Will certainly keep that in mind for the future. Thanks again :foodndrink: !

-- Thunderstorm - Tempest : The caster unleashes gusts of wind, immobilizing a target and trapping them within Air's embrace. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dReoAjHD6ak

New spell looks very nice.

ZOMG! This is so cool, and will add so much to my game. I have four characters with their own backstories, and now they'll have their element to make them each unique! :twirl:

I've been working on a Transformation script finally. My implementation isn't nearly as elegant as what Cortex used in Scripted Spells, and there are still a few issues, but I am trying to work around them.

My hat's off to you Cortex, I have no idea how half your mod works even after combing through it for clues. :ninja:

-- Thunderstorm - Wind Shear : The caster gathers gusting winds, protecting against the world without. The concentration required to control the air currents is high, and for the duration, the chance to cast other spells is reduced. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBEz58cFtGo

-- Snowfall - Frost Incarnate : The caster draws the very essence of Frost inward, taking the form of a Frost Atronach. The transformation requires complete concentration, and for the duration, no other spells may be cast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dasEM-rz8io

-- Embers - Flame Incarnate : The caster draws the very essence of Flame inward, taking the form of a Flame Atronach. The transformation requires complete concentration, and for the duration, no other spells may be cast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzPcHNkKCUc

-- Thunderstorm - Shock Incarnate : The caster draws the very essence of Lighting inward, taking the form of a Storm Atronach. The transformation requires complete concentration, and for the duration, no other spells may be cast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPl6md8utF8

-- Earth - Gaia Incarnate : The caster draws the very essence of Earth inward, taking the form of a Spriggan. The transformation requires complete concentration, and for the duration, no other spells may be cast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X3IgCPHaFE

Edit: I, er, just noticed that some audio streams got crossed when recording a few of these. Oops.

Very imaginative stuff : great work !

Oh, is that where the sound came from? :laugh: For a minute there I thought I'd opened another YouTube page by accident.

That's what I get for making videos so late at night ^_^ .

I've made a few adjustments to my transformation script.

-> Elemental damage is now working (Frost Atronach will do Frost Damage on attack, etc)
-> Got some of the animation transition glitches resolved (still working on this part, it's not quite so simple unfortunately).
-> Added view preservation; since my transformation spells force third person for the duration, they will now correctly remember if you were previously in first or third person and change back when the duration expires.

I've also cleaned up some of my previous work, with a lot of under-the-hood adjustments and additions, into a unified projectile script. I should have done this long ago, but now I can more easily manipulate motion objects with linear forward translation, downward acceleration, circular/spiral motion around a trajectory, and spin motion from the same template script. It makes things like this easy:

-- Earth - Rockfall : An array of boulders fall to the earth, damaging all whom they contact. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30hv2XFfgek


All I had to do was set the forward velocity function and initial upward velocity function to randomize between a particular range, with the forward vector randomized within a particular tolerance setting, and voila! Array of rocks distributed between the desired region.

I must admit that I'm underwhelmed by this one. Not the effect--that looks cool--but I feel like a freakin' boulder falling from the sky should be doing more damage.

To be honest, I wasn't really pleased with that aspect of it myself.

I considered another knockdown effect -- but Earth has several of those already. You all get it -- Earth has the power to knock the stuffing out of you =). With this, I thought maybe it was time to give Earth an actual damage spell, but I tuned it rather low with respect to the other things that I've done. It's a simple change to make, when the time comes to balance the effects. But that day is coming.

I've somewhat said it before, but after the numbers of spells per element are evened out, it will be time to do some sound overhauling and effect balancing. After that, an open beta for the first version release will follow.

Not so sure forcing 3rd person mode for the duration of the transformation is welcome - someone who always plays in 1st person mode might resent that. Having the transformations initially switch to 3rd person mode as the spell is cast, then allowed the player to switch between modes at their option would be great!

Some great innovating with all these spells NMZmaster. B) :thumbsup:

Thanks for the feedback!


I am not a person who really ever plays third person, honestly, but this was my issue: the way I have my transformation script set up, in first person you can see odd bits of the mesh encasing the player. Initially I thought to disable the activator while in first person and re-enable it in third person, but oops, that's also one of the ways you can get model collision to refresh after using PlaceAtMe/PlaceAtPC. So after the first switch the player is then stuck inside the collision of the transform model and that results in some different weird behavior.

