#rdr2 mod tutorial

[hello-mishki]

How to create your OC in RDR2 story mode!

So I've been asked how I create my OC in screenshots and figured I'd to a tutorial on how to do this.

It's a long one, with visual references, so I'll stick this under the cut to spare those of you not interested in this kind of thing. It's divided into 2 parts:

Mods

Creating your OC and getting it ready for animating/creating a scene

I will create a separate tutorial post on how to animate characters as this will be way too long otherwise.

Part 1: Install the required mods

Rampage Trainer 

So we can change models, add animations etc. https://www.nexusmods.com/reddeadredemption2/mods/233 (Read the requirements and install information thoroughly as we need ScriptHook for this mod to work)

Outfit Changer 

So we can outfit our models, also has all the items from RDO https://www.rdr2mods.com/downloads/rdr2/scripts/12-rdr-2-outfit-changer/

Animation dictionary list for Rampage Trainer By default Rampage comes with only a very limited amount of animations, so we want to fix that. 1. Download the full animation list here: https://github.com/kaphzi/RDR2_stuff/blob/main/PedAnimList.txt 2. Move it into your RampageFiles/Lists folder to replace the original PedAnimList.txt

Optional mods:

RDR2 2025 Enhanced Edition Reshade 

This is just a personal preference but I like the overall aesthetic which means i don't have to edit my screenshots, also having ReShade installed means i can save higher quality screenshot files and add DoF https://www.nexusmods.com/reddeadredemption2/mods/5549

Otis_Inf RDR2 photomode tools https://opm.fransbouma.com/Cameras/rdr2.htm

I use this exclusively for all my screenshots and recordings but it costs money (once-off via Patreon)

Photo Mode Enhancer https://www.rdr2mods.com/downloads/rdr2/scripts/8-photo-mode-enhancer/

A free alternative which is still heaps better than the standard photomode in RDR2

Notes

If this is your first time installing mods: I highly recommend you take a screenshot of your RDR2 folder so you can reference what it should look like with mods disabled and have a mods backup folder somewhere easily accessible to you so you can always reference which mods you are using. (In case of mod issues or you want to switch to online mode)

Here is a handy tutorial if you are new to RDR2 modding: https://youtu.be/msrGfWySX_0?si=N1FfbUbTwzfAPJUi

If you already have other mods installed: Outfit Changer does not work with WhyEm’s DLC and has issues with other online content mods like Red Dead Offline and Online Content Unlocker, so make sure you turn them off.

If you installed the mods correctly you should hear 3 beeping sounds when you launch the game.

Part 2: Creating your OC in story mode

So you’ve loaded up the game and the mods are working fine, so lets start creating our OC in-game!

Mod Settings F5 - Opens Rampage Trainer

F2 - Opens Outfit Changer

Step 1: Create your character

Open Rampage (F5) and go to Player > Wardrobe

Select Model Changer

Go down to Search for Peds and select Search for a Ped

Enter mp_female or mp_male (for this tutorial we will be using female)

Select the model and it will load looking a bit strange with missing limbs, that’s fine we will add these with outfit changer soon.

Go back to Wardrobe and select Walk Styles

Select Brave (this fixes the fatigued stance the models seem to load with)

Step 2: Add model parts and clothing

Close Rampage (F5) and open Outfit Changer (F2)

The first things we want to add to the model before we start building an outfit are Head, Torso, and Legs - write down the values for later use (in case you accidentally delete or overwrite the config files or the game crashes while doing this step)

I would personally leave hair until we have fine-tuned our face later or pick a hairstyle that doesn't obscure the face.

These aren't going to look the best straight away (if you’ve ever made a character in RDO we know how hard it is to make a decent character) but we will tweak the body model later in rampage trainer. Now we can start building the outfit.

Select "Change Ped Components MP Female" (or male depending on which model you chose)

Once you’re happy with the base model and outfit, save it in the Save Current Outfit option so we don’t have to build this base model and outfit again next time we log in. You can save multiple outfits so have fun!

Step 3: Fine tuning our character’s look

This is where something like Otif camera tools come in handy so we can really get the camera up close while we work on the face.

Open Rampage (F5) and go to Player > Wardrobe

Select Meta Tag Expressions

Tweak these to your heart's desire and trust the process! When you’re happy with the final outcome I would write down any changes you made so you can recreate your character in future, at present there is no way to save these meta tag expressions that I'm aware of so you have to do this every time you want to use your OC!

