[LE] Beyond Confused: Recolouring Spells

[Lollia]

I have reached a dead end with some of my custom spells.

 

Beginning in 2021, I started an ongoing battle with Nifskope and Creation Kit to recolour some custom fire spells. I called it quits and said "Good enough" last summer, and haven't touched them since--until now.

 

The spells themselves are based on the vanilla Incinerate. The fire held within the hands is working, the projectile that goes streaking across the sky when the spell is cast is correct, but the explosion and initial flare of fire that bursts near the player when the spell is first cast are still orange.

 

I have pulled apart every connected mesh multiple times, opened every entry in Nifskope (including the BSValueNodes)--but I cannot find out why the colour is not fully taking!

 

So I did an experiment:

 

I extracted the default gradient and effect files from the game's BSA, recoloured them into bright green and put each of them into their respective folders. I then went in game and launched my custom spell--everything but the hand effects and the projectile were bright green. Obviously a mesh connected to my custom spell is still linked to the default textures. So I went back through every single mesh once again--I cannot find anything linked to the default textures at all!

 

Ticked off, I launched the game as many times as it took to whittle down the culprit default textures. What exactly was needed to make the spell work?

 

It came down to a combination of three files:

 

GradFireExplosion, GradFlame01, and GradFlameThin01.

 

The first two are already part of my recolour, but something is evidently not linking to them properly. The third one--I have no idea. I can find no instance as to where this file is called in.

 

I cannot stress just how much time I have spent in the CK and NifSkope trying to figure this out. If anyone has any suggestions or thoughts about what could be going on, please leave a response. I have two different spell recolour tutorials opened before my eyes, and everything matches up with what I've already done. :wallbash:

 

 

- - - - - - -

Update on 8/8/23:

 

All is well now. Got it working. :sleep:

Edited August 8, 2023 by Lollia

[Shadeybladey]

That sounds maddening. I didn't have this problem when I made my Sun, Moon and Star spells, but that was years ago. I got the colours how I wanted.

 

The only thing I can think of is something you probably already know only too well: and that is to test any changes on a saved game that has never had your mod loaded in it. Otherwise, things can be "baked in" and any changes you make do not take effect.

 

Good luck.

[Lollia]

That sounds maddening. I didn't have this problem when I made my Sun, Moon and Star spells, but that was years ago. I got the colours how I wanted.

 

The only thing I can think of is something you probably already know only too well: and that is to test any changes on a saved game that has never had your mod loaded in it. Otherwise, things can be "baked in" and any changes you make do not take effect.

 

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the response! Sometimes it's just nice to talk about it with someone who actually understands what I'm trying to do. No one I know gets it, that's for sure. :D

 

I did make a little progress, though! I realized that I had confused the numbers of the BSValueNodes' names (which have numbers assigned to them via NifSkope) with their actual value numbers in the CK. Once I figured out that I had been going by the NifSkope number instead of the actual value, that fixed the majority of the issues.

 

So now I have everything working except for the flames that flare on the ground for a few seconds after the spell hits. When humans and vampires are struck, the hit effect is correct, but those last lingering flames on the ground refuse to cooperate! As a result of further tests, I know they're feeding off of the default textures of GradFireExplosion and GradFlame01, but am at a complete standstill once again--all the nodes appear to be correct now, and the new MPS files are linked correctly to the custom textures! Maddening, indeed.

 

Somewhere within these files lies a mesh who is communicating with textures on the wrong side of the gradients folder, and I am determined to weed him out! :nuke:

Edited August 6, 2023 by Lollia

[Lollia]

Just an update to say that I finally have everything working now. :cool:

 

Many years ago when the struggle first began, someone told me that the Impact effects sector could be completely ignored because it only handled the burn marks on the ground. To put it kindly, they were completely wrong.

[Shadeybladey]

Excellent, glad you got it sorted out!

 

:)