THE ULTRA

HYPER SUPER
MEGA
ALL-IN-ONE
GUIDE TO
FOLLOWER
WAIFU

MODS
“It is a masterpiece. Complete, comprehensive. It captures the follower
mod making experience.” - maxiteo
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Required mods and tools
3. Crash course
a. Parts Layout
b. NifSkope
c. Creation Kit
d. SSEedit
e. ReSaver
4. How to:
a. Replace an NPC head with a preset I downloaded?
b. Convert ESP into ESP-FE?
c. Convert a basic follower mod from LE to SE?
5. Editing Custom Followers / Replacers
a. Simple Edits
i. Changing bodyshape
ii. Changing eye color / eyebrow texture
b. Advanced Edits
i. How to replace a head without NifMerge
6. Standalone followers
a. What makes a follower ‘standalone’?
b. How to test a standalone follower
7. Cheat sheet
a. What files do I need when I pack mods?
b. Reminder for which program handles what
8. Common mistakes and FAQ
a. Neck seam
b. Body / Hands / Feet do not scale correctly with weight change
c. Hand Seam
d. Weird breasts / nipples
e. Purple textures
9. Tips & Good Habits
a. When working on an ESP-FE
b. Take notes!
c. Screenshots in Racemenu
10. Future Content
11. Random facts to be inserted later
12. How it all works, conceptually
 INTRODUCTION

First, I’m aware that many guides like this exist everywhere. During my own learning
process, I had to google for multiple sources to get things done, due to some guides
being outdated, having unnecessary steps, or just a ‘follow-me-blindly’ set of steps
without explanation. This guide will attempt to explain the rationale behind all the
steps provided. If this works out correctly, you should never need another guide for
basic follower mod creation. My guide is written for female follower mods, but work
similarly for male followers, adapt accordingly on your own.

Second, I am tired of misinformation being spread on Nexus about follower mods,

and how doing certain things will ‘corrupt your save game forever’ or melt your PC
etc. Every possible scenario will be covered with regards to dangers and failsafes. I
hope people will have the common sense to trust MOD-MAKERS over
MOD-PORTERS, there is a big difference between the two. Don’t get me wrong, I
have much respect for the people who have dedicated a ton of time to port a ton of
follower mods from LE to SE; but conversion does not require as much
understanding of NPC parts as creating followers from scratch. This guide is open to
criticism and suggestions from all fellow follower mod makers who use custom head
sculpts.

Third, this mod is expressly written for Skyrim SE: I am not responsible for any
issues if you use it for LE; although 99% of the contents are still applicable, I will not
troubleshoot any LE-specific problems from the 1%.

Fourth, I am a MO2 user. For those who are not familiar, Vortex was created by the
creator of MO2; the main thing we will need is the ‘change profile’ function from the
mod manager, for troubleshooting, and quick access to mod folders for
drag-and-drop replacements and editing. All the screenshots of mod manager steps
will be based on MO2. There are some mod porters / makers out there who can’t use
MO2 without their brains exploding, and/or find it ‘confusing’, and/or claim that it’s
unnecessarily tedious. These people do not know how to use it properly and
therefore decry it. Hopefully by the end of this guide, your technical knowledge will
exceed these people and you will see that MO2 is the superior mod manager for
good reason.

Lastly, I don’t make a cent for doing this. Neither does this help me in any way. My
only intention for spending a big chunk of time doing this is to help newer mod
makers with troubleshooting, and aspiring mod makers to step up and start
uploading their creations. Hopefully those with presets will take some time to learn
and make followers off their presets as well. If you’ve been making your own
homebrew NPC replacers, hopefully this guide can push you to your first step of a
NPC replacer release as well.
 Required Mods and Tools

Common sense: please get the latest versions of all these tools / mods.

Creation Kit
Self-explanatory. Will be referred to as ‘CK’ from here on, for short.

SSE CreationKit Fixes

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/20061
Don’t even think of going in and out of CK repeatedly if you do not have
this installed. Loads CK and ESPs as fast as SSEedit or even faster,
depending on the number of forms. Almost totally eliminates crashes
and improves stability.

NifSkope
NifSkope will be absolutely necessary when working with custom head
sculpts. If you are intending to make a follower with no custom head, you
can still use this guide but ignore the NifSkope portions. There is a
different set of steps for using custom mod parts from hair and brow
mods etc on vanilla, unsculpted heads, which I will not be covering in
this guide.

SSEedit
The quick and dirty way of editing ESPs. Not all things can be changed
with SSEedit; some will still require CK. These things will be highlighted
over the course of the guide. If you attempt to do all fixes and changes in
SSEedit while avoiding CK like the plague, you will find yourself stuck in
a dead-end in your technical expertise faster than Nazeem can ask you
about the Cloud District. I view SSEedit as the express way to do some
things that would take more steps in CK, otherwise it’s not a 100%
replacement in the least.

RACEMENU
Self-explanatory.
 Crash course: Parts Layout

Meshes (.NIF files)

Body
Torso meshes are femalebody_0.nif and femalebody_1.nif.
Hand meshes are femalehands_0.nif and femalehands_1.nif.
Feet meshes are femalehands_0.nif and femalehands_1.nif.

Head
I will refer to the combined head mesh as just ‘head mesh’ from here on.
Please do not confuse this with the vanilla head mesh, which only
contains the head without other parts like hair, brows, eyes and mouth.
Follower / replacer head meshes are found in:
meshes/actors/character/facegendata/facegeom/XXXX.esp
where XXXX.esp is the plugin name that contains the NPC, and the
filename will be the base ID of the NPC. For example, 00000803.NIF.

Skeleton
Not all follower mods use custom skeletons. Most use the game’s default
skeleton; those that use custom skeletons (e.g modified XP32) are easy
to spot: you will find a skeletonXXX.nif in the folder, and the follower
has a custom race with that skeleton referenced.
 Textures (.DDS files), sometimes called ‘maps’

Body
femalebody_1.dds
Often called the ‘diffuse’ texture.
femalebody_1_msn.dds
The normal map. Makes the bumps and curves protrude.
femalebody_1_sk.dds
This is the skin subsurface scattering layer (SSS). Usually red, pinkish or
fully black. ENB brings out the glow.
femalebody_1.s.dds
This is the specular layer. Sweaty, glossy or wet bodies use this texture
to simulate wet effects.

