¶ Getting Started
This guide assumes you have installed the toolkit and know how to set up a new mod project with the toolkit.
If you are using the toolkit for the first time, you can refer to Installing the Toolkit and Creating a New Mod guides to get started.
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For this guide I’m making a custom piercing consisting of custom mesh (the gold danglies), vanilla mesh with different placement from the one available in game (the Red Scintilla stud, above the right brow instead of at ear lobes), and vanilla piercing with the same placement as available in game (the spikey ring at the ear helix- but only one of them).
Open the Resources Manager and upload your custom meshes. The left & right meshes must be in separate GR2 files. The mesh should not be parented to any armature or have any armature modifier. Assign the materials- if your mesh is edited from vanilla assets you can reuse the vanilla materials by searching for the material name, or upload your own custom textures to use with your mesh. (You can read more on how to import your custom assets here).
¶ CharacterCreationSharedVisuals Table
Open the UUID Object Editor.
Under your mod directory (in my case it’s Piercings_Guide), go to CharacterCreation directory, hit the “+” button and create CharacterCreationSharedVisuals.
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In the resources manager, copy the GUID of your first custom mesh. In this case the Left version of the piercing.
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Back in the UUID Object Editor, open your newly created CharacterCreationSharedVisuals table, and paste the copied mesh GUID into the VisualResources column. The toolkit will automatically generate the UUID for this entry.
Put “Piercings” under SlotName.
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The BoneName will depend on where you want to place the piercings. Refer below chart for the placement of each bone name.
There are left and right for each bone except for septum which only has middle. The left/right placement follows the character’s left and right hands.
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As the first mesh I copied its GUID from is for the left side, I need to use the BoneName “piercing_lobe_a_l”.
The DisplayName is the name that will appear when you search for it to put as entry in CharacterCreationAccessorySets table later. Make it easy to recognize, and the vanilla naming usually also includes the bone name as well. For this guide I used “Danglies Lobe A L”.
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For the Name column at the end, you can put the mesh name, it’s not that important (e.g. PRC_GUIDE_DANGLIES_L).
Repeat the steps for Right version of the piercing.
¶ Using Vanilla Mesh
For something that the mesh is already in game and you don’t want to change anything but only its placement (e.g. the Red Scintilla stud in this guide). Search PRC in Resources manager and look for the mesh that you want, copy its GUID and repeat the steps above. For this guide I’m using the brow_a_r bone and named it “Red Gem Brow A R”.
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As for the spikey ring there’s no need to create an entry for it as it’s already available, we just need to search for it later.
Click Save once done.
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¶ CharacterCreationAccessorySets Table
Next under your mod’s CharacterCreation directory, create new CharacterCreationAccessorySets.
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Under the DisplayName column, enter the name you want it to appear as in the character creation screen in game (e.g. Danglies 1). The toolkit will generate UUID for the entry. Enter “Piercings” under SlotName, and put “Yes” for CharacterCreationSet column.
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Under the VisualUUIDs, there will be a dropdown of list of piercings available. Search for your custom piercings DisplayName from the CharacterCreationSharedVisuals entry you did earlier and click on them to include in your piercing set (e.g. “Danglies Lobe A L” , “Danglies Lobe A R” & “Red Gem Brow A R”).
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¶ Using Piercings from Vanilla Sets
Then if you want to add in something already available in vanilla piercing sets (retain the same mesh & bone placement), you need to look for its DisplayName in Projects > Shared > CharacterCreation > CharacterCreationAccessorySets table. This table is to be used as reference only and can’t be edited.
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In this mod I want the spikey ring from Silvergold Gala set.
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Look for the vanilla piercing set name (e.g. Silvergold Gala), and click the VisualUUIDs column to see its list of assets used at the top. (Use the entry with empty UUID column for humanoid). In here, find the DisplayName entry that you need. Sometimes the game uses mesh name + bone name, sometimes it’s just the set number + bone name. Each entry is separated by semicolon (;). Refer to the bone placement chart to see where the item you want is placed. In this case it’s at helix_a_r bone, so it should be the name “Set 5 Helix A R”. (Silvergold Gala is the 5th piercings entry in character creation screen in game, hence it was named set 5).
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Then I go back to the mod’s CharacterCreationAccessorySets tab and select the “Set 5 Helix A R” to put under my piercing’s visualUUIDs entry as well.
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Do this for all the items you want to appear in your piercing set. The items at the top of the dropdown list are the items you have already selected.
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The RaceUUID column should be empty, it will automatically be available for all races except Dragonborn. At this point the piercing is done for the humanoid races. (You can save and close the UUID editor if you don’t plan on adding dragonborn piercings as well).
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¶ Piercings for Dragonborns
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The steps for CharacterCreationSharedVisuals is the same as humanoid piercings, but you might need to make a different mesh if you’re using custom, as they can appear weirdly on dragonborns. I’m using the same mesh for this guide so they appear a bit funny. In the game vanilla assets the meshes for dragonborn have the DGB prefix. But sometimes they can use also the same mesh, like the Red Scintilla studs.
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Dragonborns use different bones than humanoids, aside from brow & septum bones. You can refer to Dragonborn piercings bone chart below:
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In this mod I’m only putting the custom gold piercing on the right nostril of dragonborn so I copied the GUID of the right gold piercing and put it in new entry, then set the bone to nostril_a_r, and put DGB on its display name so it’s easy to recognize.
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As they use the same brow_a bones as humanoid (and same mesh as well), I don’t need to make a new entry for the red scintilla stud (can reuse the “Red Gem Brow A R” entry).
To use piercings that are in vanilla piercing sets, in Projects > Shared > CharacterCreation > CharacterCreationAccessorySets, look for the ones with the dragonborn UUID. In this mod I need the “DGB Set 5 Targus A R”.
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In CharacterCreationAccessorySets table, Dragonborn needs a separate entry, it can use the same DisplayName so you can put in the same name in the next row to generate a new UUID entry. The steps are the same as humanoid, but you need to put in Dragonborn’s race UUID under the RaceUUID column (it is 9c61a74a-20df-4119-89c5-d996956b6c66).
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In VisualUUIDs column it’s the same step as humanoid, pick all the items you need to appear in your piercing set.
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¶ Save & Publish
After that you’re done. Save and close the UUID Editor. You can check if it appears in the game by clicking the Switch Game/Editor button. (If it doesn’t, try to restart the toolkit first).
You need to publish the mod in order for it to show up in game. Read through how to publish it here.
¶ Additional Info
If the piercings you're looking for is missing the bone name in its display name, you can also look it up in the Shared CharacterCreationSharedVisuals directory to see its bone name. They are usually named with the piercings set number.