Can; t help with the animation, but I just have to say - wow, this might just be the best replacer I have ever seen! This is how Trueflame should've been from the beginning. Great details, and the design is beautiful yet not too flashy. Awesome!

Well, what did you finally set on doing for the flames? Particles or billboards? Either way, this must be a GMax problem as you don't have access to the "Max Properties" rollout as Phijama stated earlier. There's a couple particle system and animation-specific flags that must be set in order for them to work correctly in Morrowind.

It's done with billboards, and I did the animation in Nifskope, not GMax or Blender. The flames work fine if the sword is in hand, too. Also in addition to the textures not being animated while on the ground, the billboards themselves turn sideways (the flames point sideways instead of up).

I recall this happening with some other custom weapons a while back, but I can't find the mod anymore. The only thing I can suggest would be to compare the particle effects in NifSkope with a weapon who's particle effects you know do work, thats assuming you haven't already.

Sy

Edit: Alternatly I could take a look at it for you. :shrug: Though Particles are not my Fort?

The fact is that they aren't actually particle effects at all - they're billboards, like the leaves on Vality's trees, but with an animated texture. I don't know of any other weapons that have billboards, especially animated billboards, as part of them.

IDEA: If this is an unsolvable issue, perhaps using a script to place a mesh that has correct billboards on the ground. Both meshes would have a script attached deleting each other when picked up/dropped.

Particle effects use billboards.

Edit: That is to say the particles themselves are just textures on billboards so the only difference is that one is being effected by a wind or gravity effect and is emitted over a certain period of time, while the other is just static.

Sy

This is going to be a pain if you've got a hundred or so of them, but the flags on your billboards should probably be 74 (rigid face camera) The other thing would be the timescale of the animation might do strange things when on the ground.

wow this is epic sword like in JRPG!

I remembered a Sword that has an animated texture that plays even when it is on the ground, its Soul Shade from the Underground by Qarl. Maybe looking at this will help, even though it doesn't use billboards.

The mesh is called QQBladeSoulshade3.NIF, if You don't have The Underground I can always send you the mesh.

Sy

Except good.

When you're talking about animated textures in what way are they animated, is it a texture that shifts x/y co ordinates or is it a series of sequenced textures that are played?

If the texture shifts x/y co ordinates then be certain to set the the Parameter Curve Out of Range Type to 'loop'. You also need to ensure that each billboarded plane or other shape has the animated bool set to 'true'. Typically, if the texture is not instructed to play as a loop it will only play within the set time frame - if this is 0 to 100 frames in max then it generally only plays within character animation sequences that fall within that time frame. I'm guessing that the animation may also stop when the sword is drawn back and this position is held without any further charcter movement. If it is not attached to a 'player' (your character or npc/ creature), then it will not play.

I could help with this if you like but it would have to be after Sunday.

I do not have The Underground. I would like to have a look at this mesh.

Phijama, it's a series of sequenced textures played with a NiFlipController. I didn't understand a single thing you said in your post, but I did find that you were right about the animation stopping when the sword is drawn back.

This looks really good, I hope the flames look just as good!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanie_Loves_Chachi loves you, man. Don't take her for granted.

I've taken a look at SoulShade and determined that animating Trueflame in the same fashion is impossible to do in Nifskope. I wish I had an older copy of Max - Max Design 2009 doesn't load one of the .dlls that I'd need for exporting Morrowind models.

This might sound weird Plangkye....but whats the big deal about the fire when the weapon is on the floor? I find it much more "cinematic" for the sowrd to "flare up" when you actually weild it. Your design is exquisite, and Im really not that much into the whole fire look at all

Yeah don't sweat such a small detail. Besides
1 - Who wants to set it down anyway?
2 - We don't want it burning up our houses.

Two very good points. :rofl:

I don't suppose it would be possible to export it out of Max, import into Blender, and convert it to a .nif? :unsure: Unwieldy, yes, but it might work.

I guess I could try doing that - it might ruin the animation anyway with all that importing and exporting, but it's worth a shot.

Is there any chance you can pack up what you have and send it this way? I may be able to work on the problem from this side. I have several ideas for workarounds - it's difficult to explain them but they may work.

Hey there, I thought instead of starting a whole new thread for this I'd just ask you here, Phijama, how do these texture animation sequences work? Is there a specific way to set up a mesh so it uses a sequence of textures to show animation? If so, how can it be done? I'm thinking of using the effect in the future, on something everyone likes-Candles!

NifSkope is a block-level NIF editor, so nothing is impossible I've currently got display of the animated textures in NifSkope - I'll talk to amorilia about Blender support.

Yeah, I've gotten to the point where I'm admitting I need someone more experienced or well-equipped to help me work on this. I'll do that soon as I get a chance. Thanks dude!