Hands
Same 4 textures as the body parts: Diffuse, Normal, SSS, Specular.

Head
Same 4 textures are the body, but with two extra DDS files:
1. The facetint, found in
textures/actors/character/facegendata/facetint/XXXX.esp/
Affects the makeup of the NPC in-game.
2. Detail map
Eg: Blankdetailmap.dds
If the character has mud / freckles or any extra details, they usually go
into this layer.

Next up are the face parts:

Hair
Eg:
Desirae.dds (diffuse map)
Desirae_n.dds (normal map)
You will find two DDS files, one is the diffuse and the other is the normal
map (denoted with a ‘_n’ behind the DDS file)
Hairline
Hairline01.dds (example)
Hairline01_n.dds
The hairline texture file ultimately depends on the hair mod you used.
You can find the texture needed from the exported Racemenu head
mesh, through NifSkope.

Brows
Hverg_femalebrow_15.dds (diffuse map) (example)
FemaleBrow_n.dds (normal map)
Brows usually only have one diffuse and one normal texture. Most brow
mods only change the diffuse. Some brow mods have a slightly better
normal texture than vanilla, but changing it is highly optional.

Eyes
Eyeshadeblue.dds (diffuse) (example)
EyeBrown_n.dds (normal)
EyeBrown_sk.dds (subsurface)*
EyeCubeMap.dds (cubemap / reflection map)
EyeEnvironmentMask_M.dds (I never touch this)

*Racemenu always leaves out the eye ‘sk’ map path (EyeBrown_sk.dds)
in the head mesh whenever heads are exported. You can manually input
the correct path directly under the normal map path in NifSkope:
Mouth
MouthHuman.dds (diffuse)
MouthHuman_n.dds (normal)
Usually left unchanged. Some mods that make NPC teeth whiter or
higher res may change these. Doesn’t affect the shape of the mouth
(common misconception), only the texture of teeth and gums.
Crash course: NifSkope

Before you start panicking and trembling, I would like to reassure you
that you will not be doing anything too complicated with Nifkope.

The only thing we will be doing in this guide is called “pathing” (or texture
pathing, or ‘mapping’). Read everything here:

How to edit NPCs without Nifmerge

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/30041

^ This guide is the most beginner-friendly guide I’ve seen on NifSkope

usage for NPC heads. Unfortunately I only discovered it after crashing
and burning through all my follower mod uploads, but it is still useful for
beginners, and I endorse it wholeheartedly. KIV and read it if lost.

The texture paths of each separate part of a mesh will always be under:

BSDynamicTriShape >
BSLightingShaderProperty >
BSShaderTextureSet >

Double-click the texture path to edit it.

For all purposes and intents, please only replace the current
texture with the same kind of texture:
Eg. Cubemaps\EyeCubeMap.dds
should be repathed to
Actors\Characters\CharlotteMXT\Head\Eyecubemap.dds
Do not mess up and repath a normal to a subsurface or whatever.
Certain mods like Starsight Eyes may use unconventional texture
names, but they will most certainly show up correctly in a newly exported
head mesh. Just make sure you copy the correct texture file from the
original cosmetic mod folder into your standalone mod folder, and repath
the original path to match the one in your standalone mod folder.
Top: Before repath (textures found under FemaleHeadNord)
Bottom: After repath

Missing or wrong texture paths result in purple textures ingame.

Extra technical info:
The Skyrim engine does not use all the texture paths in NifSkope. Some textures are
mapped from the plugin and game, and some are read from the texture path in
NifSkope.
For example:
Body and hand textures are assigned in CK.
Facetint path is read from the filename.
Changing the facetint path in the head mesh does nothing. Tried and tested. Ignore
the geniuses acting smart who appear and tell you the facetint path is wrong. Ask
them in return if the mod works, and provide screenshots. If you feel like wrapping up
a ‘loose end’, you can change the path to give these paranoid people some peace of
mind, otherwise it is completely unused.
 NIFSKOPE REPATH EXERCISE 1 - CHARLOTTE
If you think you’ve understood how to path textures in NifSkope, try
this exercise, and then do the standalone follower test to see if
your pathing works!

Post a screenshot if you managed to do it in the screenshot

section! :D
Crash Course: Creation Kit

This guide will cover the reasons for creating each and every form in CK,
and what to change / check when dealing with them. Get ready to make
CK your new best friend.

Before you start on this section, check the “Cheat Sheet”

section and prepare the folders and texture / mesh files
in advance.

1) Open CK.
2) Load Skyrim.esm. DO NOT SET ANY PLUGIN FILE AS ‘ACTIVE’.
3) Wait for loading to be complete.
Forms:
Entries in CK are called ‘Forms’.
Instead of creating new forms (tedious), you should open an existing
form, rename the FormID and close the dialogue box. Select ‘Yes’ when
it asks you if you want to create a new form. This will create a duplicate
under a new FormID but with the same settings (see the 3 images
below). Change the settings only when you’ve duplicated all the forms
you need.
I.e. Create all forms you need BEFORE you start any editing.

There is a reason why this portion of the guide goes in a particular order
for Form editing. It will make absolute sense to beginners and little to no
backtracking is needed.

The usual forms to be duplicated for follower mods are:

1. SkinBodyFemale_1
2. SkinHandFemale_1
3. NakedTorso
4. NakedHands
5. NakedFeet
6. SkinNaked

For example, if my follower is named Charlotte, I will consider this naming

convention:

1. SkinBodyCharlotte
2. SkinHandCharlotte
3. NakedTorsoCharlotte
4. NakedHandsCharlotte
5. NakedFeetCharlotte
6. SkinNakedCharlotte
Left: rename the ID. Right: Yes.

Do this “rename ID -> Close box -> Yes to new form” for all 6 parts listed.

^ At this point, searching for your follower name should give you these 6 results.

Load the textures into the plugin

Open SkinBodyCharlotte.
You will see 4 texture paths.
Edit all 4 to point to the textures that you have pre-loaded into the mod’s
texture folders (I hope you checked the Cheat Sheet before reading this
part). Make sure you replace them correctly: diffuse to diffuse, normal
(_n), subsurface (_sk) and specular (_s) all have to match.
DO NOT CONFUSE BODY AND HAND TEXTURES.

Once all 4 are done, close the box.

