Diverse Magic Effects Resource - Readme
Author: Borgut1337
Version: 2.0
Download Link: http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35264
Requirements:
- OBSE version 19+. Last stable version: http://obse.silverlock.org/
- Latest Official Patch: http://elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_patches.htm
- OBME v1.0: http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31981
- 7zip or another similar program to unpack the .7z files.
Recommended:
- Unofficial Oblivion Patch: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5296.
- Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM): http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2097. Useful for sorting your load order if you’re using multiple mods at the same time.

Introduction
Recently Jroush released his 1.0 non-beta version of Oblivion Magic Extender, making it possible to create all new Magic Effects without the use of untested beta programs. I thought it would be a good idea to make a common library for magic effects, a bit in the same way that Cobl is for items, before people would start making duplicates of all kinds of magic effects.

Installation
Currently this mod only supports manual installing, so no OMOD. Installing the mod is fairly straightforward however, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
1. Download the .7z file and save it in a temporary location (for example C:\Downloads)
2. Unpack the .7z file
3. In the unpacked files you will find the following:
- Meshes
- Textures
- Diverse Magic Effects Resource.esm
Copy and paste (or move) all 3 files/folders to you Oblivion\Data folder, which will most likely be in either C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data or in D:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data.
It might be located somewhere else too depending on where you installed the game.

Note on load order: Diverse Magic Effects Resource.esm should load after Oblivion.esm. Apart from that the load order doesn’t really matter, so you can safely put it directly after Oblivion.esm

Uninstall
Remove the following files:
- Diverse Magic Effects Resource.esp in Oblivion\Data folder
- Everything in the folder meshes\magiceffects\AADSDiverseMagicEffects
- Everything in the folder textures\magic\AADSDiverseMagicEffects
- Everything in the folder textures\menus\icons\AADSDiverseMagicEffects

Description
This is a modder’s resource.

This plugin adds many different magic effects, like Holy damage, Holy Fire, Nature’s Healing, Blood damage and many others. You can find a complete list with descriptions in an added .xls file.

You can use this modder’s resource in 3 ways:
1. Make your mod dependant on Diverse Magic Effects Resource.esp, adding this plugin and it’s requirements to your mod’s requirements. Your mod can then simply reference and use the new magic effects.
2. You can also copy the effects you want in your mod over to your own mod by hand or using some utility program. This defeats the original purpose of a common library, but if you prefer to do it this way you may. Your mod won’t be dependant on Diverse Magic Effects Resource.esp, but will still require the same requirements.
3. You can make totally new magic effects yourself using meshes or textures added by this resource. There won’t be any dependancies added to your mod from this resource if you include the used meshes and textures in your mod.

If you want to get some spells from each effect for testing purposes (or to enable using them in spellmaking and enchanting altars), enter the console (default key: ~ ) and type the following without the quotation markers: "Set AADSDiverseMagicEffectsTestQuest.DoOnce1 to 1".

There are now some effects of which the name start with ''DO NOT USE''. As a player you won't see them anywhere, but they are visible to modders. As the names say, do not use them, they either just don't work or they may even cause crashes. They are only left in there in case I try to make them work in the future or in case anyone wants to help and try to find out why they don't currently work.

Incompatibilities
This mod has a few incompatabilities, which are the same as OBME’s incompatabilities:
- It is incompatabile with Custom Spell Icons v3.1, because of that version’s .dll files.
- Some OBSE functions do not fully work with OBME. There are good replacements for these functions in OBME itself though.
- TES4Edit v2.5.3 may crash if a magic effect or magic item added by this plugin is selected. The plugin itself can still be loaded/saved though.
- Wrye Bash v287 should work fine as long as you don’t try to build a bashed patch which includes magic items.
To prevent further incompatabilities, all magic effects made by this resource use OBME’s dynamic magic effect codes functionality. This information is only important for modders using this resource, so don’t worry if you don’t know what this means.

Known Issues/Bugs
- The colors of the Absorb and Shock Damage effects are partially controlled through game settings. To make new versions of these (Nature’s Wrath, Drain Life and Steal Magicka), I made a script changing the game settings to the appropriate colors if the Player has these spells selected. It means they are not 100% appropriate for use by NPCs.
It also means that the colors of vanilla Shock/Absorb effects used in weapon enchants or by NPCs might be a little off if the Player has a new version of these types ‘’equipped’’ when they are used by NPCs/Weapons.

If this is game-breaking to you and you wish to disable the coloring functionality of these effects, that is possible! Enter the console ( ~ ) and type without the quotation marks:
‘’StopQuest AADSDiverseMagicEffectsGameSettingsQuest’’. This will however, also make Drain Life and Steal Magicka effects with an on Target range pretty much obsolete, since they will only work in a short range. To revert this, after entering the console type:
‘’StartQuest AADSDiverseMagicEffectsGameSettingsQuest’’.

