All is in the title ^^
So I have this vanilla lantern, and I have seen that the animated flame inside is not visible from exterior:

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8414/lanternk.jpg

So how make the flame animated visible from exterior of the lantern glass?
Do you have some tricks with Nifskope?


thank you

Are you sure you are using one of the models that has a lit flame? As I recall, there are a few entries where there are two otherwise identical lanterns, except one is lit and one isn't. It has something to do with the number at the end of the entry, I believe; the one that ends in 0, as compared to a number, is the one that is "out." The number should correspond to the light radius.

Yes the flame is animated when I look at the top of the lantern.
But when I look from side at the lantern the flame doesn't appear (maybe a problem with alpha things?)

Can you be more precis for the trick with the number and radius? thanks

Anyone guys??

please

An object with an alpha channel behind another object with an alpha channel sometimes won't be visible. I believe it's because of the order in which the meshes are rendered. It's not a Morrowind specific bug but it is possible to fix, Hair is a typical example.

Do you have any process tutorial or any clues to do this? thank ^^

Hmm, simple solution is to set alpha flags for particle effect to 4620.

Simply, raise the alpha threshold of the glass to something along the lines of 150 and then lower the alpha threshold of the flame to like 50 or something(0 is no alpha at all). You can do this in Nifskope pretty easily.

Actually, Chainy's solution may be even easier, I hadn't thought about changing the flags to reach the result.

If the alpha is set to blending, that can cause it to mask any alphas behind it.

I have try to put the flag number said by Chainy (there is a wiki or something, tell us which flag number is for?) on the flame, it works ; but the flame now isn't transparent anymore >.<'

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/2483/lightdelantern02.jpg

And if I uncheck the alpha blending mode of the flame I obtain the same result as above ><.'

And if I set the treshold of the flame to a number, yes the result is better, but the look of the flame texture/animation isn't smooth/look natural in comparison of his natural effect/animation on a simple candle.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5066/84744989.jpg

I have the same settings but mine doesn't look as bad as yours... http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43101765/lantern.JPG

it works better now that I have put your settings \o/
Thanks!!

The textures are different because it's a new one for the glass and the flame.

No problem, it won't be perfect but thats probably the best you are going to get. The textures look good.

It doesn't sound like it will be helpful here, but... The default naming system for some "light" objects, when the object itself is the same, is to add to the end of the ID, the light radius. You can see and change the light radius in the entry for the item, right underneath the ID box. When the item appears to be snuffed out, the entry name ends in "_off", and the raidus is set to 0. (Usually, there is also no color associated with the light, either, and the flicker is turned off.) Otherwise, the last number in the ID is usually the same as the radius number. Giving the radius a higher number makes the light brighter - a radius of 128 is brighter than a radius of 77 - but, unfortunatly, doesn't change the apperance of the flame at all. You can set one of the lamps with a mesh with no flame to give off light, using raidus, color, flicker, etc, or you can make a lantern with the mesh that has a flame give off no light at all by turning all that off/setting the values to 0.

Sorry for the late response. As I said, though, that's obviously not the problem here.

Guys, I was looking at some meshes from the mod Better Items, and the lantern meshes in it have all a candle flame animated visible from the exterior of the windows_pane of the lantern. And the flame aspect is the same that when there is no windows_pane in front of.

How he have do it this???
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/9274/bilamp.jpg

The flag for the NiAlphaProperty of the flame is set to 13.

Here the mesh with his textures, please can someone tell me what in this mesh make possible that we can view the flame of the candle from exterior? => http://www.mediafire.com/?ilsywxls2uc2slu

You need to add NiZBufferProperty to 1st Ninode parent of the/each glass NiTriShape with flag set to 1.

Like this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43101765/candle.JPG

Oh thank you \o/