Spell Projectile NIF Help

[DragonDude1029]

So I have been working on a mod that adds a new spell, which in many ways should be very simple. The difficulty is this spell will not use one of the default/vanilla projectiles, so I have made my own. I've been working on creating the art file for the projectile, but I'm hitting a lot of roadblocks. I'm very experienced with the creation kit, but have next to no experience using editors like NIFSkope. The spell is going to use a similar effect to the crows that swarm when encountering Nocturnal, which NIF can be found here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/wnyxirqz8eiy4l8/fxtg09nocturnalbirds.nif

I need the effect (or need to know how to) turn this into a spell effect rather than whatever it is now. I have tried rotating and transforming everything so the crows come out of the caster's hand rather than being above the caster (I did it wrong, they appear way above head, I have no idea what I'm doing). I also have no idea how to make this animation occur for spell cast (the spell is either con. or fire and forget) because the animation does not occur (the crows just sit in pile above casters head). I would love an explanation on how to do this or for someone to do it for me! I'm pretty sure this would be quite simple for someone who knows how this stuff works. Thanks!

 

Note: The linked file if the original NIF, I have done no edits to it.

[DragonDude1029]

Can anyone at least point me towards some NIF tutorials? Preferably not ones that are just copy and edit a cuirass, lol. This mod cannot move forwards without help from the community...