What the title says.

Set the npc or creatures health to 0

And the dead body should be 'quest object', if you want to make it permanant.

ANd if you want to position it in the CS enable havok simulation so that the body will drop and you can position it where you want

Thanks, is there a button for havock simulation?

The one with a red ball and 'HK' below it.

Placing a dead NPC and posing them...

1. Make sure the NPC or creature you are using has 0 health.

2. Drag the NPC or creature to the render window to place it in the world.

3. Press the F4 key to 'see' the grabbable points on the body. The F4 key toggles the Collision Geometry on and off.

4. Click the havoc button and the body will fall to the ground. Do NOT unclick the havoc button until the body is in the correct position.

5. Press the left ALT + left CTRL keys and at the same time, left click your mouse pointer on one of the Collision Geometry zones on the body and drag that part around to position it.

If you miss clicking on a collision geometry zone, just move the mouse a bit and try again. If you grab a zone, the body will move about depending on how you move the mouse.

6. Once the body is in the position you want, you can unclick the havoc button and turn off Collision Geometry (F4)

You now have a body placed exactly the way you want.

NM

I vaguely remember that there are a few "gotchas" with dead actors. One was that you can only set their health to zero if their level is fixed, not relative to the PC, so you can't place any leveled item directly in their inventory (the level of the item gets based on the actor's level, not the player's). You have to work around that by adding the item via script in an OnActivate block.

Whoa, I wish I had known about this before. :facepalm: *runs off to create many murder victims*