http://i.imgur.com/ZSEL6sc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/sYCALJE.jpg

As far as I can tell this effect is called "dynamic glow" and can be found in various games, some far older than Oblivion's. Here's an example from Skyrim using ENB:

http://i.imgur.com/8RlwLxF.gif

And this is a good example from the game Jedi Academy:

http://i.imgur.com/BXhFJ2h.gif

As you can see, without the glow the textures are acting as if they are emitting 100% light, but they do NOT have the actual "glow effect." But with the glow on, everything lights up.

Now, how do I do that in Oblivion, with my weapons and armors?

Here's a mockup of just what this would look like. In the original, the armor and weapon are ALREADY at 100% emit in the nif and have bright yellow glowmaps...but they aren't really GLOWING. So I made an example:

Before: http://i.imgur.com/KKiANY8.jpg

After: http://i.imgur.com/B2AAPlF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Ujyolo5.gif

Holy crap! It looks like freaking Tron lights. Isn't that cool? Is there a way to do that?

Oblivion's "glow" really isn't a glow at all...like I said, glow maps are just used to tell the engine to emit the texture at full light. But that does NOT make them actually light up.

So...is there any way to do this? I'm all ears.

Bloom. It's called bloom. There is a number of dynamic and non dynamic ways of implementing it in rendering but I don't know if Oblivion supports it from emissive textures without something like OBGE.