A little walkthrough for a material animation controller set up using only nifskope, a pulsating glow effect. and no data swapping with vanilla nifs. texture transforms and alpha controllers are very similar in set up.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=251
How I setup a helmet for export (hair or any prn attached item is very similar) from Max
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=248