Say I want to make a Pirate Bonelord. He’s a bonelord with a ruby in one eye. Arrhh! http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab303/Tealpanda_mods/piratebonelord.jpg.

Creating a named version of a base creature is easy.
- Make a copy of “bonelord” with a new editor ID.
- Name him Pirate Bonelord. I can give him new spells and maybe a saber. Whatever.
- Problem: He still looks like every other bonelord in the game.

Creating a retexture for a base creature is easy.
- Pull the meshes and textures for Bonelord from the bsa file.
- Recolor the textures and save with a different name.
- Tell the mesh to use the new textures.
- Problem: This changes every bonelord so it looks like a pirate. Cool, but not what I’m looking for.

So how do I combine the two processes to make a creature that doesn’t look quite like the originals and isn’t just a retexture of all base creatures? I’ve tried just doing both steps, but I get a creature that looks like a normal bonelord out of it.

I know I need a copy of the xbonelord.nif and the xbonelord NetImmerse/Gamebryo Model file, both renamed to match my new bonelord, but with x in front of them and in the same folder. I can retexture the xbonelord.nif. I’m guessing that my problems are with the other file, which I do not know how to edit.

Advice, or directions to a helpful tutorial, would be appreciated.

You have to rename the mesh as well, so when you assign the new textures, you need to save it as a different mesh (piratebonelord.nif, for example). Then in the CS when you make the new creature, direct it to the new mesh (in the upper right corner of the creature menu, you should see a file path leading to the bonelord.nif model, change that to piratebonelord.nif or whatever you end up naming it). Ignore the .kf file, that's the animation file for the creature and not important for what you're trying to do, but you need to edit xbonelord.nif (which will be just the mesh with no animation in NifSkope) to use the new textures as well. I hope that makes sense.

EDIT: Also, you can give the bonelord a saber, but he won't use it because he doesn't have any weapon animations.

You need three files:

Bonelord.nif (This is the actual animation, don't mess with it.)
XBonelord.nif (This is the one to retexture.)
XBonelord.kf (Don't mess with this one either.)

Make copies of them all, save the retextured one as "XBonelordPirate.nif", then chance the names of the other two to match it (BonelordPirate.nif, XBonelordPirate.kf). Make sure they're all in the same folder.

Open CS, make new creature, give him "BonelordPirate.nif" as animation file. Save.

That ought to do it. I've done it a million times.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

And yeah, you're probably better off using a skeleton if you want it to use a weapon.

Thanks - that's very helpful! Exactly the pointers I needed :thumbsup:

I appreciate the help. It let me make a http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab303/Tealpanda_mods/blue-eyedscamp.jpg. And perhaps many other things in the future.

Maybe can you use the scamp mesh from this mod? => http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=9179

Oo, I hadn't seen that one. Thanks! I might use that. :twirl:

Happy to help No point having a community like this if nobody's willing to lend a hand

Could stand to be a bit more lively around here sometimes though.