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I think the gem has a script with it. I dont know anything about scripting myself. I think rotating the item around the light saber is possble, but it would have to be a part of the weapon, then rotated. There are some staffs that have rotating objects such as gears and miniature planets, but they are all part of the weapon. These, obviously, can not be light sourced because they are now part of the weapon. Even if it could happen I think the light source would have a rotating light focus, similar to a light house, with varying degrees of light intensity. :wallbash: I dont suppose we could ask Bethesda for help, since they worked intimately in creating the game :turned: . Maybe they know, since every wiki and tutorial I can find says this is cant be done. I want to say its possible, because I want it to be so.

Ok Ive been looking at the Screenshooters Ilumination mod and can report several things. It takes up the torch slot and can be equiped. That is, it is held in the left hand like a torch and presumably a shield. It only works while in the world space and not in the hand (darn XD). But the weird thing is that if you have some gems on the floor producing light, and then put one in your hand, the ones on the floor stop producing light. The gem is just a standard flawless saphire.

Ok, let me try to clarify and update a little. I realized afterwards that I didnt make that much sense. For now, lets skip the idea of mesh combining a chosen sword with the scripted gem and look into the second idea. I noticed a while ago that when I was importing a homemade scimitar from blender, that if the weapon was not centered on the x/yz/ plane, it would not line up correctly with the hand that held the weapon. After tweaking the position of the sword on the plane, I found the necessary position for the grip to look proper in the hand. Now for how this relates to our current dilema: faking a light source to attach to a weapon. Ill make the gem a weapon and see how the light changes when held in my characters hand. If the gem is a weapon, it will react appropriately when swung by any animation mod, and presumably the light would follow the gem correctly. If the position of the gem changes the light qualities, then it means the placement of the gem as a handheld weapon is important if we want to fake the intended result(the result being a weapon that has its own source of light). I dont see why we cant just add or replace a weapon of choice after this. If the gem is just a place holder for the light source, we can make it as small or as big as we want, either hiding it entirely or adding it to a lightsaber handle. We can also do away with the gem entirely if the process works when turned into a weapon.The big question here is how turning the gem into a weapon would affect the light source as a script. Of course, if it were that easy then it probably would have been done already :mellow: . Whos knows? We might be heading in the right direction.

Wait, so the gem gives off the light, and the light can be customized to be different colors? If the gem has a script for a light source, while idle(on the floor, on a table), cant we just add that jem to the mesh? For example, lovender, you pull out your green light saber, which is a weapon. Cant we just have a script that equips the gem as an amulet that is weighted to the lightsaber? You know how some weapons auto equip a left hand weapon? Lets just replace it with the desired jem that has the corresponding color? If the jem kept its light source script, cant it illuminate your weapon and fake the light effect? What do you think about this fg109? Then I could use the script to auto equip two jems with different lights to my weapon. Possible? :happy: Edit: Or we can make the jem a left handed weapon. Think about this: You know how, in blender, a weapon has to be laid out on a plane in order to fit into a characters' hand? Lets just make the light source jewel a weapon that occupies the exact same space as the blade of the light saber(or my blade). If the script for the light source is radical, we can put it in the center of the blade, or manipulate the script to occupy the correct light dimensions. This way, it doesnt take up an extra equipment slot(amulet/tail) and it should fake the light effect into making anyone think the weapon was giving off the light, instead of the light source being tied to an offhand weapon script. If Im right, it shouldnt hang off to one side like an unwanted sprite. How about that?

Ok fg109, Thanks for your help^^! Its late though and tomorrow is the 4th so I wont be able to test this out until Tuesday or so. Will report back after I can make an attempt, either way. I can understand that each sword would need its own light script, but will having multple light scripts on a single weapon allow for more than one light, which would then allow for multiple colors on a single weapon? Or would the script need to be altered?

Ok two things: 1. Fg109, thank you very much on yet another scipt help. The only problem is, I dont know how to use it to make it work in the CS. Could you be so kind as to tell me how to insert it into a mod and attach it to a weapon? After I see the effect, we can go from there^^. 2.Lovender, I didnt realize your lightsabers didnt have a light source. I thought for sure when I saw this: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/34766-1-1299627772.jpg that your weapons give off light. Am I mistaken? Oh and great avatar^^.

Hmmmmmm......what if I just add two licks of fire that are different colors? Would that be hard to do? I know other swords have been given that sort of aura.

Was it the weapon that was hard to see or just in general? Did it give a desired effect?

Well ok, is it possible to give the weapon an aura that does not emit light? If so, can the weapon have more than one aura? It would be nice if it was an actual light, but Id settle for a non light emiting aura. Gotta start somewhere you know, even if it is small^^.

So basically the only way to give a weapon a light source at this point is to "cheat" in a way to have a light constantly follow it in a particular place? I can understand that vanilla candles do not give off a light source and that mods like Real Lights have to move and dim the actual light sources to those candles to give the illusion that it works. Is that how a torch works? As in, is the torch just an item that is scripted to have a light follow it around? Is that why it was so hard for them to be turned into weapons? I sort of figured that the glow map only made the weapon shiny or give off a red enchantment aura without actually being a light source, but I wasnt sure and wanted more to clarify my suspicions rather than manipulate a glow map to be a light source. Since weapons cant do this without changing game code, is there a way to fake the intended effect by having an actual light follow the weapon as you guys mentioned? Can the weapon have more than one light? Or would this lag the game? Can the light textures be retextured to glow different colors? Thanks for your help so far^^.

I am beginning to learn my way around basic modeling in Blender, and if you throw up some pics of your swords(straight overhead view works best) I would love to get some practice by modeling at least one. No promises though, since I am working on some of my own custom armors and weapons too^^.

