I gave my spouse 'the gift', firmly expecting to have to use 'heal undead' when she got hurt. But no. Then got 'detect life' spell, she's alive. Serana is just the opposite. Haven't gone around checking all of the known vampires yet, thought I'd ask here first to see if there is something that I am missing.

It's just the way it turned out, since there are a lot of marryable NPCs that would need to be altered to enable them to have their races changed to their Vampire race equivalent. As far as I know not a lot changes with your spouse apart from their eyes. My spouse now has a lower carrying capacity in the daylight, and now cannot be fed upon.

Hmmm... I always thought that it must be a script that ran when one did 'the gift' quest. It would seem that some scripting is involved, (something changed the eyes, for instance) so why not script the whole vampire experience? Could have been in the too hard basket, I suppose, I really can't quite get my head around some of the scripting. (Or, it could be just another example of where I am not the only one that can't quite get their heads around the scripting.... Look at Anska's scripting)

Their eyes become red and they are considered vampires for all intents and purposes (cannot be fed upon, Dawnguard weapons do more damage to them, they use the new eating idle where they eat a bloody hunk of meat, etc.), but they are not undead nor do they use the Vampiric Drain spell.

Having that spell can significantly change their combat AI, and not always for the better, and being undead is prohibitive for followers as you would need the "Master of the Mind" perk to use rallying spells on them, and you would need to use "Heal Undead" or "Necromantic Healing" on them. Other vampiric abilities (such as weakness to sunlight and fire) would also be an annoyance.

Their eyes don't glow, though. Originally, they did, but the command used caused the vampling's face color to not match their body, so it was changed to simply changing their eye color.

@PrinceShroob - Very informative. I think that I detect a wee bit of insider knowledge here?

As to the issues with followers, I might point out that Serana (a special case, I know) requires all of the above already. So not much change there for a follower spouse, surely. As to the glowing eye bits, that does not fuss me that much, though it would be a nice touch. I suppose that some day I will have to de-compress the dawnguard files just to see how the scripts are really used, what they really do and do not do. As a 'forinstance', going back to the eyes... Serana's eyes have a glow to them after she becomes 'normal'. Her face never changes color, as a vampire or a non-vampire, so knowing how those bits were accomplished might allow some creative modding on some NPC's.

Serana and all of her family are of the NordRace, not NordRaceVampire, but she has all the proper keywords to be considered undead and a vampire. They use the glowing vampire eyes (two kinds -- red and "headlight" yellow) by default. In other words, she's a vampire by default.

Whoever you turn into a vampire already had eyes chosen in the Creation Kit, and one cannot update head parts (eyebrows, eyes, hair, etc.) "on the fly" in-game. Further, NPCs require their face data -- mesh and texture -- to be exported into the game's data files. If their in-game face data conflicts with the exported data, their face looses all color and will not match their skin tone.

However, it's possible to change which eye texture is used and thereby create a reasonable facsimilie*: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198052260730/screenshot/921238949680482380?tab=public

While Serana is a special snowflake by nature of her vampirism, extensively editing a player's spouse (if a follower) would probably provoke an outcry -- for example, Brelyna Maryon (link above), given the Vampiric Drain spell, began to fight actively in combat instead of using her staff and summons.

*Her eyes don't glow; it's a trick of the lighting.

it couldn't be that difficult. The modding community lets you change anyone into a vampire, changes their eyes and face, has them fight using vampiric drain etc.

As far as I know they're full vampires.

Yes, but there is no way of preventing the gray-face bug, and that is a noted problem with those mods.

I think that I'm beginning to see that the only way forward for my particular issue is to decompress the dawnguard files and start going through the scripts. I know that normally, one cannot change races or facegen parts on the fly without issues. However, Serana does, with no issues. Someone seems to have solved the 'grey-face' syndrome over at Bethesda, and ain't telling.

greyface bug? I havn't had any problems with any mods and I have over 40 being used at once

Try it: go to a person (that you know the race of, obviously), open the console, and type "SetRace ____*RaceVampire", and notice how their face no longer matches their body.

*Nord, HighElf, DarkElf, WoodElf, Argonian, Khajiit, Imperial, Breton, Redguard, Orc, Elder.

So, obviously there must be something in Serana's scripting that accomplishes the same as ctrl-f4 from the CK. Perhaps this has something to do with the 'hot load plugin' feature as well?

No; she's always a vampire. Her face data is exported as a vampire.

All the keywords for it (that make her count as undead and such) are in a separate alias; it's cleared if she's cured. When she's cured, all of her vampiric spells are removed and her eye's texture is set to ordinary blue eyes.

I'd heard that her eyes went back to 'ordinary blue eyes' as well, but my experience (thrice) with a cured Serana is that her eyes, while a sort-of-blue, still glow. I've never seen Serana with what I would call ordinary eyes...

My spouse acts like Harkon, but she is very much alive....oh, wait, that's real life.....

What PrinceShroob is saying is that Serana is the opposite of the normal marriable NPCs. Shes labled as a Vampire so her face texture is already set just like the marriable ones, with the exception being shes made to look like one already, whereas they're not. Converting her face into a "Normal" face would cause the bug as well (If I'm correct in my assumption), which is why only her eyes change.

However, I really wish this wasn't the case. I really want my spouse to look more like a vampire.