My temporary solution for the time being was to force third person but remember the user's previous setting, but I am still trying to think of a way that I can fix it to allow freedom of first/third person view. One of the advantages that my transformation script has right now is that it is (relatively) simple and so there is still room for adjustments even if I need to work a bit harder to figure out what they must be.

Okay! Open [Alpha] release after nearly seven months! It feels like a milestone to me.


I've been cleaning up some things, rewriting a few scripts, and sprinkling a few sound effects here and there. This will probably be most noticeable with Meteor Shower, but there are other adjustments too. I have adjusted cost and effect/damage for the spells to something that felt appropriate for a late-game caster, but honestly, it needs a lot of adjustment.

A few notes to bear in mind:

-- Unless you hit a target with the Touch portion of a spell, they won't realize that you're attacking them, and so won't become aggressive. I recommend that you not use these spells to start combat. I am working on a solution within the [WIP] MWSE addon but I don't know when it will be ready or if it will be an acceptable compromise. Sorry =/.

-- If this mod crashes your game or malfunctions, let me know! The following pieces of information can be useful to me:

--> Morrowind Code Patch version
--> Your average FPS (if it is too low, there could be timing issues that I'm unaware of)
--> Anything relevant from Warnings.txt (in the case of a crash)
--> Currently active spell(s)
--> Anything else that might seem helpful

-- I have placed the four elemental books throughout the world in places I felt were somewhat appropriate for the respective elements. One of them in particular, while fitting, might be a bit uneasy if you don't have levitate or something. Then again, this is targeted at higher-end mages, so... :shrug:

-- I have implemented a learning system wherein as you cast spells of a particular element, you will learn more spells from that element. I am aware of current flaws which might falsely tell you that you have learned a new spell for certain elements or once you have passed the upper cap. These will be fixed later, I'm more concerned with getting everything else right at the moment.

-- I have changed the cast mechanism so that the proper weather is not required to cast spells. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and have made the weather changing spells the final ones to be learned, since they are the most world-altering. The weather-changers still require reagents to cast (heartwood, void salts, frost salts, and fire salts respectively).

-- I am very much looking for feedback on all aspects of this [Alpha] release. I have satisfied myself that it is perfectly stable on my machine and haven't experienced any crashes since fixing the last of the bugs I'd found, but I am certain something will arise. Aesthetically, I know some spells need more work than others, and I am still looking for resources to fix that. As always, recommendations are welcome.

-- If you don't care for hunting through the world to find these, see the spoiler box below. It will certainly make testing faster!


The download link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/VJ6g6j6z/Alpha_Elemental_Magicka_v06.html

Awesome, downloaded. Thanks NMZmaster :thumbsup:

Agreed. This mod is absolutely amazing!!! I love it. However, the biggest thing I've noticed while playing around with it in-game is that, despite the fact that you said its for medium to high level mages, the damage is WAY too low. Sure, for the magicka cost is appropriate for the damage you do, but when you can cast spells which seem to be three-four times more damaging for only twice the magicka cost, you've got to wonder whether the beautiful effects are worth it. With that in mind, please consider bumping up the damage while bumping up the magicka cost a tiny bit (to balance the SUPER POWER LIGHTNING!!!!!!! )

I know you said earlier that you'll fix the damage up later, but I just wanted to remind you . Love your mod and thank you so much for putting in all this effort. With all the suggestions being thrown around, I would have gone into hiding by now. But not only have you responded to each suggestion, in most cases you've actually implemented them. Thank you so much and keep up the fantastic work. :foodndrink:

P.S. I think the current method of gaining new spells - cast a certain number to receive a new one - works well. It sort of represents your character training and practicing before learning each spell.

PPS This face kinda looks like an ordinator when you zap him :shocking: and when you burn him :flamed: :flame:

Thanks for the feedback. It is nice to know that someone is getting enjoyment out of it, since I haven't really touched this in the past few weeks.


Perhaps the damage is a bit low... or the cost too prohibitive. I will have to try to address it in the next version. Does anyone have quantitative suggestions for this?