Open SkinHandCharlotte and do the same as above for the hand
textures:

^ in case you get confused, the Subsurface (3rd) is “XX_sk.dds” and the specular (last) is
“XX_s.dds”. Specular is always black (sometimes with tiny white spots for water), subsurface
is usually reddish or black.

Congrats! You have now loaded the body textures into the plugin
correctly.

Body mesh paths and pointing to correct textures

The next step is to make sure the body mesh you chose is loaded into
the plugin, and those meshes are assigned the textures you just
specified in the earlier step.

Open NakedTorsoCharlotte.
On the left column, there are two boxes; male and female.
Ignore the male box.
Under Female, change the Biped Model to point to the body mesh
“femalebody_1.nif” in your mod folder. Make sure it’s 1 and not 0 or
you will face scaling issues.
Under Skin Texture, find and select SkinBodyCharlotte.

Done. Close the form.

Repeat the two steps (female Biped Model to your custom
femalefeet_1.nif and Skin Texture to SkinBodyCharlotte) for
NakedFeetCharlotte.

For NakedHandsCharlotte, the Biped Model is the same process, but

the skin you should pick now is SkinHandCharlotte.

Technical explanation:
The texture for the torso covers both the torso and feet mesh.
The texture for the hands only covers the hands.

Congrats! You have correctly loaded your custom meshes and set their
textures correctly

Combining the body parts

Go into SkinNakedCharlotte. In the bottom right corner, CTRL+ select
the three parts (NakedHands, NakedTorso, NakedFeet) and delete them.
Right Click the box and add NakedTorsoCharlotte,
NakedHandsCharlotte and NakedFeetCharlotte. (You can also drag and
drop them from the Object Window into the small box)

Congrats! You now have a new custom body you can assign to an NPC!
Creating the follower form

The next step is to create the NPC / follower form.

1. Find a vanilla follower you want to copy. Let’s use Aela.

2. Open Aela’s actor form.
3. Rename all three fields: ID, Name and Shortname. I will give her
the FormID of CharlotteFollower, Name will be Charlotte.
Shortname doesn’t do much, it’s ok to leave it blank. Or Charlotte,
your call.
4. Close the dialogue box by clicking OK.
5. CK will prompt you if you want to create a new form, pick ‘Yes’.

Top: Before || Bottom: After

^ notice how I set the checkbox for ‘essential’. Essential followers cannot die, they just get
staggered at 0hp and then get up again after awhile.

Congratulations! You have made a clone of Aela!

Charlotte will have the exact same traits and spells and everything else
like Aela, for now.

Giving Charlotte the custom body we created

What we need to do now is to make Charlotte use the body we’ve

created in the earlier steps.

Open Charlotte’s Actor form.

In the Traits tab, below Race, find and select SkinNakedCharlotte.
You can select Preview: Full at the bottom of the form to see if the body
shape and texture matches what you have chosen. Ignore the head for
now.

^ See the highlighted MarksFemaleHumanoid00NoGash? Delete it. This box “Additional

Head Parts” is very important for later. You will most likely need to drag and drop a hairline
here to make the number of face parts tally (more details under the ‘How to replace a head
without Nifmerge’ section).

HOLD UP...

At this point, you are not able to generate Charlotte’s facegendata yet.
You need to save the plugin and relaunch CK.

1. Click the Save icon at the top left.

2. Name your new plugin.
3. Save and exit.

I assume that you’ve created the mod folders in MO2 / Vortex, so what
you need to do now is find the newly saved plugin (it should be in the
Overwrite folder if you didn’t screw things up when connecting CK to
MO2 / Vortex), and drag and drop it into the mod’s (Charlotte’s) base
folder.

At this point, you can open the mod folder in explorer to take a peek. You
should see two folders, Meshes and Textures, along with the new plugin
(CharlotteMXT.esp or whatever).

^ ignore the meta.ini, it’s created by CK automatically.

Open CK again.
This time, find the name of the new plugin you saved, and set it as
‘active file’, then load.

Go into the Actor page of the new NPC you made.

Stats / Spells/ Perks etc

Edit her stats.

WARNING - NECK SEAM:
Make sure to set her Weight to whatever weight the original head mesh
came from. If the head mesh was created with weight 65, you have to
set Charlotte to weight 65 for the neck to line up perfectly with the body.
Read more about this in the other sections below.

Delete all the stuff that comes from Aela, like the trainer related stuff.
Follow one or both of these guides if you’re completely lost:

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Adding_a_Follower_NPC_to_Skyrim

https://levelskip.com/rpgs/Hot-to-Turn-Your-Skyrim-Character-into-a-Foll
ower

Save.

If you haven’t dropped her into the world (please choose an interior cell
to make your life easier for testing purposes), go back into one of those
guides and learn how to do it.

The reason I choose not to cover what those guides have already
covered is because they did an excellent job explaining things to
absolute beginners, complete with screenshots. There is no reason for
me to do the same thing but reworded and with my own screenshots, it
is a complete waste of time and labor.

What is important for my own reference (and maybe your own) is the
things to double check with your follower when everything is done:

CHECKLIST:

Disposition (under Traits)

Doesn’t seem to matter much in my testing, set to 75 for safety if you
want.

Voice Type (under Traits)

Not all voices can be used for followers. Use this very handy reference:
https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/964801-modder-referen
ce-for-follower-voices/
A.I Packages
I usually use DefaultSandboxEditorLocation512.

Additional Explanation:
EditorLocation ensures the follower returns to the place you assigned as their spawn
point when they are dismissed. If you use CurrentLocation, they stay and sandbox
where you dismiss them. If you don’t have a mod that keeps track of dismissed
followers, you can use their refid in the console to teleport them to you (or teleport to
them). If you forgot or didn’t note down their refid, use ‘coc’ in the main menu and
teleport to their spawn point and click on them to see their refid. You can write it
down, or do the pro-player move of loading the save game you want immediately,
opening the console (the npc should still be selected in console), and then teleport
them to you.
512 and 1024 is just the radius they will wander about. I try not to set 1024 because I
don’t want them to sandbox too far.
You can read more about packages elsewhere, I have no intention of going into
depth for those in this guide.

Relationship
Create the relationship AFTER you save the new NPC as a new form,
and not immediately after changing the name of a vanilla / other npc. For
convenience I name the relationship something like
CharlottePlayerRS, so the relationship form shows up along with the
other parts when I search for Charlotte.

