Morrowind Mod:The Comparison of NPC Head Replacers

This article for the most part is a copy of The "NPC Head Replacer" Comparison Thread by AfroKing.

Here you will find screenshots from the main replacers available in the community, except the most recent ones. The purpose is to give the user a general idea of what to expect from each one of these replacers, to give an overview of their general quality, as well as some clues about the artistic choices of the modders.

Major Replacers

For each replacer 3 pictures featuring the same 36 NPCs are uploaded, for the sake of comparison. Namely (in order of appearance on the pics):

01 - Jiub
02 - chargen boat guard 2 (the male guard inside the prison ship)
03 - chargen boat guard 3 (the female guard)
04 - chargen boat guard 1 (the Redguard on the deck)
05 - chargen dock guard
06 - Socucius Ergalla
07 - Ganciele Douar
08 - Sellus Gravius
09 - Fargoth
10 - Eldafire
11 - Vodunius Nuccius
12 - Indrele Rathryon
13 - Teleri Helvi
14 - Thavere Vedrano
15 - Foryn Gilnith
16 - Arrille
17 - Tolvise Othralen
18 - Hrisskar Flat-Foot
19 - Raflod The Braggart
20 - Albecius Colollius
21 - Elone
22 - Kunthar
23 - Mebestian Ence
24 - Yakum Hairshashishi
25 - Samia
26 - Nelos Onmar
27 - Ladia Flarugrius
28 - Hrordis
29 - Nels Llendo
30 - Darvame Hleran
31 - Selvil Sareloth
32 - Heddvild
33 - Sottilde
34 - Caius Cosades
35 - Tyermaillin
36 - Rithleen

Vanilla Morrowind

1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

All New Faces by Tanjo

Morrowind Modding History download link
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

Beryl's Head Replacer by Beryllium

Morrowind Modding History download link
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

Better Heads by Gorg, Arathrax and Motoki

Morrowind Modding History download link
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

Changing Faces by Leeloo

link to the author's site
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

Gary Noonan's Heads Pack

Morrowind Modding History download link
Note: additionally to replacing faces, this mod features a pre-Better Bodies body replacer.
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

Illy's Fresh Faces by Illuminiel

Morrowind Modding History download link
The newest iteration of the mod, Fresh Faces II, is available at NexusMods.
The screenshots below show the first version.
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

Riptide's Face, Armor & Clothing Replacer

Morrowind Modding History main download link
Morrowind Modding History patch download link
Note: Riptide's Face & Clothing Replacer is meant to work with Better Heads. This explains why you will recognize some of the BH faces on the pictures. The mod has two additional features: first it gives community-made clothes to several NPCs; second, an optional .esp introduces a few X-Jiit (custom race) NPCs to the world of Morrowind.
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

THE Facepack Compilation by Tarnsman

NexusMods download link
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

Vvardenfell Visages Volume I by Telesphoros

This is a pluginless replacer.
Morrowind Modding History download link
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

New NPC Replacer by ZeroTheHero

Morrowind Modding History download link
1-12:

13-24:

25-36:

Local Head Replacers

This section covers smaller scope replacers: the ones which only change NPCs in a specific area or affect a limited set of characters.
To allow comparison with vanilla characters the pictures are divided in two: the upper part of each picture features the NPCs as they appear by default in unmodded Morrowind; and below are the same NPCs once the changes from the mod have been applied. For each local replacer 18 NPCs were randomly picked and distributed into 3 pictures (6 NPCs/picture). Unfortunately, some of the images have been lost.

Emma's Dagon Fell Replacer

Link to the author's site

Emma's Tel Mora Headreplacer

Link to the author's site

Unique Faces Seyda Neen by Boethiah539

May need cleaning before using.
NexusMods download link

Unique Heads Balmora by Carnajo

Morrowind Modding History download link

Miscellaneous Replacers

This category is for replacers which, for whatever reason, can't be filed under the "Main" or "Local" categories.

Astaris' Replacers

A suite of several mods by Astaris. Clean before using!
Morrowind Modding History download links:
Basic replacer
High Elves Female Beauty
Half Human Khajits - Replaces also the bodies. This one hasn't aged well.
High Elves Heroes
Dark Elves Females
Bearded Nords
Dark Elves Heroes
Put together, they cover most of the population of Vvardenfell but are not comprehensive enough to be listed among the main replacers.

Orginal Faces by AHRIZ

AHRIZ, using heads from Westly's Master Headpack X, edited huge number of NPCs in the game, but not enough to warrant placing it in the Major Replacers category. The mod needs aforementioned Westly's headpack to function.
Morrowind Modding History download link

Westly's Head Packs and Head/Hair Replacers

These include mods released by Westly in his great quest to replace all vanilla heads, while preserving their original concept. The author prefers to release his headpacks in pluginless form.
Westly's Pluginless Head and Hair Replacer at Great House Fliggerty (Dead Link) - Replaces heads of all races, except Argonians and Khjits.
Westly's Master Head Pack X at Morrowind Modding History (Dead Link) - This affects only "playable heads", so to speak. If you want to use them for vanilla characters, you'll have to perform necessary operations in CS yourself. Alternatively, see "Original Faces" above.
Westly released several updates for Master Head Pack X, available at 4shared.com:

Updated Breton Males - (Dead Link)
Updated Orc Females - (Dead Link)
Updated Orc Males - (Dead Link)

World of Faces by GhanBuriGhan

World of Faces edits about 650 of the NPCs of Vvardenfell. That's much more than the local replacers, but not enough to warrant this mod a place among the main replacers.
Morrowind Modding History download link

Extra

Some useful information submitted in posts, which the readers may found interesting.

A Good Setup

By Black Crow King.

Here is my present setup:

0. Vvardenfell Visages VolumeI (for MCA/TR/other mods that use stock faces)
1. Better Heads v2.0 (still my favorite)
2. Riptdies Face, Armor, & Clothing Replacer + patch (gives promonient NPCs of Morrowind original faces & clothes - no more shirtless Causius, he has a robe now, the same as "naked Nord fighter north of Caldera). It seems more "unified" that most of replacers that I have tried before.
3. Barabus Orcs (Orcs were the only heads from Better Heads 2.0 that I do not care for)

No problems yet discovered and I'm rather happy. I do recommend it.

Vvardenfell Visages plus Better Heads

By AfroKing.

To use Vvardenfell Visages' faces with Better Heads, 3 easy steps:

1) Use Nifskope to view the meshes and pick the ones you want;

2) rename the selected meshes from Vvardenfell Visages with the IDs from the Better Heads' meshes that you want to replace;

3) move the renamed meshes into the BH folder of your Morrowind directory (...\Morrowind\Data Files\Meshes\BH)

Editing NPCs' heads and hair by yourself

By Jac.

The process is easy but can be tedious because there's no bulk way of doing it. What you have to do is create a head and hair body part for each head and hair (they're separate, so it's two body parts and not one). After all that's done, you then need to assign each head and hair to the NPCs.
If you decide to make your own meshes, remember that ears have to be attached to the hair mesh, and not the head mesh. All that the head mesh has is the face and the skin tone of the face. If you want a bald head, just add the ears to the hair mesh and don't create any hair.