[LE] Help With the Creation of Magic Effects in Skyrim

[JigsJosh]

Hey all. I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction for creating a certain type of magical effect/animation in Skyrim. I was hoping to accomplish one of a couple different things. Either of them would be perfect.

1. Create a sort of glowing platform/symbol below the player's feet that will spin continuously.

 

2. Or create a glowing symbol of some sort that floats above the players head and spins continuously.

I imagine either of things would take some experience with a program like 3ds Max, but I was really hoping there was something already in the vanilla game that I could work with to do this. Any help would be appreciated.

[thumbincubation]

This is not something I've ever done before, but as an off the cuff guess, you may have some luck with extracting the meshes and textures used for the in-hand art, when a spell is equipped. See if you can change the position, from hand to the ground, at player feet, in nifskope. That would at least give you an animated base, which you might then be able to flatten some and retexture. If it is possible to reposition, you may need to get the oldrim mesh to have more shaping options in nifskope. If you're able to use blender, then you can do just about anything, but that's all over my head.

 

I think the file path is data > meshes > magic

[CPU]

Actually, if you are OK with just a 2D object it is not really complex.

 

Create a simple 4 vertex object (a square) with a texture.

Do your symbol in the texture.

Create the magic effect of type script and add a script to it.

Create a "Static" object and add your NIF to it.

In the event OnEffectStart of the magic effect you can put some code (I can write it for you if you need) to spawn the new object, place it over the caster and move it as long as you need.

In the NIF you can use the NiMorphController to add a spin rotation on the Z axis to have it turn.