This guide expects you to know how to put together appearances for NPCs already. It merely teaches you how to use AXL resource patching to add these appearances to existing NPCs in vanilla game and my PM NPCs extended mod.

In case you need it for reference, this is the example project used in this guide.

1. Create a patch ent for the NPC of your choice. You can use any of these as a base, or one generated by Wolvenkit's NPV conversion tool. Put this ent in a path where it doesn't overwrite any existing ones.

Inside this ent, reset all the attributes except the appearances:

2. Add only your new appearances into this ent file. None of the default ones. For example:

Use your own .app files too to not overwrite existing ones. Remember: They need to be converted to a Photomode app in order for facial expressions to work. Wolvenkit has inbuilt features for this too, try them out :)

The final ent file should look somewhat like this:

At the bottom "name" field you can add a prettier written name for the appearance. This is what will appear in the UI ingame and it allows caps and spaces. Special characters are still iffy though so be careful with those.

3. Create an .xl file where you tell ArchiveXL which entity to patch with your additions. This will be the character's photomode .ent file. It works the same among vanilla characters and characters added within my pm npcs extended mod!

In text form:

resource:
    patch:        
        mods\johnny_samurai_example\johnny_samurai_example.ent:
            - base\characters\entities\player\photo_mode\johnny_silverhand\johnny_photomode_entity.ent

The entity list is here. It has both vanilla and extended ents sorted by body rig types available!

4. Pack it and test it ingame. On top of the vanilla appearances, your new one should be there now too!

Pretty cool right? Have fun dressing up your favs ~