Can anyone explain particle systems to me?

[MsRae]

Hey so I have a melee weapon that I want to add flames to so they sort of trail through the air when you swing, essentially the same as the shishkebab, but I have no clue about NiParticleSystem nodes and how they interact with the controller manager. Another melee weapon that uses the same system is the Far Harbor super sledge mod and it does not use a controller manager so I do not think it is necessary, but trying to convert from that weapon to my one with my current abilities leaves me with a grouping of kind of floaty flames that turn purple at certain angles, but not at others. I don't know what needs to be tweaked to make it behave more like flames though.

 

So, any insight into how these nodes actually work would be super great. I'm kind of floundering at the moment.

[steve40]

Instead of trying to add a new MPS into your mesh, you can easily attach an existing MPS effect to your mesh dynamically by using an AddOnNode.

[MsRae]

I tried that first, but unfortunately all the existing addonnodes were only visible in third person and not first. If there is a way to make them visible in first person too, that would also be an okay solution. I have managed to alter the glowing super sledge to have the right fx, colour and speed, and somehow reduce the four emittance points from 4 down to two, but one stream of flames is my goal since it only has one flame nozzle on it. I can't for the life of me reduce it down to one. I even checked the .dds files to make sure they aren't of two flames side by side, but they are not.

[steve40]

You could try disabling various emitters and nodes in Nifskope to try and turn off some of the flame effects, it will be a trial-and-error process.

If you select an emitter controller, there should be a Flags block in the Block Details window. If you click on the flag there should be a check box called Active. Unchecking it will disable that emitter.

Alternatively, if you select a node, its Flags block will have an unchecked Hidden box. Checking the box will disable that node.

Also, if you select a NiParticleSystem sub-node, the Flags block doesn't have a flag icon, but you can still disable it (and all it's sub-blocks) by manually changing the flag from 14 to 15.

 

You could, for example, disable all the emitter nodes, then enable one at a time to work out what each emitter does.

 

Hope that helps a little. Cheers.