Licensing/Legal
1. I can not be held responsible for any problems whatsoever, related or unrelated to this mod. These problems might include, but are not limited to, severe addiction to Oblivion, exploding PCs, ruined relationships etc.
2. Since this is a modder’s resource, you may use everything that comes with this file in any of the ways described in this readme’s description, provided that you give me and the people in my credits list credits where due! You may either add the files your mod requires from this resource in your mod, or you may link to this resource’s download location in your mod’s readme and tell your users to download this too.

What can you do to help?
With the aim of becoming a common library for Magic Effects, please by all means let me know (using the contact info below) if you have requests for any magic effects. If I think they’re doable and would make sense to add to the resource (e.g. if I think more people could make use of it), I’ll try to add them.

Contact
If you need to contact me to report bugs or for suggestions, you can do so through the following ways:
- You can PM me on official Bethesda Softworks forums as Borgut1337
- You can e-mail me at borgut1337@gmail.com (when emailing me, plz use something like ‘’Oblivion Mod’’ as subject)

Tools used
- TES Construction Set
- NifSkope
- Gimp
- TES4Files
- OBME

Credits
I hope I didn’t forget anyone in this credits list, but if I forgot anyone, please contact me as soon as possible and I’ll put you in the list.

Bethesda Softworks
TesNexus for a place for uploading and downloading
Cs.elderscrolls.com for lots of help with just about anything related to modding
The OBSE team
JRoush for OBME
statttis for some of the new icons

List of current effects (more detailed descriptions are in a .xls file included in the download)
Arcane Damage
Blood Damage
Death Coil
Drain Life
Earthquake
Frostfire Damage
Frost Weight
Holy Damage
Holy Fire
Holy Heal
Holy Shield
Ice Damage
Kinetic Damage
Knock Down
Magic Absorption
Nature's Healing
Nature's Wrath
Plague Damage
Shadow Damage
Steal Magicka
Telekinetic Knock
Telekinetic Pull
Water Damage
Wind Damage

Changelog
13-11-2010: Version 2.0 released.
- Added Earthquake
- Added Knock Down
- Added Telekinetic Knock
- Added Telekinetic Pull

Gave it a whirl, and it looks amazing. Great work on this.

Didn't give it a whirl, and yet it looks amazing. Keep up the bad work, mate :thumbsup:

edited the first post with a list of all currently added effects

This so needs to be married to http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26196 - even if it means changing one or the other.

maybe importing the functions from CSI into this.

That's some really great use of JRoush's Magic Extender! Very interresting stuff that can be used by some enemies! :foodndrink:

that would be more something for Jroush and his thread of OBME though... I've only done the relatively simple stuff using the awesome OBME

a little bump

That looks awesome,
and very useful!
Indeed blending it with CSI would be great.
Thanks for this!

Ideas for some effects:
- Elemental fury [destruction]
A spell with all elemental damage together (high magicka cost)

- Earthquake [destruction]
No need to explain

- Cyclone [destruction]
As above

- Apathy [mysticism]
The enemy can't use weapons/fists (counterpart of silence)

- Debilitation [alteration]
The chances to stun the enemy increase

- Explosion [mysticism]
A magic explosion (no element) throw away all the enemies in a large radius

- Mortar [destruction]
The spell is affected by gravity and fall down like a mortar (Low accuracy)

- Bombard [destruction]
Like Mortar, but with multiple projectiles

- Magic camouflage [illusion]
Hides from guards

- Knock-out [mysticism]
A kinetic impulse will knock out the enemy, if you are unspoken, else it just throw him away.

Is there any youtube vids of this?

nope, I didn't make any youtube vids of it yet There's a few screenshots on the download page at tesnexus though.



I don't think I'll be able to make all of those. I'll try my best at some of them though, been working on Earthquake at the moment. I don't know what effects you'd like to see in an earthquake, but I'm currently making it do:
- Damage
- Some cool sound and shaking screen
- Chance to make targets fall down, based on the target's Agility and Luck

What's the point of a magic effect if it can already be composed of existing ones? Wouldn't it be better to have a robust base of atomic "building blocks" of effects so the player can create god knows what out of them? Then save an idea like "elemental fury" as being a spell, not an effect.