‘Parent’ is always the NPC, Child is always the Player, and I always set the rank to ‘Ally’.
Factions
CURRENTFOLLOWERFACTION set to -1.
POTENTIALFOLLOWERFACTION at default 0.
POTENTIALMARRIAGEFACTION if you want.
In my experiments, I’ve found PLAYERFOLLOWERFACTION to do
nothing. I might be wrong, but at least I’m sure leaving it out does
nothing negative.

Once you have set the Voicetype, Factions and Relationship correctly,
the follower can be recruited in game without problems. Some other
things of interest:

Aggression (under AI Data)

For followers, I always use Unaggressive or Aggressive.
Explanation:
Unaggressive AI will not charge and attack enemies they detect. They
will follow you quietly until they are attacked or the player is attacked.
Think of it as ‘stealth mode’. They won’t interrupt your sneak shots so it’s
useful for passive companions. They also won’t get hit by your arrow
intended for the enemy and go down.

Aggressive AI charges upon encountering enemies. If you are making a

tank or berserker class NPC, this is ideal.
Very Aggressive and Frenzied will (usually) make the NPC attack
anything and anyone in sight. Not ideal for our use.
Do I need to create a custom race?

You usually need to create a custom race ONLY if you intend to use a
custom skeleton, or race specific interactions and dialogue
(self-scripted).
If you’re only planning to transplant a custom head mesh file onto
an ordinary in-game playable race, creating a custom race is totally
unnecessary.
The game loads body texture files based on the forms you created for
the naked skin (includes feet and torso) and naked hands.
The head’s skin color is based on the NIF texture paths of the head and
the facetint DDS.
They will match seamlessly (literally) if you’ve pathed all the head mesh
textures properly, and your body tint in CK (SSEedit does not work
for this) is set to the same value as the tint you picked in RaceMenu
when you exported the head.
This will be a common mistake and it is important to note the RGB
values (eg 206 205 204; 221, 221, 221) in RaceMenu before you export
and start the creation process.

Read this for a step-by-step guide on how to create a custom race if you
need it:
http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Creating_a_custom_race_for_Skyrim
Exporting the NIF and DDS file of your newly created NPC:

IMPORTANT FOR ESP-FE:

If you intend to make your mod ESP-FE, go into the Data dropdown
box in the main window of CK and look for “Compact Form IDs”
and compact now. Compacting later will cause a big headache,
which is covered below.

Make sure you are in the Actors tab in the left tree of the Object Window.
Search for the NPC name ‘CharlotteFollower’.
Once you see the form appear, left click on it once to highlight it.
Press CTRL + F4 and select Yes when asked if you want to export the
facegen. Wait a moment. Press OK when it says ‘Done’.

You can now close CK.

Two new folder trees and files will be found in your Overwrite folder now.
If you want to check, they should look like this:
meshes/actors/character/facegendata/facegeom/CharlotteMXT.esp/00000XXX.NIF
textures/actors/character/facegendata/facetint/CharlotteMXT.esp/00000XXX.DDS

-> “It just works.” - Todd Howard.

Drag and drop the two folder trees into your standalone follower mod.
You will eventually need to replace these CK generate files with your
RaceMenu exported files if you are using a custom head sculpt.

_______________________

You can choose to continue the guide here, or you can skip to
“Advanced Edits - How to replace a head without Nifmerge” to finish up
the standalone follower.
Crash course: SSEedit

The quick and dirty cousin of CK.

Can quickly change some values and fix some outstanding issues
without loading CK, but for this guide, we will not be using SSEedit much
for follower creation, only for quick fixes and edits. Handy for fixing
mistakes or things you missed out on.

To only load the plugin you want to edit, you need to right-click the
plug-in list after you launch the program, deselect all, then only select
the plugin you want load (double-click it, or check the box and click OK)

List of things that I usually change using SSEedit (if ever):

Weight
Height
Spells
Perks
Voicetype
Skin in the Actor form

Things I do NOT do in SSEedit:

Create new forms
Edit Skintone (does not seem to work)
Other body related stuff

There will be more SSEedit related things below, like compacting ESP
into ESP-FE.
Crash course: ReSaver

For unf**king your save game.

Save game corruption from follower mods is very, very rare.

If you haven’t heard by now, there is a golden rule floating rule around
regarding mods that goes:

“NEVER UNINSTALL A MOD MID-GAME.”

I won’t say this is complete b***sh*t, but it isn’t entirely true either.
However, one thing to note is that mod authors cannot and will not be
responsible for your save game if you choose to uninstall mods
mid-game.

As a user, it’s your own risk to bear, and your own problem to fix. Worry
not, I’ve attached a simple guide regarding ReSaver and follower mods
near the end.
And in case this wasn’t clear to some people:

A mod cannot possibly corrupt your save unless you save. If you
are ‘testing’ someone’s mod, just… don’t save over your last stable
save. Simple as that.

Pro-tip #2: Learn to use ‘coc’ in the console from the main menu to
teleport to the follower location to test her appearance and body issues.
No save game needed.
 HOW TO:

Replace an NPC head with a preset I downloaded?

It’s simple in theory.

You need to replace the head NIF file and the facetint file.

The facetint (.DDS file) is straightforward; rename your RM exported

DDS file to the same name as the CK exported one (eg.
CharlotteLPTutorial.dds to 00000800.dds), and then overwrite the CK file
with the RM file.

Make sure the head mesh you are using as a replacement and the target
head mesh you are replacing have:
1. The exact same number of head parts.
2. The exact same names for the faceparts.

If you satisfy the above two conditions, the replacement will be

successful; no crash to desktop (CTD), Infinite loading screen (ILS) etc.
Purple textures will appear if you don’t have the correct texture paths or
textures in the correct folders.
At this point, if you have no idea how to do the above, continue the guide
at “How to replace a head without NifMerge”.

Convert ESP into ESP-FE?

Also simple.
First, follow these steps:
1) Launch SSEedit.
2) At the plugin list, right click, deselect all.
3) Load the plugin you want to change in SSEedit (just double-click it)

4) Right click the ESP in the list, select Apply Script, pick “Find
plugins that can be turned into ESL”

5) Check the messages that pop up on the right side.

If you see “Can be converted into ESL by changing record flag to ESL”,
just change the record flag by double-clicking the record flag and ticking
the ESL checkbox, then save the plugin.

