Visions is Coming. (Patreon)

The next generation of my 9 replacer packs (92 NPCs) has been a large focus of my work this month. So what exactly is Visions? Well, in short, I want it to be the culmination of my career as a modder and the pinnacle of NPC Replacers for Skyrim. Read on.

Visual Redesigns

I have reworked every single face of the 92 NPCs in all 9 of my Pantheon NPC Replacer packs. Some of them are completely new designs and some of them are the same face but enhanced with all that I have learned since I posted Pantheon over a year ago. I posted image previews with this post, see if you can guess who they are.

Mod Redesign

There is a lot going on with the mod itself now. First of all, the Asset Pack for Visions includes a plugin that is ESL-Flagged (ESPFE). This plugin will contain special records to help me normalizes the number of records needed and prevent duplication of assets that are used over and over. Let me put out that because of these changes, the size of the mod is much smaller than the Pantheon Packs.

Hair Colors

Every NPC now has their own hair color record. This means when you put wigs on them, the wig color should be far more accurate. That said, remember that wigs are dependent on their diffuse color being accurate as well, so some wigs might be a bit off. I'm coming up with a solution of my own for this which I'll explain below. One thing I can say is that some wigs just aren't good for white or red hair. The engine itself has challenges matching these colors accurately - but I'll cheat a little bit with my solution.

Default Body - My Skin

This time the NPCs will use your own body (default) and my skin mix (BNP 1.7). I might also release skin packs for other popular skins to make it easy to replace the Visions body skin with your preferred skin mod.

All In One or Individual Plugins

Pick your poison when downloading. Grab the All in One version to have only one plugin with all 92 NPCs or the version that has 92 different Plugins, one for each NPC. There will be no FOMOD made for Visions. It's just a simple install with your mod manager. Both versions will be ESL-Flagged. Just remember there is also the Asset Pack Plugin (also ESL-Flagged) as well. For those using OBody, the AIO should really make things easier.

Body Normals (Soft or Muscular) Decided By Class or Job

I will be picking what normal map (muscles or not) each NPC has. This will be based primarily on the class (warrior or mage) or job (Blacksmith or Barmaid) of the NPC. Muscles for NPCs that do work or melee combat. Soft body for those who don't do manual labor or throw spells. I will release two optional files at the time of release for people who want ALL SOFT or ALL MUSCULAR instead of my selections.

More About Hair Color and Wigs

One great thing about having an Asset Pack Plugin is that I can include more treats for you in the future. Such as wigs specifically made for my NPCs that match their correct hair color. I might even have dialogue options for you to ask the NPCs to wear specific wigs. Don't expect that upon release, but it will be released early next year sometime. This is how I will tackle the constant issue of wig coloring being perfectly accurate. Until then, just use the wigs you have and you will get semi-accurate colors due to their hair color records.

Future Improvements to Visions

I have a lot of ideas for Visions. With the Asset Pack Plugin I can add things like AI Packages. Extend NPC capabilities like healing and custom skills or magic. Expect to see more on this in the future.

When Will Visions Be Released

I'm through the redesign of 7 out of 9 Packs now. After the packs are all redesigned, I will begin the plugin creation and asset preparation. I expect this to go into January. Don't hold me to this - because I'm not releasing Visions until it is perfect - but I hope to release the first version sometime in January.

If you read all of this, I appreciate it. I would love to get your comments below. Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Heath aka coldsun1187