I've successfully created a couple of NPC followers.

Now I want to figure out how to modify vanilla NPCs, including looks and their default (sandboxing?) location - specifically I'd like to start with Lydia.

I've seen mention of a number of different tools, including Skryim NPC Editor, TES V Snip, and some others.

It seems that there will be some difference of opinion on which tool(s) would be BEST for modding NPCs, so I won't ask that. What I will ask is, considering that I'm a total modding beginner (with the above-mentioned 2 NPC successes) and I just want to change a vanilla NPC's looks and default location, what options would I have?

Thanks!

Use http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1450501-relz-tes5edit/ preferentially if using anything other than the CK, is my advice, as it can do most anything and will invariably adhere more closely or precisely to the official record definitions. You'll never want for anything else...

Thanks for the tip, Justin. I'll check it out.


Also, is CTRL + F4 only required if the NPC's LOOKS are changed, or should that be done whenever any NPC is changed somehow?

You mean building of their textures, right? If so, you'll only have to worry about that if you change their skin color or whatnot. Hair, scale, faction, inventory and other such edits that don't require new textures shouldn't necessitate all that.

Great! Thanks, Justin!

No prob, and that wasn't a beginner question. *double take* Is that Alt-F4 thing even documented?

WOW! Tes5Edit is quite overwhelming!

I'm assuming I don't need to load ALL of the mods that are selected by default (kind of a pain to un-check all of them, though).

The only tutorial I can find regarding TES5Edit is on "cleaning" and I don't THINK I need to worry about that (just yet, at least). Everything is purely text-based without much info (that I see) on what a particular item is for or can be changed to.

I loaded one of my NPC mods, whom I wanted to move to a new location and looking at the Cell/Block/Sub-Block info, I clicked on the "Cell" line at the very top on the right, and got a VERY prominent warning about not continuing if I didn't know what I was doing. So I closed it.

I really don't see how to do what I want to do in the program...