If you see “Can be converted to ESL by first compacting form IDs…” it’s
slightly more complicated.
Compacting form IDs will change ALL the form IDs in the ESP that are
independent (meaning they don’t change the forms of a master file).
What you need to do is
1. Write / note down all the NPC names with their matching form ids.
You can find them under the “Actors” page easily in SSEedit.
2. COMPACT (either by using right-click on the plugin in SSEedit or
compacting in CK, no difference) first.
3. Then check the newly compacted plugin (again, either CK or
SSEedit) and find the new NPC(s) Form IDs.
4. Rename the old head mesh NIF files and the facetint DDS files to
the new form id. Eg. 0000153D.nif to 00000811.nif, and then the
dds files.
5. Load the game and test.

Take note that if you have already loaded a mod follower into your game
and saved, compacting will create a NEW copy of that follower and
delete the old one when you load your save game. The new follower
(with the new FormID / BaseID) will not carry any changes you have
made to the old version.
The old follower’s details will still be present in your save file as residual
data. What you need to do is to open ReSaver, load the save you want
to clean, and remove all unattached instances and undefined elements.
This will clear out the record of the old, non ESP(FE) follower.
If you use a follower framework mod, please dismiss the follower (and
optionally take back all the gear) first before making a save.
To sum up mid-game conversion simply, follow these steps:

1. Find your follower in-game.

2. Remove all her inventory and gear items, and dismiss her from the
follower framework totally. (Use ‘Purge’ for NFF)
3. If you don’t use a framework, regular dismissal is fine.
4. Save the game.
5. Do all the SSEedit steps outlined above to turn the ESP into
ESP-FE.
6. Load the game.
7. Go to the original (spawn) location of the follower and re-recruit
her.
8. Save and exit the game.
9. Load ReSaver, and clean the save.
 10. Done.

Read this guide if you’re completely lost on the SSEedit parts of my

explanation:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21618?tab=des
cription

Convert a basic follower mod from LE to SE?

Brainless.

1. Install the LE mod with your mod manager.

2. Open the plugin file in CK. (Set as ‘active file’ after checking the
checkbox)
3. Save the plugin.
4. Done.*

There will be some cases where you encounter crashes because the
armor doesn’t work in SE due to different physics engines, or followers
coming with outdated, incompatible skeletons (VERY RARE) etc.
There are multiple ways of dealing with this, but they are still mostly
braindead.

Option 1: Use CK and change the actor’s default outfit. You can delete
the outfit parts in CK if you want as well.
Delete all the armor meshes and textures in the mod folders. Done.

Option 2: Replace the Skeleton NIF files with the XPS skeleton for SE.
The easy way out to solve skeleton issues, but any custom proportions
that the original mod author made using NifSkope will be lost. May result
in weird-sized heads, because some follower mod makers use the
custom skeleton to enlarge the head after shrinking them in Racemenu.

DO NOT USE SSE NIF OPTIMIZER. (unless…)

The author of the NIF OPTIMIZER has clearly stated that optimizing
is a “last resort/ worst case scenario”. Go look it up yourself.
Optimizing nifs that don’t need to be optimized will distort the nifs
and cause certain textures to be mapped incorrectly. You should
only run NIFs through Nif Optimizer IF and ONLY IF you encounter
weird deformation issues of the mesh files. In these scenarios, it’s
best to NOT use these mesh (usually armor) files and just delete
the entries and meshes and textures and change the NPC default
outfit to something else.
Most of the LE Nif files work in SE out of the box without
‘optimization’.
 Editing Custom Followers / Replacers

Simple Edits
Changing bodyshape
Read the earlier section, ‘Parts Layout’ first.
Open the follower mod and find the folder(s) with the body meshes.
Different authors put them in different structures but you can use Nexus’
“file preview’ to find them faster.
Replace all the torso, hands and feet meshes with the ones you want. 6
files in total. Done.

NOTE:
ALL CBBE compatible textures work with ALL CBBE body shapes.
ALL UNP / BHUNP compatible textures work with ALL UNP / BHUNP
body shapes.
The above applies to all the 3BBB and physics bodies as well.
If you are changing a UNP body mesh to CBBE, you will also need to
change the body textures to CBBE.
CBBE and UNP cannot mix and match body textures and meshes.
There is no simpler way I can put this.

Changing eye color / eyebrow texture

Eye color and eyebrow texture are defined by one texture: the diffuse
texture. The quick and dirty way to change this is to rename the diffuse
texture of the replacement file to the same name of the current eye
texture, then drag-and-drop the newly rename file and overwrite the old
file.

The more proper approach is to:

1. Copy the new eye texture file into the current eye texture folder of
the mod you are editing (or any folder you want, just remember
where you put it and remember the file name)
2. Open NifSkope, click on the Eyes in the preview window, navigate
to the texture path, and rename the texture path in the first line.

If you are completely lost, re-read the ‘Parts Layout’ section again.
 Advanced Edits

How to replace a head without NifMerge

This section is tricky...

It’s simple and straightforward in theory, but due to the sheer amount of
manual labor required, it’s easy to make mistakes or forget things.

For the purpose of making the next part less confusing, I will refer to the
head you are replacing as the ‘target’ and the head that you want as a
replacement as the ‘source’.

First things first, we will count the number of headparts.

If you look at, for example, Charlotte’s CK exported head mesh, you will
notice that she has one hair part and one hairline, but there is a high
chance that your source head mesh has two hairlines. This is because
KS Hairdos and many other hair mods use two hair meshes, overlapping
but with different alpha channels, to address transparency issues.
Starsight Eyes does the same thing.
^ Top: Racemenu exported head mesh. 7 face parts. (BSDynamicTriShape)
Bottom: CK exported head mesh. 6 face parts. Well, shit.

What some people do is they delete one of the hairlines (usually the
duplicate of the original mesh) to make the number of parts match.
This is highly unadvisable. The custom follower / replacer will have
holes and weird transparency problems in her hair.

What we need to do is to assign an extra headpart to the NPC (either

using CK or SSEedit), so the number of parts match.

CK method:
1. Load CharlotteMXT.esp as the active plugin and start.
2. Open the actor form.
3. Go to the Parts tab.
4. You will see a box below the hair and headparts called Additional
Head Parts.
 5. Leaving the actor window open, go back to the Object Window,
and search for ‘hairlinefemalenord’.
6. Hold and drag HairLineFemaleNord02 (or 01, depending on which
one is not used) into the extra parts box. You should see it appear
immediately when you let go of the mouse hold.

