I could put it up at Mythic if you'd like. Maybe just tweak me a readme to put with it? PM me if you need my email addy to send it to...

And no worries about the conversion. Took me less than five minutes since I already have the naming conventions spelled out and folders for what goes where... Pluginless, the wave of the future... I like saving slots and not having to merge so many mods together to make them fit (and mucking up the works when I do half the time).

It's not hard to do it pluginlessly. I did it in 7 minuites, and I had to figure out the naming conventions first AND tweaked the materials settings to my liking

I know...but for every one of you that does it themselves, there's anotehr 10 that don't for one reason or another...

Thanks, you too ^-^


Seems from the replies below that it's not entirely possible
I had a feeling it would be that way.

Does anyone know whether scripts attached to a soulgem stay attached one it has been filled?


Yeah. I tried adding a few lights to the dwemer staff when I was making it... it didn't really work out the way that I had hoped, but I think I remember it lighting up the mesh itself in certain places - not acting simply as a glowmap.
Perhaps I remember wrong, I haven't the best memory.


:D


Oh, I would definitely be interested in seeing some screenies, I could pack them as alternates in a small update if I like them and you don't mind?
Was the alpha property additive?


Thanks, I'll work on a new readme later - right now I've a lecture to dash off to.

Missed these. Anyway, great work Earth_Wyrm :goodjob:

Oh, this mod just makes me want to collect the things! Lovely!

Cheers. I hope you like how they look in-game - let me know if there's any issues or ideas, okay? ^__^

PES download now available http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=5161. I'll go add it to the original post.

Btw, what tex replacer are you using for the dish? From darker morrowind?

Yes, I think so.

Beautiful work. Downloaded, installed, took a peek; I'm keeping it. :goodjob:

I really like the Greater Soul Gem, looks all cool and amethysty, and amethyst is my lucky stone.

I agree with everyone else. A truly great addition and they look even better ingame. Being able to install without a plugin would be an extra plus, especially for those (like me) that can't multiply in math and attempt to install the max allowed plugins possible.

I think that having them glow would be awesome, and even greater if they did so, "after", they were filled with a soul. Kind of give it a "filled" "lived-in" look?

But, this is definately a keeper even if it's improved upon. I keep all my mods and have them filed in folders by year, starting with 02', including any updates.

Thank you for this new addition to this years collection.

Oh, wow.

I got totally distracted with my own project that I forgot to show you what my personal changes to the materials and alpha settings did for these beautiful gems.

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/6661/soulgemik7.png

I changed their materials properties to have a nice emissive glow depending upon what type of gem they were, this one is purple (actually a desaturated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmers), and the alpha properties were set to what is seen above. The overall effect is the gems look like they are glowing with eldrich energies, and the world seen through the gem is just as bright as it was, only now it is colored pink. The background is white to show better what how the transparencies affect the colors behind the gem.

I altered the other soulgems in a similar way, adding emissive glow based on what the overall color of the texture is, and the alpha was set manually on each gem to give the best effect. Most of them are not as shiny as the Greater Soul Gem, shown above, and for a good reason. I didn't alter Azura's star too much, except to fix a part of the mesh that had no texture, which may or may not look better than the original.

It's a nice effect, I think.

And yes I know the aspect ratio is a bit strange. I use a 10:16 aspect ratio, mainly because it's closer to the golden ratio than 4:3

Whoa. That does look pretty cool.
I could export the soulgem with the matte base that the crystals are affixed to as a seperate part of the mesh - then the crystals could have the appropriate alpha settings made and the more mundane base could remain... mundane. It'd be interesting to see how that would turn out.
Is there any chance you could e-mail me the files so I could see how it looks in-game? I'll pm you my e-mail address if so.

I wonder if there really is a way to make it glow only when full? That would be amazing.
Some sort of super-overly-complex-work-around method maybe... any ideas?

A part of Azura's star had no texture? :\
Sounds like I messed up exporting
It was all supposed to be textured - I assume it was the bits that curve inwards on the 'arms' that were textureless? I guess it wouldn't make that much difference visually for them, the intended texture was plain grey anyway.

That would be very awesome if they just glowed when full, but that would have to be scripted somehow, I believe. I don't think there is a way to assign them separately otherwise, and I'm not sure exactly how that would be done.

And the bases are already a separate node in the Nif Format, I also applied the effect to the base, although it is not as strong. I just personally liked the way it looked better when all of it was glowing :shrug: That's like a 2 second fix to remove the transparency from that part of the mesh tho, you would just need to delete the NiAlphaProperty node from that branch of it.

Oh, and the missing texture on Azura's Star deffinitely wasn't noticeable. It showed up as default-white instead of grey, so it's not that big of a deal after all. In fact, I didn't even send you that file because I kinda think it looked better missing... the default white is very bright, so in a small amount it actually looked rather good.

onlly thing the mod does is make me drool

:unsure2:

So... Uh... :mellow:

Any ideas?

Not really. I just have seen... Star boi has managed to do that for Oblivion soulgems: http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=10403

Yeah, it's possible to do it for Oblivion for sure.
Actually, I tired to convert these for use in Oblivion - even went to the effort of upping the polys, making normal maps and redoing some of the textures on the Grand soulgem - but I couldn't get it working, it just looked black and I couldn't even get changes I made in the CS to show up in game. If only I had someone to hold my hand through the process. -__-;;

Whee. I think I know what I did wrong when I was converting these files for Oblivion! ^^
I think I'll start work on an Oblivion version if my assumption turns out to be correct.

Over 5,000 downloads! :twirl:

Congrats... but aren't you supposed to be cross about that?

I was on 4,974 when I entered the competition, so I'm safe
It was a close thing though. Very close, I was worried.

Again, I'm goin' to mention that I'd love to make an Oblivion version of this mod, but that I don't know how to convert a Morrowind mesh to an Oblivion one (or even how to export a brand new mesh from Max into a .nif for Oblivion) - my attempts always end up with a weird looking black mesh.
If anyone could give me a hand, or point me towards a relevant tutorial, I'd appreciate it.

Edit:
Over 6,100 downloads now - which I guess makes this my most popular mod. :twirl:

Words can't describe how much I love this mod. Ever since I started too improve the graphics in my game I have been used this mod. I have tried a few other including Gem Replacer by Vagabond Angel but I always install this mod when I play. They are all equally made true too the original ones but improved just in the right way, not too much or too little. This mod should be elected into "Hall of Fame" at PES if you ask me :foodndrink: .
And I highly recommand this mod for all purist like me.