This mod looks amazing... I really look forward to trying it out. Do you think you'd be interested in expanding to non elemental specialties? I would really really really love to see a teleknesis book for mystics. I've always wanted to play the kind of mystic mind master beating up my opponents with teleknesis but was disappointed by the power of mysticism being in the all powerful absorb health effect... Very disappointing.

I've thought about doing other types of spells, yes, but currently I'm more interested in finishing this. To even out the numbers I'd still need two more Thunderstorm spells, and there are a few design flaws I'd like to address (spell cost, acquiring the spells, MWSE addon being finished). Keep an eye out, though, and as always everyone is welcome to post any spell ideas!

Some Thunderstorm spells:
- Crown of Thunders - for the duration of the spell, every few seconds a nova (lightning bolt?) is cast from the PCs position, additionally the PC gets a degree of protection againts the elements
- A spell which would make damage lower magicka instead of HP
- Static Trap - a glyph is placed on the ground, creatures which activate it get paralyzed and dealt some damage
- Overload - the spell itself does nothing. When the afflicted enemy is dealt shock damage during the spells duration, he explodes in a burst of lightning

Could you make a lightening spell that freezes you and your opponent in place while slowly draining their health and your magicka? Like force lightening kinda. You could have a spell to start and to stop maybe. I think it'd be cool if you mapped a special key for ending constant effect spells like that and then you could make lots of spells like that I don't know how hard that would be. Just an idea.

I've tested it, and I've noticed that if you choose one of the books, you can't use the powers of the other books. So, if you choose earth, you can't cast fire or frost spells.

Thank you for the bug report, I'll look into it and see if I can fix this. Can anyone else confirm the error?

I think you're really revolutionizing Magic here, NMZ.
I think I'll install and test, because I really want to try some of these out, and maybe brainstorm some suggestions even.

Great work. Right here is proof that MW modding is far from slowing down or becoming mundane.

Thanks, I really appreciate any testing results because there is only so much I can really do in that respect -- if I break something or there is a more subtle error it can be tough to tell sometimes. And hopefully you are able to enjoy it, too =). Constructive criticism and suggestions are always welcome, as for many things I may be able to script it but couldn't necessarily imagine it. Great example, the tornado spell -- it hadn't crossed my mind as the shock element in my mind was too rigid to include "air" effects, and I think I even told the user suggesting it that the effect wouldn't be possible But here it is!

Right now the I'm doing a lot of tedious work; I've decided that while the current system of gaining spells has its merits, I would rather have the spells scattered in pages, not books. They will be hand placed across Vvardenfell (or maybe TR... ) and each will act as a one-spell book. This will take some time.

If there are any interested people out there, I'm currently looking for a few things as I head toward a 1.0 release:

1) More spell ideas, particularly shock/air. I've had some great suggestions so far but can always use more, and it might be that some old spells will be supplanted by better things. I'm looking to improve my overall quality.

2) Texture/model resources for anything that you feel are visually below par. Stalagmites is a good example of this -- I did some messy Nifskope work to get an approximate shape, but it is not good, and the texture is just some vanilla rock texture. I would almost want to just be rid of the spell, but I feel Earth needs more ground manipulation and I don't want to sacrifice this just yet.

3) More feedback on spell ease-of-use (I hope aiming isn't too hard for people... I manage, mostly, but I'm used to it by now and it tends to be much different than aiming with vanilla spells) and costing scheme. I've heard several say that the spells are too low damage or too high cost, and if anyone has quantitative recommendations, I would gladly hear them.

4) I'd really like to do a trailer video at some point that captures some of the excitement I've aimed for with this, because you can't really screenshot this mod, but my YouTube videos really do show the extent of my abilities -- if anyone wants to work with me to create such a video, let me know!

5) Having fun! These are supposed to be fun, and make magical combat a more engaging choice. I've gotten lots of feedback from my videos, but relatively few comments about ingame usage. Is it fun enough using these, or are the limitations too maddening?


Many thanks to those who have given feedback so far, and to those who are planning to. I started this project to address something I felt was missing from Morrowind, but I'm glad to share it with all of you :hugs:

I have 249 esms/esps loaded and I think the limit is 250....saving that last one for your mod!!!