Ok I am new to Morrowind modding.

My question is easy:

Say I want to change a stupid default NPC's face, for example Fargoths, into one I made myself or made by someone else..
If I load Morrowind.esm in the Construction set and select "Fargoth face menu" I can only change its face into another stupid default face, which gives me only 7 choices for a woodelf
I presume its possible to add your own faces to this list? How? Or what is the right way to replace a NPC face?

Thx

btw. something like a external face/hairserver would be great. Like a little dll. programm: you can place the face files into a map and the dll. makes a connection between the games face ID's and the files you placed in your map. That way it would be easy and quick to replace and add faces.

Well, considering you don't know much about modding, the easiest way would be to download one of face replacer mods where everything is already made for you. Check http://www.gamesas.com/topic/994490-the-npc-head-replacer-comparison-thread/, choose the one pack more fitting to your taste and install it.

If you want to set up your own choice of faces, you better use one of facepacks that only provides faces but not a replacer. Download http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=6162#Files or http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7039&id=6173#Files and load Morrowind.esm together with their .esp/.esm. Then, when selecting a face for an NPC, you'll have a much broader choice.

While that's a great idea, it's not possible because face and hair data have to be loaded from an esm/esp. If you want to add a new face (e.g. one of Meldicore's new ladies), you need to ad both the face and hair meshes (nif files). To do that:

• Open up the CS and select all three master files (Morrowind, Tribunal, and Bloodmoon). Click past any errors it gives you about dialog, those are harmless. One of the stickies in here will show you how to set it up so that clicking on cancel will bypass all CS errors. If you don't have all three master files, just load the ones that you do have. This is so that your plugin doesn't include any nasty surprises.
  
• Click on the body part tab in the CS.
  
• Right click on any entry and select new.
  
• For the id, make it something unique like XS_Mel_WEFace1 or something similiar.
  
• In the drop down box next to part change it to head for faces and hairs for, well, hairs. Note that this has to be done twice: once for the face and once again for the hair, but both MUST have unique IDs. Leave the part type as skin.
  
• Check the female box.
  
• Click on the Add Art File button and select the mesh file for the body part you're creating.
  
• Click on the Race drown down menu and select the race that this is for (e..g Bosmer, Redguard, etc.) Leave the Type drop down box on normal unless you're making a face/hair specifically for vampires.
  
• Click OK and now you have a new face or hair style. Once you're done with both, you can attach them to any NPC you like just like you would any other face and/or hair style.
  
• When you're done, save the plugin under a unique name and select it in the mod selector of your choice (either Wrye Mash or the game's launcher). If you did everything properly, your NPCs should now have new faces and hair styles. If any of them don't or there are other issues, make sure that you selected the proper meshes.

@ Kir: Thx but I know that Im already using the Westlys Master Head pack, but I want to make a complete one myself, or at least change some npcs

@ Jac: thx, I finally got it to work. Tried it before this way, but I must had forget something. Well now I know how, now only have to find out an effective workflow


This faceserver idea comes from Pro Evolution Soccer where the modders did such thing through hexediting. But yeah probably impossible for Morrowind..

Yeah, it'd be nice if that would work with Morrowind, but it's a 10 year old game, so there's only so much we can do with it unfortunately. You can easily make a head and hair replacer that doesn't need a plugin, but you would have to set it up so that it overwrote the original heads & hairs and it would affect all NPCs in the game with no real way to define who got what.

Yeah and that way the face data would still be loaded through an esm. (Morrowind.esm)

All of Morrowind's assets have to be declared somewhere: whether in a master file or a plugin. Pluginless replacers get around this by changing the default assets, like heads and hairs, and not declaring new assets or creating new ideas. I didn't say it was an optimal solution, only that it was one.

Hm I encountered a new problem.

I was working on a replacer for Seyda Neen faces:

I did put all the meshes in: meshes > ftp > sn
and the coresponding textures in: textures> ftp > sn

ftp stands for my project: face the people.... sn for : seyda neen

I made sure the meshes and textures were linked together as I saved them.

Then went to the CS:

added them as normal through body part / head etc.
For example the mesh named: SN_boatguard

Then when I pick the right face from the list and want to save it for that particular npc an error pops op: TES3Stream Warning: "Meshes/FTP/SN_boatguard.nif" tex not found "ftp/sn_boatguard.dds"! Continue runnig executable?
When I click yes I end up with the face mesh without texture
Why cant the CS find the texture?

The thing is when I do the same process only with the mesh and texture in their root folders (data files: meshes) and (data files: textures) then it works smooth !
But of course I want to organize them in a particular folder and not dump them all into the root folders..

when you refer from a .nif to a texture in a subfolder, you need the textures prefix
e.g. try changing
ftp/sn_boatguard.dds
to
textures\ftp\sn_boatguard.dds

In addition to what Abot said, please, please, please do not use the full path to the texture in the Nif file: e.g. C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind\Textures\ftp\sn_boatguard.dds. If you set up Nifscope properly, you should only need textures\ftp\sn_boatguard.dds. Doing it the other way screws up the texture path for those of us who don't use the default installation path.

jep thx I understand the logic now, how CS finds the texture. I forgot the part of setting the directory path in nifskope.

@ Jac:
Yeah I know I am aware of that, but I understand you mention it, because resetting that kind of mistake would take a lot of time