SSEedit method:

1. Load the plugin.

2. Go to the actor page.
3. Scroll down to find the headparts area.
4. Add new headpart, you should see bolded NULL new headpart
appear.
5. Open the dropdown box and pick HairLineFemaleNord02 (or 01)
depending on which one is already used.
6. Save and exit.
Technical explanation:
The game will give a CTD or ILS if the names and number of
headparts in a plugin don't match the names and number of
headparts in a NIF file.
What we’re doing is a shortcut method of adding one more headpart so
the plugin number of parts matches the NIF number of parts. You can
create a totally new headpart in CK and name it whatever you want and
drag and drop it into the box, it doesn't have to be a vanilla hairline.

Now, the next part is done with NifSkope.

Go back and open the source head mesh.

Rename the extra hairline to the same name as the newly added part.
(e.g 0AnchorHairline to HairLineFemaleNord02)

Save the NIF file.

At this point, the number of headparts in the NIF file and the plugin are
matching. What’s left to do is to rename the NIF headparts to match
those in the plugin.

Open both the target and source NIF files in two separate NifSkope
instances, and move the windows so they are side by side.

Focus on the replacement NIF.

You need to rename ALL the parts to match the target NIF.
Click on the part you want to rename first. In the box below, you will see
a squished TXT icon next to the part name. Click on it once and a
dialogue box will pop-up. Rename the part
(eg. 0Starry to HairFemaleNord18)

Do this for all the parts, making sure you match the parts correctly
(mouth to mouth, brow to brow etc)
Once done, cross-check both NIF files to make sure the head parts have
the same name. The RM head will have one leftover part; rename that to
the part you added in CK / SSEedit.

Extra technical info:

The game doesn’t really care about the fact that the names of the face parts are
completely different from the actual face parts. You can rename something like
0IrisHL into HairlineFemaleNord01 and it will just not care. What it cares about is the
name of the facepart in the head mesh matches the one assigned in the ESP.
I have no idea why, but remember Todd Howard’s words.
Once done, rename the exported head mesh to the same name as
the CK generated one, and overwrite the CK mesh with your RM
mesh.

Don’t forget to replace the Face Tint file.

RECAP: Rename your RM exported DDS file to the same name as the
CK exported one (eg. CharlotteLPTutorial.dds to 00000800.dds), and
then overwrite the CK file in the mod directory with the RM file.

At this point, you can actually test your follower in-game already. For
now, she will use the textures from your installed mods to work.
Assuming you have already placed her in a Cell in CK, of course.

^ notice how the three green stripes you saw in CK on her face don’t even appear.
The face tint file overwrites all CK entries for face paints.

To make the follower standalone, you MUST repath all the textures in the
NIF file to the locations you put the texture files (in the Cheat Sheet
section). For a text explanation, check the Crash Course: NifSkope
section. For a more detailed explanation, check this:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/30041

I see no reason to redo / retread the things covered in the above guide in this guide;
it is concise and to-the-point. The information I have provided before this link should
make more sense once you’re done with this linked tutorial: you may need to re-read
it again for it to make sense to you.
 NIFSKOPE REPATH EXERCISE 1 - CHARLOTTE
If you think you’ve understood how to path textures in NifSkope, try
this exercise, and then do the standalone follower test to see if
your pathing works!
 Standalone Followers

What makes a follower ‘standalone’?

By now you should have all the knowledge you need to make a fully
functional follower with a vanilla voice and vanilla A.I package, with a
custom head sculpt.

The difference between a ‘standalone’ follower and a regular,

non-standalone follower is that a standalone follower must look and
behave exactly like how you intended it to, without any other mods
installed.

Technically, having even one single requirement should mean a follower

is not completely standalone, however, I usually expect (and therefore
do not remind users) to have these two mods in particular:

XP32 Maximum Skeleton

Seriously I don’t know how you can even think about using the vanilla
skeleton. Installing this does nothing negative to your game. Pretty
much mandatory for all modded games that have modded followers.

Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch

This fixes a ton of issues with the vanilla game. It also does not touch
non-vanilla stuff. The odds of it conflicting with a completely custom
follower is close to zero. I personally do not load it when making my
follower mods, but they have been totally unaffected by it.

That being said, all my follower mods work without the above two mods.
Like the great Todd Howard once said, “It just works.”

The next section will detail the process of testing if a follower is truly
standalone.
 How to test a standalone follower

Create a new profile in MO2 / Vortex with no mods activated

Obviously pretty self-explanatory. You need to make sure the mod runs
without all your hair, skin, brows etc cosmetic mods installed.

It may look correct in your fully-modded game, but you won’t be able to
test if the texture paths in NifSkope and Creation Kit are mapped
correctly without first removing all other mods; it may look correct
because the NIF / plugin is pathed to the textures from your installed
mods, and not the files you made for the standalone release.
Creating a new empty profile with no other mods and loading ONLY the
follower plugin makes sure that all your texture paths are mapped
correctly, it is the only way to test a standalone follower accurately.

Start the game and ‘coc’ to the follower’s spawn location

When you load into the area, you should see her there. Look around a
bit if the (hopefully) interior cell is very big (like Dragonsreach). NPCs
with only the default sandbox AI cannot leave the area they have been
assigned as the spawn point, no point looking in other cells.

If she’s not there, most likely either:

a) You forgot to drag-and-drop the NPC into the Cell window in CK.
b) You forgot to load the plugin.

Once you see her, do the following visual checks:

1. Check her face closeup. Make sure there are no purple (missing)
textures.
2. Select her in the console and type ‘unequipall’ to strip her.
3. Check for any neck seam.
4. Check that the skin texture looks correct for the hands and feet.
^ no neck seam, all face and hair textures are correct, skin fits correctly, no hand seams.
Feet have no seams (not pictured)

Once the visual checks are done, whether they have errors or not, do
the recruitment test. Recruit the NPC and see if she follows you.

How to test combat: My method

1. Enter the console, turn on God Mode. (tgm)

2. Select the NPC in the console.
3. Type ‘coc skuldafn’.
4. Open the console (NPC should still be selected) and type ‘moveto
player’.
5. Watch the NPC fight the draugr and dragons.

