Skyrim Nexus Familiar Faces

Familiar Faces Characters Not Staying - posted in Skyrim Mod Troubleshooting: Im having an issue with Familiar Faces where my other characters arent showing up in their alcoves. It was working fine until I loaded up my tenth character and then all of a sudden all the alcoves were empty. Now when I load my main character he is in his alcove but no one else is there. Familiar faces - posted in Skyrim Mod Troubleshooting: I am having an issue with saving a character on familiar faces. When i go to the character set up menu and I click the missing critical mods, it says missing race from unknown source.I was wondering if anyone knew what this meant. I tried searching for it and no one else seems to have previously had the problem. The character i am using is.

LoneSubs' Modding Tutorial


Introduction

First thing's first, I'm Lone. Today I'll be spending my time making this blog for other fellow Skyrim mod users. Which usually comes down to the requirements or bare necessities you'll need for Skyrim modding and such.
I'll also be sharing mods that I personally recommend or like. It would also be beneficial if you are at least SOMEWHAT familiar with Skyrim modding in general.


Requirements
  • Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE)
  • Optional: A Loverslab Account
  • A Steam Version of Skyrim on AT LEAST a decent PC.
  • Patience

These are probably the bare necessities you need to get started, or what you should at least have already to mod with. Why Nexus Mod Manager? It's probably the easiest, and most efficient thing you could ever use when it comes to modding. It organizes your mods in a library and also backs up your game's files prior to the installation of the mod.
SKSE is vital for many script extensive mods, and there are some very interesting mods out there that require it, not to mention it would be silly not to have it installed for the fact that it makes your Skyrim a tad more stable.

A Loverslab account is nice to have for the fact that it's another place for mods aside the Skyrim Nexus itself. Though you should be wary that it's an Adult Modding website, so expect adult mods. But the main purpose of mentioning it in this guide is the fact that they have 'What Mod is this?' threads, in which you can ask the community about the mods being used in a specific screenshot that you find. Most LIKELY found by people who frequent the Skyrim Image Uploader.

Steam Version of Skyrim because, well, most mods are made by people who use this version and it would be silly to use anything else. But a retail copy isn't bad either I suppose..

Patience and the ability to read. Skyrim modding can take many hours of your day doing, up to the point where you spend more of your spare time modding than you do actually PLAYING it. You'll understand it when you do the same thing as well. Reading, well, if you made it this far without skimming too much I think you'll be fine. Just make sure when you download a mod THAT YOU READ THE DESCRIPTION FIRST. I cannot stress you to the amount of time that you can waste trying to fix your game when something goes wrong because you didn't install the mod correctly or it had to be installed manually.


Recommended Mods:


In this blog post I'll be sharing my list of mods for player characters, in which I focus the most of my time modding and majority of the modding community as well. Most of these mods CAN be found on the Nexus, while some others on Loverslab.

Note that these are all personal preference when it comes to modding player characters and you can pick and choose whatever you like.


For character models I use:
  • DIMONIZIED UNP for Females.
  • Favored Soul for Males.
  • UNP Delicate Skin Textures.
Familiar

Eyes/Face:


FacesFacesSkyrim
Hair:

  • SG Hairs (Loverslab Only)


Animations/Posing/Skeleton:
  • FNIS - Fores New Idles in Skyrim + Spells
  • XPMS Skeleton Replacer

Custom Race (Females Only):
  • The Ashen Race
  • 'Lovergirl'Race
Misc:
  • ENB:BoneAsh
Installation should be pretty straight-forward, download via NMM and enable it and you're good to go! Or you can download it manually and add it via zip file and enable it.
MAKE SURE YOU READ EACH MOD DESCRIPTION CAREFULLY FOR INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS.
If I get enough requests I'll showcase a mod in a video in my next blog post and/or installation instructions for a mod. I don't think It'll be necessary because there have been many videos of such at Gophersvids for example.


Next Time: Armor Mods for UNP























Current build is 1.0.5!: Download page

Requirements

  • Latest version of Skyrim - Dawnguard and Dragonborn are supported but not required.
  • SKSE 1.7.1 - Not included. Download and install if you're not using it already. Earlier versions WILL NOT WORK. The mod will notice if SKSE is missing and will shut down.
  • SkyUI 4.1 - Not included. Required for using MCM.
  • JContainers 0.67.4 or higher - Included. This is an SKSE plugin that is packaged with this testing edition.
  • RaceMenu
  • Extensible Follower Framework - Not required, but recommended for follower management. UFO and AFT should also work, but EFF is specifically supported.
  • Auto Unequip Ammo - Not required, but recommended to help your imported followers (who frequently have several types of ammo on them) pick the best ammo for their current weapon.