Details:

- Elemental fury [destruction]
A spell that use the 4 primary elements (fire, shock, frost, water).
Any resistance or weakness only change the damage for that element
Example:
The enemy is weak to fire (50% weak), immune to shock (100% resist) and resistant to frost (50% resist). No changes to water.
The base spell damage is 40 (10 damage for every element):
Fire: 50% weak = 15
Shock: 100% resist = 0
Frost: 50% resist = 5
Water: Normal = 10
The final damage is: 15+0+5+10 = 30

You right, but by creating this new spell, you can assign it a new impressive animation:
EXAMPLE: 4 rotating balls or 4 combined streams/rays.
It is better than just a simple spell animation of the powerfull effect


- Cyclone [destruction]
High wind speed (affecting weather), with flying enemies and reduce movement speed (you can't run fast with a cyclone)
The chances to fly away INCREASE with:
Idle stance
Wearing clothes or light armor
Low encumbrance
Feather effect

The chances to fly away DECREASE with:
Sneak stance
Wearing heavy armor
High encumbrance
Burden effect
If you jump during the cyclone it will surely throws you away


- Earthquake [destruction]
As you say: damage, shacking screen, enemies falling down.
Falling chances are opposite to the cyclone spell (except the sneak stance, that will prevent both falling and flying)

- Apathy [mysticism]
The enemy can't use weapons/fists (counterpart of silence)
Apathy = obstruct a warrior
Silence = obstruct a mage
It don't need more explanation

- Debilitation [alteration]
The chances to stun the enemy increase
The enemy stagger / fly / fall down easily

- Explosion [mysticism]
A magic explosion (no element) throw away all the enemies in a large radius
You cast the spell. In the place where it impact, a big ball of magicka rapidly grows, then explode (shacking screen).
Before the explosion, the ball should be very big (like an house of bravil with 2 floors)

- Mortar [destruction]
The spell is affected by gravity and fall down like a mortar (Low accuracy)
Simply a magic mortar.

- Bombard [destruction]
Like Mortar, but with multiple projectiles

- Magic camouflage [illusion]
Hides from guards. Temporarily reset your bounty.
Only effective if nobody (but allies) is seeing you

- Knock-out [mysticism]
A kinetic impulse. It don't inflict any damage.
If the enemy doesn't spoke you, he will get unconscious for 1 minute
If he enemy is seeing you, he will only get pushed to the ground

@forli

I won't be able to pull off everything you mentioned. Your idea of Elemental Fury would require me to make my very own models and animations, something I never did and which will probably take me ages to learn. And something like Mortar is currently too hard for me to script yet. I'm working on the things like Earthquake, Apathy, Knock out, and might try some others.

A little notice though, the new version will require OBSE version 19 (which isn't in beta anymore, so should be safe). Without it the Earthquake didn't work as it should

Cool, downloading now. If I end up using this in a mod of mine I'll let you know.

That could be done using particle effects. It's not too hard, really. I'd volunteer, but I've got a backlog stretching back from last year of stuff I said to people I'd try and get around to making.

Vac

Edit: I was looking at the Spell effect meshes earlier and think I could probably do something with them. I'll need to play around some before I commit to being able to provide resources to the project though. I'll probably need to download this and try to see how it all works and how/when the nifs would come into play.

Suggested effects:
Smoke Bomb - Fast billowing smoke that rapidly fills the field of view, turns into a thick 'fog' effect that then thins out until clear, over a tme interval.
Flash-Bang - Smoke bomb that initially has a visual 'flash' and 'bang' noise effect upon detonation.

Both effects should trigger an alert/search effort by any NPCs within a range beyond the direct effect of the smoke. 'Flash-Bang' should extend the alert range of the Smoke Bomb effect.
Characters would use to break visual contact with others so they can move and/or then go into sneak/invisible/chameleon mode.

It would be great if you did do that. Sooner or later I'd like to expand what can be read from the magic effect nifs, but I don't know much about them. I'm hoping I will be able to find some people who do, so I can solicit suggestions and requests.

Took a bit longer than I had hoped coz of test week, other school [censored], and a temporary decrease in interest for modding, but happily back now with version 2 Unfortunately I wasn't able to include many of the suggestions, since I'm not all that advanced and experienced a scripter yet. Anyways, four new effects for now:

- Earthquake (Shaking screen, damage, chance to knock targets down and see some dust fall off of the targets)
- Knock Down (chance to knock down). Intended for use when resembling physical effects, for magic effects there is...
- Telekinetic Knock (chance to knock away)
- Telekinetic Pull (chance to pull)

More details are in the .xls file included in the new version on tesnexus.

Will try my hand on some more suggestions in this thread when I have time.



Well I know particle effects are those funny magical-looking things, like those sparkly things you can see flying up from those mages guild portals. Apart from that I don't really know the difference between them and normal meshes/models whatever. So yeah, I guess you understand I still can't make that suggestion of combined elemental effects. All I do is retexturing



You probably wouldn't mod much and be on these forums if you wouldn't like modding, so if you like making magical effects and I would be allowed to use them that would be awesome, but please don't make anything specifically for my project if you can't use them yourself in your own projects unless you really want to ok?