You can use SSEedit or CK to easily change the NPCs starting levels.
This is useful for testing Mage type characters, as they will usually cast
the most powerful spell (provided they have enough magicka to cast it)
at any given level. Some spells are not usable by NPCs by simply filling
out the spell list (eg Master level spells); you will need to google to find
scripts for custom spells and priorities.
 Cheat Sheet

What files do I need when I pack mods?

I would highly recommend creating the mod folders before you

even start with the plugin creation. This will save a lot of time from
having to relaunch CK multiple times to assign texture and mesh paths.
The following is only an example folder structure, feel free to structure
the folders any way that you want. You may check out my follower mods,
or any other ones on Nexus, for other examples.

Using MO2 or Vortex, create a new empty mod. Name it,

Open this new directory by right-clicking it and opening the folder in
Explorer.

^ IMPORTANT: enable the mod file!

If you don’t, you will have NO access to the files you dropped inside when you
start Creation Kit later!
I want to create a follower named Charlotte. Because it seems like a
common name, I add something to the folder name just in case it
conflicts with another mod follower named Charlotte, in this case I add
my initials: MXT

Meshes
For body, hands and feet meshes, create this folder structure:
meshes\actors\character\CharlotteMXT\Body\
Files:
Femalebody_0.nif
Femalebody_1.nif
Femalehands_1.nif
Femalehands_0.nif
Femalefeet_1.nif
Femalefeet_0.nif
Skeleton_female.nif* (optional, only used for custom race & skeleton)

Textures

For body textures, create:

textures\actors\character\CharlotteMXT\Body\
Files:
Femalebody_1.dds
Femalebody_1_msn.dds
Femalebody_1_sk.dds
Femalebody_1_s.dds

For hand textures, create:

textures\actors\character\CharlotteMXT\Hands\*
Files:
Femalehhands_1.dds
Femalehands_1_msn.dds
Femalehands_1_sk.dds
Femalehands_1_s.dds
*I usually throw the hands and body textures into the Body folder, but if you are
afraid of mixing them up when selecting texture files in CK, it might be better for you
to put them into separate folders.
For head textures, create:
textures\actors\character\CharlotteMXT\Head\
Files:
Femalehead_1.dds
Femalehead_1_msn.dds
Femalehead_1_sk.dds
Femalehead_1_s.dds
Blankdetailmap.dds* (or freckles, dirt etc.)

*Blankdetailmap.dds is usually found in your skin mod’s folder:

textures\actor\character\male\blankdetailmap.dds
You will definitely need this from Bijin Skin to avoid the neck seam issue if you use it,
I do not remember if other skin mods need it but I usually check to make sure.

^ Pro-tip: All nexus mods have a “Preview File Contents” button below each file for
download. Try taking a look at some mod author’s folder structures. Everyone uses a
different folder structure that suits their workflow. Mine is tailored to be for fast
copy-paste operations (see above images). If you want to be really neat, you can
create individual folders for all the parts (hair, brows, eyes, hairlines etc).
The structure doesn’t matter as long as you path everything correctly.
To find the texture files of the head parts you need, check the head mesh’s
(exported from RaceMenu) texture paths in NifSkope:
Hairline / Eyes / Brows / Hair:
Using information from the head mesh, we have discovered the files we need:
Hair: Starry.dds, Starry_n.dds (from KS Hairdos)
Hairline: hairline01.dds, Hairline01_n.dds (from KS Hairdos)
Brows: femalebrow_02.dds (from Brows / Hverg Brows)
Eyes: eyeshadeblue.dds (from The Eyes of Beauty)
The rest are vanilla files that come from the base game.
How did I know where the parts came from? Easy:

Pray you have this screenshotted. Take some time to hunt for the texture files you
need from their respective mods, and copy them into your mod folder, in this case:
Textures\actors\character\CharlotteMXT\head\

Eyes are slightly tricky. In most cases, you can just include the diffuse texture file and
it will work well. Some eye mods come with their own high quality maps for normal,
subsurface, cubemaps and environment masks. You need to open those mod folders
and check if you are using those overwrites instead of the vanilla ones. The
difference is often negligible though.
The Eyes of Beauty comes with its own eyecubemap.dds, you may wish to use it.
I personally only change the diffuse (because that’s the color and design of the eye)
and the cubemap, although even the cubemap changes are marginal.

Create:
textures\actors\character\CharlotteMXT\eyes\
Files:
Eyeshadeblue.dds
Eyebrown_n.dds (optional)
Eyebrown_sk.dds (optional)
Eyecubemap.dds (optional)
EyeEnvironmentMask_M.dds (optional)
^ By this point, your head texture folder should look something like this. I threw in the
eyecubemap.dds from The Eyes of Beauty for fun, it’s optional.

These are all the files you need to get started for the NPC’s bare body.
Reminder for which program handles what:

Creation Kit handles:

1. All Body texture paths
2. All Body mesh paths
3. Skeleton mesh path (optional)

Head NIF texture paths handle:

1. Head
2. Hair
3. Hairline(s)
4. Brow
5. Eye
6. Mouth (rarely touched, optional)

Do not listen to people who tell you to include the original hair NIF and
TRI files. These people don’t even know what TRI files do. The hair NIF
is already embedded in the exported RaceMenu head mesh file. Having
the original NIF and TRI file does nothing except make your zip file
bigger.
No TRI files are needed in any mod follower EXCEPT for high poly
heads. Challenge me on this, I welcome anyone.
Common mistakes and FAQ

Neck seam
Check to make sure the weight setting in CK / SSEedit matches the
weight you set in RaceMenu when you exported the head.
Make sure blankdetailmap.dds or any freckles/dirt textures are pathed
properly in the head NIF (using NifSkope)

Body / Hands / Feet do not scale correctly with weight change

Check the mesh paths in the Naked armor parts in CK.
You should be using femalebody_1.nif, femalehands_1.nif and
femalefeet_1.nif. 1 and not 0.

Hand Seam
Do the above step first. If it still persists (rare case), try replacing the
follower’s mod skeleton with an updated one. If that causes severe
deformity but fixes the hand seam, you have to pick one or the other.

Weird breasts / nipples

Make sure the correct texture is used for the correct mesh type.
UNP texture for UNP type body, CBBE for CBBE.