You can now go back to the Outfit Changer and add whatever hairstyle and hat you want. (Don't forget to save!)

Step 4: Setting up finalised character to use

Now, we need to clone our character so it’s its own character to use and pose how we like. 

Go back to Rampage trainer and in the Player menu, scroll down to ‘Clone Player’ and select. Voila! There is your OC!

Now let's change back to Arthur. Back in the Player > Wardrobe > Model Changer menu, select Reset

Now we can change Arthur to another character much like we did when we changed them to the mp_female model or we can spawn in other peds.

I normally like to leave Arthur as is and then spawn in other Peds.

Additional: Spawning in other characters to create a scene.

In this example I’m going to spawn in Micah to create a scene with.

Go to Spawner > Peds > Spawner Settings

Make sure Frozen is ticked

Go back to the Ped Spawner and select ‘Search Peds’

Just enter in Micah and enter

From the list select CS_MICAHBELL and our stinky lil' man will spawn in

So, to use these characters we’ve added, we need to add them to the Ped Database so we can select them and switch to them any time we want.

There’s a few ways to do this but this is how i like to do it:

Back in the Spawner menu, go to Objects

Go to Cam Settings turn off Take Player With Cam

Go back and click to turn on Creator Cam

Now we can use our mouse to move the characters around, yay!

This is what we’ll be using to position our characters in scenes easily.

We need to add our OC and Micah to the database so we can use them with their own context menus, so lets right click on our character to select them and then click E to add them to the database, do the same for any other characters you want to use.

Back in our Spawner Ped menu, if we go to Ped Database, we should now see mp_female and CS_MICAHBELL in there

Scroll to a character in the list, and click them to get to their own context menus

To change Micah’s outfit for example, we would make sure we had selected them in the database so we can access their context menu and in the Outfit Variation section, choose one we like. Now that we’ve created our characters for a scene and added them to the database so we can use them via their own context menus, we can move on to animating them. How to animate your characters: https://www.tumblr.com/hello-mishki/781576015936995328/how-to-create-your-oc-in-rdr2-story-mode-part-ii?source=share

[hello-mishki]

How to create your OC in RDR2 story mode! Part II - Animations

This follows on from my post on how to create your OC model and get it ready for a scene with Rampage Trainer and Outfit Changer mods installed. Now that we have have our mods installed and we're familiar with creating our character and spawning in other characters, it's time to animate them!

Now hopefully you installed the full animation list from the install mods section in the previous post!

With our peds added in the database, let's select one of them to start an animation (make sure you still have creator cam turned on from the Spawner > Object settings as it make positioning your characters so much easier!)

Now there are two types of animations we can choose:

Scenarios: limited but come with props and can almost interact with nearby objects correctly eg leaning on a bar

Animations: thousands of raw animations you can loop but have no props, you must add these in manually

Let’s do a scenario first

In your selected peds context menu, select Scenario and click search to try a keyword eg “drinking” or “lean” or “journal”, try your luck you’re bound to find something!

Here we'll have Micah lean back smoking against the structure, cigarette prop automatically loads in and he can easily be positioned with creator cam against the beam. Easy!

Let's try animations now

Now lets select our other ped and this time, in their context menu choose Animations > Dictionaries > Reload Lists

You can try your luck here by searching with a keyword (there are thousands from general gestures, to combat, to camp interactions and story missions!) and trying out some animations.

Make sure to enable looping and you can play around with the different settings here. If you find your ped is moving around the scene, make sure you’ve set them to be frozen from their general menu options so they stand in the one spot.

In animations, unlike scenarios, some will not position correctly like sitting poses even if you position them over an object they should be able to sit on, like a chair.

To get around this, in the ped menu go to Positioning and manually play around with the settings here but note that doing this will stop the animation from playing, so it’s a bit of back and forth between this menu and the animations menu. A bit fiddly, i know.

Once you have your poses more or less how you like them, you can also do a few things to tweak the overall scene from the Rampage Trainer World Menu like change the time of day which affects the lighting as well as the weather.

Tools like Otis_Inf  makes the screenshot process easy because we can hit pause in the game to get the right animation frame we want from any looping animations, it also allows us to easily hide the UI and maneuver a freecam all with a few hotkeys.ReShade also makes it easy to add more DoF to our shots too, so less post-processing edits required.

Now go and have fun! The best way to learn is to simply play around with all the settings in Rampage Trainer 🙂

Feel free to tag me in any screenshots you take, I’d love to see them!