Compatibility

  • Dawnguard and Dragonborn are supported but not required.
  • Mods that add NIOverride overlays (body tattoos, scars, glowing face tattoos, etc) to RaceMenu are fully supported, though the overlays may not always appear on the Shrine statue.
  • Enhanced Character Edit (ECE) is NOT compatible with Familiar Faces and likely won't be any time in the near future. I have contacted the author about adding compatibility functions to ECE, but thus far they are unwilling or unable to do so.
  • HDT physics mods almost certainly will not work properly. See this page for more information. HDT body mods may work but have not been tested. HDT hair definitely will not work.
  • Body replacer mods such CBBE should be compatible. Face replacer mods should work (provided they don't rely on ECE), but exported characters will probably not load properly if the face-altering mod is removed.
  • Some ENB setups may interfere with ImageSpaceOverrides, meaning some animations that normally fade to white to hide animation glitches will not do so. Please let me know if you're using ENB (and which preset you're using) if you are reporting animation bugs.

Installation

You can use NMM or MO to install the mod from the 7z file. Other managers such as Wrye have not been tested, but should work. You can install manually simply by extracting the 7z file to the Skyrim/Data directory.

Mod Organizer notes

Familiar Faces does work with Mod Organizer, but files that get created during gameplay will be written to the OverWrite directory instead of to FF's mod tree. This is normal, but it does make MO show a warning. These files can be safely moved into the Familiar Faces tree after you exit Skyrim. Also note that if you need to send me the contents of Data/vMYC, you'll have to pull them from MO's Mod or Override directory instead of your Skyrim installation folder.

Uninstallation

Make sure all followers provided by Familiar Faces are dismissed from your service before removing the mod.

If you plan to reinstall the mod, leave the Data/vMYC directory intact or at least back it up. It contains all the saved character data. Otherwise...

If you used NMM to install, uninstallation will work but may leave files behind in Data/vYMC. If you used MO, files may remain in your Override directory in the same location.

Search for and remove ALL files and folders in Skyrim/Data that begin with 'vMYC'. Remove JContainers.dll and the included version of CharGen.dll if you aren't using them for any other mods.

Getting started

Shortly after starting or loading a game, you should receive a Portal Stone in your inventory. You can use that stone from your Inventory (under misc items) to warp to the Shrine of Heroes. Activate the 'Tome of the Dragonborn' in front of an empty alcove to save your character there. The save process will take some time, dependent on how many skills, perks, and inventory items your character has. It should never take longer than a minute of real time and should rarely take longer than 30 seconds unless you have a huge number of inventory items.

Once your character has been saved in an alcove, a statue of them will appear, possibly surrounded by various trophies and banners. These reflect your progress and which paths you chose in your adventures through Skyrim. The trophies available are listed below.

Meeting your character

Now for the fun part! Load up a saved game on a different character. As before, use the Portal Stone (there may be a delay before it gets placed in your inventory, just wait). The first time you visit the Shrine, your other saved characters will be loaded in. This process may take some times, depending on the number of characters, how many custom items they have, etc. Open the Tome of your saved character to send them into the world as NPCs. They will have a default spawn point which can be changed from within MCM. After changing their spawn point, you will either need to wait for them to travel to their new home, or summon them back to the Shrine by closing their book, then open it again.

Upon talking to your imported character, you should be able to recruit them as followers (see a Note on VoiceTypes below). You can also make them a marriageable lover or your worst enemy via MCM.

After that, just play around with your imported character!

MCM

Character Options

In the MCM panel, you can change some aspects of your characters' behavior as well as how they level. Under Character Options, first choose the character you want to edit. This will bring up their info.

Enable

This turn the character on and off. This is mostly a debugging feature but may be useful if they become stuck or their mesh does not get applied properly. Avoid using this unless you have specific reason to do so. It will probably become a debug option in the final release.

VoiceType

Familiar Faces Ottawa

This changes the voice your character uses. This is more important than you might think, because VoiceTypes also affect whether you can recruit, marry, or adopt children with your imported character. If you want to recruit your character, you will need to give them a VoiceType labeled as 'Follower'. If you are using EFF or another Follower manager, you can switch their VoiceType back to their original one after recruiting, otherwise you will need to keep them on the Follower VT to access the various Follower commands via conversation.

Class

Changing their Class determines how their skill points are distributed based on level. By default they will try to follow a pattern based on the original character, but this can deliver mixed results: the preset classes are more reliable and are the same types the game uses for leveled NPCs.

Setting their class will also change how the character selects their weapon, which in turn affects their combat style. Experiment with these until your character acts the way you want them to!

Hangout

Familiar Faces Miami Trip

This controls where your character will spawn in the world, as well as where they will go if dismissed from your service. At the bottom of the list are custom locations: exercise caution when using these, as they are still a bit buggy and may result in your character getting stuck in limbo. Summoning them back to the Shrine by closing their book will bring them back if this happens.