Purple textures
Check texture paths in NifSkope for typos.
Tips & Good Habits

When working on an ESP-FE

Always recompact the ESP before saving. Even if it is already compacted.
Compacted form IDs will not change on a recompact, it is safe to spam.

Take notes!
Always keep an instance of Notepad open to copy and paste multiple paths. Makes
your workflow much smoother.

Screenshots in Racemenu
Always screenshot the following in case you forget:
1. Skin tone dialogue box that shows skin RGB values

2. Follower Weight
 3. Preset ESP list after you save the Preset

Once you export the head NIF and close Racemenu, you will not have access to the
weight value and skin tone value unless you relaunch the game. Just do it to save
yourself a headache.
 Future Content

Other additions will be done over time.

Screenshots have been added for all the steps that seem slightly convoluted in
text-only form.

This guide is done off the top of my head.

Double checked all the information while creating a standalone follower (Charlotte)
for screenshotting of steps and finding the correct terminologies for CK forms. Let
me know if you require screenshots of any additional steps. Since most operations
are click, click and drag and renames, there should be no need for videos for the
base guide, but let me know if you have a suggestion!

I will attach a proper tutorial to this document and may rewrite it eventually to
match the tutorial.
Charlotte’s files have been uploaded to the Files section of the mod page and may
be used as cross-reference for all the steps in this guide.

Standalone armor will be covered in another guide.

High Poly Head will be covered in another guide.

PM me on Nexus (username: maxiteo) or leave a comment on the ‘mod’

page if you have any questions or clarifications, and I will update the
guide accordingly.

Thanks for reading!

Digest everything, and you will eventually go from this:

To this:
Random facts that I can remember but need to slot in
the correct sections eventually:

Hair color (ESP vs NIF values)

For NPCs with custom head meshes, the hair color is locked into the head NIF file.
So if the exported head mesh was made with black hair, but your hair color settings
in the Actor form in CK is set to honey blond, the hair will still appear black ingame.
HOWEVER, if you equip the follower with a hair wig, her ESP hair color (honey
blond) will show up on the wig. I would recommend setting the hair color in the ESP
to match the head you made in RaceMenu, if you intend to use (or let your users)
use wig mods without them freaking out over sudden hair color change.

How to change inventory items and quantity

^ edit number of arrows by changing the Count.

Default outfit cannot be removed without console or a follower framework mod.
You can force the NPC to overwrite her default equipment by giving gear of a higher
armor rating, or if she prefers robes, give her enchanted robes with a higher value.

Vanilla hair replacer mods / black face ‘fix’ mods…

… will break all custom NPC heads. ALL. How they operate is they force ALL NPCS
within the loaded cell to reset / refresh; when this happens, all custom head sculpts
are cleared and the ESP values of the NPCs are loaded. The facegeom mesh and
facetint textures are completely removed from all NPCs each time you enter a new
cell. Black face ‘fix’ mods do the same thing. These mods are nothing but trouble for
custom follower makers.
You will most likely encounter multiple users who will report a bug on your follower
mod upload. If they send in a screenshot that shows your mod follower looking
exactly like the preview mode in CK, it’s most likely due to one of these vanilla hair
replacer / black face bug ‘fix’ mods. I don’t know if those mods have workarounds to
this problem, and frankly I don’t care, since I will never use them personally. Try
redirecting the user nicely to post a bug report on their mod pages instead, since
their mod breaks all custom head sculpt followers, so they should be the one
fixing this issue and not you/me.
 How it all works, conceptually.
I figured I should try to sum up how all the “pathings” work, and I came
up with this:

Literally, they’re all just pointing to each other. Here’s what happens
in-game when you load into a cell:

1. Skyrim starts loading all the objects in a cell, eventually NPCs get
loaded as well.
2. The game will load an NPCs body, by ‘pointing at’ the plugin and
asking for body textures and body meshes.
3. The plugin will ‘point to’ the custom folders (using paths you set
inside of it), and those body mesh and texture files get loaded.
4. Skyrim then starts to load the heads. The game starts looking in
these two directories:
meshes/actors/character/facegendata/facegeom/CharlotteMXT.esp/
textures/actors/character/facegendata/facetint/CharlotteMXT.esp/
For the head mesh and the facetint (makeup) texture.
5. Once the head mesh is verified to match the plugin (same number
of faceparts with the same names), the game points at the head
mesh NIF file and asks for textures.
6. The NIF points to the custom face textures (by using the texture
paths embedded inside), and they get loaded into the game.
What happens when you make mistakes at certain steps?
1. Skyrim starts loading all the objects in a cell, eventually NPCs get loaded as
well.
2. The game will load an NPCs body, by ‘pointing at’ the plugin and asking for
body textures and body meshes.
a. Missing meshes will usually cause CTD, or a huge floating triangle.
b. Missing body textures will lead to purple glowing skin.
3. The plugin will ‘point to’ the custom folders (using paths you set inside of it),
and those body mesh and texture files get loaded.
a. If you forgot to change the texture path in the SkinBodyXX and
SkinHandXX forms, or the Biped Model paths in NakedTorsoXX,
NakedHandsXX and NakedFeetXX to ‘point to’ your custom body
meshes and textures, the game will load the default body mesh and
texture, usually in:
meshes/actors/character/character assets/femalebody_1.nif (etc)
textures/actors/character/female/femalebody_1.dds (etc)
4. Skyrim then starts to load the heads. The game starts looking in these two
directories:
meshes/actors/character/facegendata/facegeom/CharlotteMXT.esp/
textures/actors/character/facegendata/facetint/CharlotteMXT.esp/
For the head mesh and the facetint (makeup) texture.
a. A missing head mesh file will give you the black face bug.
b. A missing DDS file will usually only give you a no-makeup appearance.
5. Once the head mesh is verified to match the plugin (same number of
faceparts with the same names), the game points at the head mesh NIF file
and asks for textures.
a. A head mesh that doesn’t match the plugin will also result in the black
face bug. Worst case scenario is instant CTD (rare).
6. The NIF points to the custom face textures (by using the texture paths
embedded inside), and they get loaded into the game.
a. If the NIF texture path points to a texture that is just not there, the
texture will appear purple in-game. Either you put the texture in the
wrong folder, forget to include that texture, or there is a mistake in the
texture path entry.

Once you understand the above process, you should be able to

immediately pinpoint the step which you made a mistake based on the
bug you encountered when loading the game.