Vellum Studio, open on a finished package

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Tools · Skyrim SE / AE

Vellum

The tool the followers on this site are built with. It gives a plugin a voice, turns a written script into real dialogue, and builds a follower out of a RaceMenu preset.

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What it is

Making a voiced follower means doing the same twelve things for every single line: cut the audio, name it after a FormID nobody chose, generate a lip file, register a voice type, wire a condition, rebuild. Vellum does that part. What is left is the part worth doing — deciding what she says.

It is one download with two programs inside, sharing the same engine. Vellum Studio.exe is the interface; vellum.exe is the same thing on the command line, for anyone who would rather script it. Neither needs .NET installed, and nothing about it needs the internet except signing in.

Voice & lips

Takes a voice actor's recordings, matches them to the lines, and writes every .fuz and .lip.

Dialogue

A written script with branches becomes real topics, infos and conditions inside the plugin.

Faces & followers

A RaceMenu preset becomes a working actor — head parts, tints, factions, packages.

Setting up

Unzip it anywhere and run Vellum Studio.exe. There is no installer. Three things to tell it once, and then it remembers.

Windows vai avisar da primeira vez. “Windows protected your PC — unknown publisher.” Isso acontece a qualquer programa que nao esteja assinado com um certificado comprado, e nao diz nada sobre o ficheiro. Clica em More info e depois em Run anyway. Se o Windows tiver marcado o zip como transferido, clica com o botao direito no ficheiro → PropertiesUnblock antes de o descompactar.

1

Point it at Mod Organizer 2

Vellum reads your profile the way the game does: the mod list, the load order, which mod wins for a file. Give it your mods folder and the profile you actually play, in Settings. It reads them and nothing else: your installed mods, your profile and MO2's overwrite are never written to.

Settings, with the mods and profile paths filled in

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2

Let it check the machine

The home screen lists what it found and what is missing — the Creation Kit's compiler, the lip generator, texconv, BodySlide. It does not just say missing: it says what that particular gap will stop you doing, so you can ignore the ones that do not matter for your mod. On the command line the same check is vellum doctor.

The home screen — what is installed, and what each gap costs

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3

Open a package, not a plugin

This is the one habit to unlearn. Vellum opens the mod folder — the whole thing, meshes and textures and audio and the .esp together — because almost nothing it does touches only the plugin. Drop the folder on the window, or use Open.

This folder is the only one Vellum writes to. It is normally a mod inside MO2, and that is the point — what comes out is installable as it stands. The only thing kept elsewhere is what belongs to the tool and not to the mod: your settings, your licence and your ElevenLabs key live in %APPDATA%\Vellum, so they never travel inside the package you publish.

Opening a package, and the recent ones

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Voicing a plugin you already have

Free

If you built your follower in the Creation Kit and only want Vellum for the voice, this whole path costs nothing. Open the plugin and it tells you, line by line, what is voiced and what is not.

1

Casting

Assign a voice to each voice type in the plugin. If you are recording a real actor instead, skip this — it only matters for generated audio.

2

Triage, one line at a time

The list on the left is every line, marked with what it still needs. Pick one, generate two takes, listen, and press Replace on the one you want. Flag the ones to come back to. The filter To voice shows only what is genuinely missing.

Triage — a line selected, its takes, and the marks on the list

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3

Or import a folder of recordings

Point it at the folder your voice actor sent back and it matches each file to a line. Nothing is copied until you say so — without --apply it only shows you what it would do, which is the run to look at first.

vellum import "MyFollower.esp" ".\recordings" <- shows the matches vellum import "MyFollower.esp" ".\recordings" --apply <- writes them
4

It writes the lip files too

This is the failure worth knowing about, because the game never reports it: a line with audio but no .lip plays perfectly with the mouth shut. No error, no warning, nothing in the log. Vellum lists those separately and can generate the missing ones without touching the audio.

Building a follower from scratch

Subscription

The other direction: no plugin yet, just a face you made in RaceMenu and an idea of who she is. The screens run roughly in this order, and each one plans before it writes — the plan costs nothing and tells you whether the build will work.

Dossier

Who she is, kept beside what the plugin actually holds.

Face

Import the RaceMenu preset: head parts, tints, the baked geometry.

Body & outfit

Her shape, built for her, and the clothes cut to it.

Follower

Recruitable, with the factions and the relationship the game expects.

Quests & dialogue

Her own conversations, with conditions, stages and ambient lines.

Build

One pass. It lists what would be lost before it starts.

The Build screen, listing what has to be settled first

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Writing the dialogue

Dialogue goes in as a plain text file — a flat list of topics and lines with ids, not an indented tree. You write it in whatever you like, and Vellum turns it into the quest description it builds from.

vellum quest draft ".\ashe-dialogue.md"

The format has a few rules and they matter, so they have their own page: how to write a dialogue script. Checking one is free — vellum quest check reads the description and tells you what is wrong with it without building anything.

The command line

Everything the interface does, vellum.exe does too, and a few reading tools live only there. vellum help lists them all.

vellum report "MyFollower.esp" <- what is voiced, what is not vellum story "MyFollower.esp" <- the whole script, in play order vellum audit "MyFollower.esp" <- saves fine, game cannot use it vellum chatter "MyFollower.esp" <- which ambient line will actually play vellum repeats "MyFollower.esp" <- phrasings she repeats across topics vellum doctor <- what is installed on this machine vellum licence status <- what your subscription opens

chatter is the one to run before a recording session, not after: it tells you which ambient lines the game will really pick, so you do not pay an actor to read forty lines that three will ever play.

AI agents are off by default

Vellum can be driven by an AI coding agent, and it will not be unless you say so. When one tries, the tool recognises it, refuses, and prints the file to edit. The agent cannot grant itself permission — that was tested, not assumed.

vellum agents status <- who is asking, and whether it is allowed