Shrine of Heroes

Here you can rearrange the order in which characters appear in the Shrine of Heroes. In future you will be able to summon/banish characters from the Shrine as well.

Reporting a bug

Please check the list of Quirks and Known Bugs below before reporting! See the section on enabling Papyrus logging for info on how to generate log files.

Skyrim Nexus Familiar Faces

If the game crashed:

  • Make a copy of the Papyrus log and all contents of Data/vMYC before you relaunch the game.
  • Send those files to me, along with any problems you noticed before the crash and what you did leading up to it.
  • If you can consistently reproduce the crash, be sure to tell me how.

Nexus Mods Skyrim Le

If not:

  • Take screenshots if they will help demonstrate the bug in question.
  • Make a copy of the same files as listed above AS SOON AS YOU EXIT THE GAME. It's important that you make a copy of the files before you start playing again, as they will get changed the next time you start the game up.
  • Send me the copied files and a report of what the bug was, what you were doing when it happened, and a brief outline of the steps that brought you to that point.
  • If you can reliably reproduce it, tell me how.

Use Github Issues to report bugs. If you can't do that for some reason, send bug reports to: verteiron+ffbugs@gmail.com.

Testing setup/Enabling Papyrus logging

If your current mod setup is stable, feel free to use it with Familiar Faces. Please make sure it is stable, though. If you find a bug, I may ask you to try to reproduce without certain mods loaded, so be sure you know how to enable/disable mods on your load list.

If you find a bug, it will be really helpful to have a Papyrus log to send me so I can try to figure out what happened. Make sure the following settings are present in your Skyrim.ini:

The Papyrus log will be located in your Documents folders under My Games/Skyrim/Logs/Script/ and will be named Papyrus.0.log.

Quirks

The following are not bugs and should not be reported:

  • The game will hiccup or hang for a moment when entering the Shrine. This is a side effect of loading the CharGen data and can't be avoided. It should only occur when the character models are loading or when changing a character's Class via MCM.
  • Saved characters will quickly vanish and reappear after you load your game. Prior to disappearing they will either be headless or have distorted faces. This is normal.
  • Characters will vanish for a second when their Class is changed via MCM. This is normal.
  • Some characters in the shrines may be in mannequin poses, others may not. This is due to how Skyrim handles loading models and can't be avoided easily.
  • The Portal Stone may take nearly a minute to appear in your inventory. This is normal and will vary based on how many characters you have saved in the Shrine.
  • If your character is a Vampire/Vampire Lord, they may suffer from the gray-face bug. This is an issue with Dawnguard vampires and probably can't be fixed without making the mod dependent on Dawnguard.esm. If need be I'll distribute two versions of the mod to address this problem.

Thank you for helping me make Familiar Faces the best mod it can be.

Changelogs

  • Start from a clean save! Custom locations were fixed and are not compatible with those saved by Beta 1
  • Characters set as foes can now be defeated. When they go into bleedout, they explode like Sauron and are returned to their shrine
  • Characters should now never get stuck in limbo
  • Made additional changes to ensure that the portal stone is placed in inventory after starting the game. If you are still not getting it, then there is something wrong with your scripting engine and I'll need to see your papyrus log to be of any help to you
  • Minor bugfixes to back-end issues

0.6.0

  • Beta 1, no change from 0.5.0

0.5.0

  • This is the feature freeze release! NO major features will be added between now and 1.0!
  • Added a warning about VoiceType if the character isn't using a Follower or Spouse voicetype
  • Global options now no longer TOTALLY empty (just mostly)
  • Fixed a bug where a character's abilities (Doom stones, etc) got duplicated every time they were loaded
  • Various misc bugfixes
Skyrim Nexus Familiar Faces
  • You must re-save all your characters for custom weapons to be transferred!
  • Implements saving/loading of custom weapons that are not equipped.
  • CombatStyle selection is now more effective, and spells are only used if there are perks devoted to their school of magic.
  • Alcove you're saving in will now always have lighting priority over others.
  • Fixed issue #42. (Somehow I'd hoped that bug would be more important)

Familiar Faces Lyrics

[0.4.6]

  • Clean install is HIGHLY recommended for this version!
  • Characters can now be set as foes or potential spouses. Note that right now they can't be killed, so they may prove to be rather implacable opponents...
  • VoiceTypes are now labeled with F, S, or A, for Voicetypes that can be Followers, Spouses, or Adopt, respectively.

[0.4.5]

  • Shrine of Heroes can now be managed from MCM panel
  • Characters now report readiness to the Shrine faster, which speeds up load time
  • Minor backend changes

[0.4.4]

  • Perks are now FULLY IMPLEMENTED!
  • Custom locations: If you use the Portal Stone in a named location, that location will become available as a 'Hangout' for your character in MCM.