BalrondCharacterCustomization

Overview

BalrondCharacterCustomization expands Valheim's character customization system with additional races, body types, color controls, tattoos, height adjustment, improved barber functionality, and a built-in randomizer.

The mod extends both the character creation/editing interface and the Barber Station UI.

Multiplayer: all players in a session should have the mod installed to ensure custom appearance data is displayed and preserved correctly.

Development status: this mod is still under active development. Some visual clipping or compatibility issues may still occur, especially with unusual equipment, custom character proportions, or dedicated-server setups.

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Features

Character Editing

• Character Edit option available from the character selection flow
• Expanded character creation/editing interface
• Improved Barber Station customization interface
• Female characters can use beards
• Vanilla hair-color controls replaced with RGB controls
• Custom eye-color RGB controls
• Adjustable character height
• Skin-tone customization
• Tattoo selection
• Randomize Appearance button

Playable Races

The mod currently includes four playable races:

• Human
• Alfir
• Dverger
• Fuling

Each race can use different authored proportions and visual features.

Custom race-specific elements, such as ears, are attached dynamically to the player where required.

Body Types

Additional body meshes are available alongside the standard Valheim body types.

Current custom body variants include:

• Male2
• Male3
• Male4
• Male5
• Male6
• Female2
• Female3
• Female4
• Female5
• Female6

Body type selection is independent from race selection, allowing many different combinations.

Hair and Beard Customization

• Additional hairstyles are included
• Hair and beard styles can be selected independently
• Female characters can use beard styles
• Hair color uses independent RGB sliders
• The mod preserves Valheim's normal availability rules for unlocked Barber styles

Eye Color

Eye color can be customized using independent:

• Red
• Green
• Blue

sliders.

Skin Tone

Skin tone can be adjusted from the customization interface using the normal Valheim skin-color range.

Race-specific visual elements that support skin tinting are updated together with the player's skin color.

Height

Character height can be adjusted with a dedicated slider.

Height changes affect the visual scale of the character while the mod handles race-specific proportions separately.

Tattoos

The mod includes a tattoo selector.

Players can choose:

• one of the currently available tattoo options
• None

Tattoo support is still being expanded and more designs are planned.

Randomize Appearance

The RANDOMIZE button can generate a complete random appearance.

It currently randomizes:

• Race
• Body type
• Skin tone
• Hair style
• Beard style
• Hair RGB color
• Eye RGB color
• Character height
• Tattoo, including None

This is intended as a quick way to discover combinations that would be difficult to create manually.

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Barber Station

The Barber Station supports the expanded customization system.

Depending on the available UI and enabled features, players can modify:

• Hair
• Beard
• Hair color
• Eye color
• Skin tone
• Height
• Race
• Body type
• Tattoo

The same appearance systems used during character creation are reused by the Barber interface.

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Configuration

The configuration file is created in the normal BepInEx configuration directory after the mod has been started.

General Feature Toggles

The mod contains configuration options for enabling or disabling selected customization systems.

For example, tattoo UI support can be disabled while preserving stored character data.

Cloth Helmet Uniform Scale

Some helmets use cloth simulation systems such as MagicaCloth instead of behaving like ordinary rigid helmets.

Because custom races may use different head proportions, these helmets require a separate fitting rule.

[4 - Race Fit]
Cloth Helmet Uniform Scale = 1.0

Default:

1.0

This keeps Valheim's original runtime cloth-helmet scale.

If a cloth-based hat needs slightly more clearance around a larger custom-race head, the value can be increased carefully, for example:

1.03
1.05
1.08

The adjustment is applied uniformly on all three axes to avoid deforming the cloth object.

Debug Diagnostics

Verbose development diagnostics can be enabled when troubleshooting race proportions, equipment fitting, or attachment behavior.

[9 - Diagnostics]
Enable Debug Diagnostics = false

Default:

false

Keep this disabled during normal gameplay.

When enabled, the mod can print detailed runtime information about character scaling, equipment attachment transforms, helmet fitting, and related systems.

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Compatibility and Multiplayer Notes

• All players should have the mod installed when using custom races, body types, colors, tattoos, or other extended appearance data.
• Players without the mod may not display custom appearance data correctly.
• Removing the mod or loading the same character without it can cause custom appearance options to fall back to vanilla behavior.
• Custom equipment from other mods may require compatibility adjustments if it depends heavily on vanilla player proportions.
• Unusual helmets, hairstyles, beards, and large custom head shapes may occasionally produce clipping.

If you encounter a compatibility issue, please include:

• the affected race
• body type
• equipment or hairstyle prefab name if known
• screenshots
• relevant BepInEx log output
• whether the issue occurs in single-player, multiplayer, or on a dedicated server

This information makes compatibility problems much easier to reproduce.

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Installation

Install the mod using your preferred Valheim mod manager, or install it manually into:

BepInEx/plugins

For multiplayer, install the mod for every player who needs to use or correctly display the extended customization features.

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Future Plans

Development will continue to focus on expanding customization while improving compatibility with Valheim equipment and character visuals.

Planned work includes:

• improving hair clipping on different races and body/head proportions
• improving beard clipping where necessary
• adding more tattoos
• adding more hairstyles and other cosmetic customization options
• expanding the available visual customization choices
• further improving custom-race equipment fitting
• continued UI polish and usability improvements
• additional compatibility work for unusual helmets and modded equipment
• general bug fixes and multiplayer/dedicated-server improvements

The goal is to keep adding more ways to create visually distinct characters without requiring players to manage separate character-model mods.

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Support and Feedback

Bug reports and feedback are welcome.

When reporting an issue, include as much technical information as possible so the problem can be reproduced.

• Discord: Balrond's Den
• Support development: Ko-fi

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Gallery

Screenshots and additional character examples may be added in future releases.