the NPC face colour

If the CK didn't had a bug related to new NPC faces (their face colour doesn't match their body colour) your work will be ended here. But until the CK is fixed there is still another step to do.

The only way of making your NPCs face look right is to follow this steps:

  1. Load your esp plugin into the CK and wait until the CK has finished loading everything.
  2. Locate your follower NPC and open his details window.
  3. Go to the Character Gen Parts tab and change something there, for example the hair used by your character. Then you can change it again to the previous hair.
  4. Press the OK button to close the NPC details window.
  5. Locate your NPC again in the Objects window, select him and press Ctrl + F4. The CK will ask you if you want to export the face gen data for your NPC, answer Yes and wait until it is done.
  6. This will have generated two texture and one mesh file:
    1. The textures will be located in the folder: \textures\actors\character\facegendata\facetint\MyPlugin.esp\ (with the name of your esp file instead of MyPlugin.esp). One of them is a .tga file and the other a .dds file. You can delete the .tga
    2. The mesh will be located in the folder: \meshes\actors\character\FaceGenData\FaceGeom\MyPlugin.esp\
  7. Close the CK without saving the changes as you only wanted the texture and mesh files that have already been generated.

Now your follower's face will have the same colour than his body.

You will have to repeat this process everytime you change something about your follower's appearance, like the hair he uses, to fix his face colour again.

Set the NPC statictics

Some useful parameters that you can adjust for your NPC are:

On the Traits tab:

  1. Select the follower's voice
  2. Set the follower's height. This value indicates a percentage of the standard height of the NPC race. This means that if your NPC is a female nord and you set her height to 1.10, her height will be 110% times the standard height of nord females.
  3. Set the follower's weight. This value is equivalent to the weight slider used for creating your player character in game.
  4. Set the follower's disposition: set this to 75 or higher (as shown in picture NPC Disposition) as this is the minimum required value that displays the dialogue line that allows you to recruit him.

On the Stats tab:

  1. Defining if he can be killed or not:
    1. If you check the Protected flag, nobody will be able to kill your follower except the player character.
    2. If you check the Essential flag, nobody will be able to kill your follower not even the player character.
  2. Defining if he will level up with your character:
    1. On the Stats tab check the PC Level Mult flag if you want your merchant to level up as shown in picture NPC Statistics. You can also set the minimum and maximum level he can reach (from 10 to 0 in the picture). If you set the maximum level to 0, your follower will level with your character without any level cap.
  3. Set the Health, Magicka and Stamina Offset values. I've set them to 50 as those are the values set for the player character, but you can set them to any values you want.
  4. Set the NPC class. The class you choose will determine the points your follower has in each skill, so choose the class taking into account what kind of combat style you cant for him. In the example I've chosen the CombatScout class as I want my follower to be good at archery, sneak and two-handed.

On the Inventory tab:

  1. Set the outfit your follower is wearing the first time you meet him:
    1. Select the Default Outfit from the drop-down list: these are the clothes your follower will be wearing as shown in picture NPC outfit and inventory.
  2. Add anything you want to his inventory by dragging and dropping objects from the Object window to the Inventory list.

On the AI Packages tab:

  1. Set your follower's daily routine:
    1. Add the packages that conatine the daily routine for your follower . These packages will tell him when and where to eat, sleep, walk, and so on.
    2. To add a package just select it from the Object window (they are all under Character -> Package) and drag and drop it into the AI Package list. As I want my follower to stay always at the same place to be easy to found him in game I've given my NPC the DefaultSandboxCurrentLocation1024 package as shown in picture NPC daily routine.

Assign the right factions to your NPC

The most important thing you have to do is to assign the right factions to your NPC or you won't be able to recruit him. You assign the factions to an NPC by dragging and dropping factions to the Factions and Ranks list of the Factions tab.

There are two factions that any follower needs to have:

  • CurrentFollowerFaction: this indicates if the follower is now part of your team or is waiting to be recruited. Set the Rank to -1 as shown in picture Follower factions.
  • PotentialFollowerFaction: this will allow your NPC to be recruited.

You can add other factions to your follower. For example, if you want him to be marriageable you can add the PotentialMarriageFaction or if you are going to place him in Markarth it is good to add some of the Markarth related factions to avoid him having problems with the locals ;)

Place your NPC in the world

The next step is to place the NPC in the world. To do that:

  1. In the Cell view window select the cell where you are going to place your follower. I decided to place it in the Silver Blood Inn, in Markarth, so I chose the MarkarthSilverBloodInn cell.
  2. Double click on the name of the cell you've selected and wait while the CK loads it in the Render window. Once it is loaded, select an object in the Render window (just select it, don't move anything!) and move around the cell until you find the place where you want to put your container. To move around the cell:
    1. Use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out.
    2. Press the Shift key and move the mouse (without pressing any mouse button) to rotate the view.
    3. Press the Space bar and move the mouse (without pressing any mouse button) to move the cell up, down, right or left.
  3. Select your NPC in the object window and drag and drop it into the cell in the Render view window: now your NPC is in the world but him will be most likely floating above the ground or in a position you don't like. To fix that, the easiest way for me is to:
    1. In the Cell view window, select the copy of your NPC from the list of objects at the right side of this window.
    2. Left click on this copy of your NPC and select Edit from the pop up menu. This will open a window like the one shown in picture Editting the NPC location
    3. In this window, in the Position section change the X, Y o Z values to move your NPC around the cell. Or change the X, Y o Z values of the Rotation section to rotate him. You can see the changes in the Render view window.

After placing your NPC in the world you can always edit his statistics, outfit, factions, face, and so on. You won't need to place him in the world again: any changes you do to the NPC charactersistics will be automatically replicated to the NPC copy you placed in the world.

Save your plugin.


References