*Bump* :happy:

Thats good to hear! Just make sure to shoot me a pic when you think you're ready to upload the file. I would like to see how it turns out.

Oh thats easy. Just right click the items you want to combine and press control+j. This will combine the two meshes. If you want to, in the future, uncombine them, just go into edit mode, select everything with a, then press p (for separate) and choose all loose parts. This will separate your individual meshes out again. I dont know what to do about the seam if it isnt fixed this way though. It might be the same as the neck + upper torso seam , where you are just gonna have to live with it or use a necklace/ amulet to hide the seam. I hope this helps you :biggrin: .

I have a couple of questions that I cant seem to answer myself. I want to add two light sources to a single weapon and give those light sources different color lights. One would make the blade light up and the other would make the pommel glow. My questions are as follows: Does a glow map have the ability to do this? If so how and why? If not, then why not? If not, do I need to attach another item to the weapon that has a light source and modify that light source seperately (i.e put a mini torch in the pommel jewel to cheat a similiar effect)? Can only non weapons and misc items like torches and candles hold a light source? Is there another quick and easier way to do this that I did not know about? Can this even be done? If not, is it a limitation of the game engine? If so how? I know its a lot of questions, but I am just trying to cover all the bases by thinking out loud. If any of you who read this has some useful information, I would be most appreciative for your help. Also, I would like to make at least one of the light sources pulse periodically(i.e not so slow that you dont realize it pulses but also not so fast as to cause annoyance to players or lag in the game). Thanks in advance!

Thats good to hear! It would have been bad if you had seen this in the sky: :excl:

I cant really say without a screenshot of your problem but I can give it a shot. In blender, try shrink wrapping the mesh you want to the mesh you are trying to imitate. Make sure the setting is set to above mesh( so it shows outside the body). This has several advatages. One, you get very realistic and formfitting curves. You can then adjust the degree of offset to make it push off of the body. The only problem is that you loose a certain degree of control if the mesh extends too far towards a body piece and creates an unwanted stretch. Try this with subsurfing and use only the parts of the body that you want to imitate( i.e. dont have the whole mesh out, if you only want a pair of pants, dont have the torso and up imported). Good luck :thumbsup: .

If you overwrote the moon files, I think the new moons become the default. The only way I can think of to fix this is to install a fresh game. Try a new save game though, just to be sure. You might be stuck having to start over though . :unsure:

Ok this is a step by step on how to bone weight items you want. It is based off of instructions given to me by a fellow modder about a month ago: Hmm. Sounds like you made a few missteps. I'll list out instructions that apply to Blender. 1. Select each object and delete all the vertex groups. --this means each object to be weighted 2. Import a body that is similar to the form of your equipment. --use a default body that you are comfortable with, it will probably be the child body -- in order to import a body, go to file, import, and choose netimmerse/gamebro(this is the basic .nif file format used in oblivion game engine --this assumes you use blender 2.49 or higher with pyffi and nif scripts. I dont use the most updated version because of bugs. If you need help getting these items, just ask and I can point you in the right direction. It is all free and easy to install^^. 3. Delete the bones. 4. Select every object. Select the body last so it is highlighted. 5. Go to Object->Scripts->Bone Weight Copy and set it to Quality Level 3. --if the script fails to initialize, that means that the object to be weighted contains a vertex group, recheck the pieces and make sure they are clean --vertex groups are listed to the bottom left corner 6. Grab a snack or a drink and wait until it finishes. --No really, get something, this could take a while. the only way I can think of that would lower the amount of time it takes to "bake" this process faster is with a small file size or a super high end system. I run all my files from a stock hp laptop, so dont get worried if you think your system cant handle it^^. 7. You probably won't have to go in and manually weight paint... Probably. The only times I can think of that need more manual weighting is when you have items that are supposed to react to certain actions, but remain still in others. A good example is the BBB animations. Also, capes and coat tails can be a hassle. 8. Select everything and import a fresh skeleton with Parent to Selected as the importing option. -- you can either use your own custom child bones that you have made or use a stock borrowed from another child mod you use to simulate. I think you can also use one of the universial skeletons and scale it down in proportion to your child's size, but I ve never had the need to try it. Also, I think this is what is used in vanilla imp animations. 9. Select only the Skeleton when you export and it will export out all the parented pieces. -- You may wonder why you should only export the skeleton to a nif file. This is because parenting the skeleton to the new object makes the object a dependent. So, now anywhere the bones go, the clothes/body mods will follow^^. Hopefully everything works out for you? If you have any more questions, dont hesitate to ask.

Absolutely!^^ I use blender all the time and have had to go through learning how to weight items properly myself. But before I go into it, do you not normally use Blender? I dont want to give you directions to a program you are not familiar with. Once I was told how to do it, it is usually very easy, if a little monotonous.

Sides Sailing Ships COBL is mastered to the non COBL version. Got it. Have you considered a new save game? You might just have to start over.

Do you have Shivering Isles? Its possible you overwrote a standard mesh or are missing meshes, which is what the yellow exclamation marks represent.

Any time a body part or weapon is floating around, it means your weights are not correct. Reweight your child CM parters body mesh and try again. If that doesnt help, post a response. Good luck ^^.

I use windows 7 64 bit and Ive never had problems with it. Has the game worked in the past? Or is just recently? Throw up your load order. Even if you dont think it is, conflicting mods happen all the time and it couldnt hurt. As for me, I use low graphics anyway so I never CTD because the game would be too epic for my screen T.T. Oh and dont talk about cracking your game here, they get heavy on piracy, thats a big no no. Shivering Isles has the latest and last official patch so if you have it then your good.

Hmmm, cant really say about this problem at this point. I dont know how it works in gimp because I use photoshop to make all my normal maps. So far I havent had any problems but then again I havent gone beyond clothing mods at this point. Im sorry that I cant be of much help to you though.