How can I put a tattoo on a follower with SAM?

[prisinka 5]

I want to do it without RaceMenu, because whenever my load order changes my followers will lose their tattoos when I use RaceMenu to apply them. I know how to do it normally by replacing skin texture in CK. But with SAM installed, the textures on the follower are swapped automatically. How can I work around this?

[Darnexx 1,962]

What I did is swapping one of the 5 Textures to put the Tattoo on and gave it to the Follower only. That means of course to give all races a Body Texture to avoid them use it.

It's much easier with SAM Light, there you can put the Body Texture file with a Tattoo on in the Folder of the Follower.

[AConfusedKnight 182]

52 minutes ago, prisinka said:

I want to do it without RaceMenu, because whenever my load order changes my followers will lose their tattoos when I use RaceMenu to apply them. I know how to do it normally by replacing skin texture in CK. But with SAM installed, the textures on the follower are swapped automatically. How can I work around this?

There is a complicated workaround, first there’s The Manipulator mod: https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/2811-the-manipulator/ that can apply tattoos to anyone and for followers to keep tattoos after messing with load order I find that followers with an NPC count of 0 (this is the amount of spawns they have in the game, I made some followers that needed to be spawned via console commands because I never gave them a spawn) in order to delete a spawn I found opening creationkit and deleting their cell reference and saving after worked but do so at own risk.

[prisinka 5]

48 minutes ago, Darnexx said:

What I did is swapping one of the 5 Textures to put the Tattoo on and gave it to the Follower only. That means of course to give all races a Body Texture to avoid them use it.

It's much easier with SAM Light, there you can put the Body Texture file with a Tattoo on in the Folder of the Follower.

Thank you. I only wish there was a way without affecting the existing texture, since I like to use them all. And yes, for SAM Light it would be so easy : ( but I love regular SAM too much

 

6 minutes ago, AConfusedKnight said:

There is a complicated workaround, first there’s The Manipulator mod: https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/2811-the-manipulator/ that can apply tattoos to anyone and for followers to keep tattoos after messing with load order I find that followers with an NPC count of 0 (this is the amount of spawns they have in the game, I made some followers that needed to be spawned via console commands because I never gave them a spawn) in order to delete a spawn I found opening creationkit and deleting their cell reference and saving after worked but do so at own risk.

Thanks, I will try it. I have been using that mod already, but struggling with the resetting. I will try and delete my follower's spawns and see what happens.

[AConfusedKnight 182]

23 minutes ago, prisinka said:

Thank you. I only wish there was a way without affecting the existing texture, since I like to use them all. And yes, for SAM Light it would be so easy : ( but I love regular SAM too much

 

Thanks, I will try it. I have been using that mod already, but struggling with the resetting. I will try and delete my follower's spawns and see what happens.

As a heads up, remove the mod from your load order, save your game, edit the ESP file in CK and then reload your game. I find that if I delete the cell references it deletes that current version of the character in the game (2nd clones have weights of 75 which they always insist on resetting randomly) .

[NeutronSphere 346]

Weird timing. I just finished a follower with integrated overlays. When you have certain goals in mind like a specific look for a specific NPC, and especially if you have drastic changes planned, the key here is Skyrim and mods are not your friend right now. The more you insulate him from things the game is doing the better. Thing is sometimes you have to step out of the box, and try stuff, and possibly get weird looks if you show that stuff too much apparently heh

Anyway this is where Nifskope can shine. It can handle the things Skyrim or overhauls would be fussy about. What I did was apply texture controllers in the nif to manage
overlays. IDK if people just didnt know this was a thing, or if the status quo decreed this is bad mmmmk or what. Dont care either. Its for one NPC, and I love having clean
dependency-free ready-2-go men and products when feasible. But thats me.  Just mentioning there are other ways usually to accomplish a goal