Basic Morrowind Modding: Part 4

Basic Morrowind Modding: Part 4

By The Slof

Mail: theslofathotmaildotcom

4:0 Particle Systems, Alpha Layers and Forces

This tutorial will cover the basics of particle systems and how to make them work in Morrowind. I will also explain how to create a partly transparent image and how to add two (well, three) types of gravity.

Particle systems and forces are quite tricky in the beginning and making them do just the thing you want may prove a difficult task.. So, follow the instructions and things should work out fine. I will give some recommendations on good values or settings here and there and I will also try to explain what the different settings do. As long as they are related to Morrowind!

Oh! I use 3DSMax 5 and Photoshop 7. Paint Shop Pro should also work, but this tutorial is made for PS7..

4:1 The Different Types Of Particle Systems

Open up 3DSMax, go to Create\Geometry and select Particle Systems from the rollout.

There are only three of these that can be used in Morrowind and as far as I know, Bloodmoon is needed to use Blizzard. But then, I have never played Morrowind without Bloodmoon installed and I rarely use this one.

The three emitters are Spray, Super Spray and Blizzard. Spray generates "drops" from a 2D square. It can also be used for normal particles. Super Spray generates particles from a single point, but it has the possibility of spreading particles by defining an angle. Blizzard works similar to Spray. It's more of an advanced Spray.

I have not ventured deep into the world of 2D emitters, since I rarely use them. If I do, I use Blizzard, since it has more options. I will focus on the super spray, but most of the settings here apply to Blizzard. The rest is quite obvious.

4:2 Creating And Setting Up A Super Spray

Hmm.. So... Something that emit sparks.. Or smoke... Or maybe flying rocks?!

A Super Spray can be used for a lot of things. As this tutorial is written to view the subject Particle Emitters, we will not venture onto the seas of high-poly weapons, or advanced modelling. We will stick to simple models and put our effort onto creating something that emits stuff. Further on we will create a candle, a source of light, but as for now we will stick to something simple.

A simple thing is a wand. A single stick that emits sparks from its tip. If you would like to create a 5-poly prism (a stick with three sides, a top and a bottom), or a 5000-poly staff of sorcery is up to you, as long as you can follow the instructions.

Load/import/create an object of your choice! Something wand-like would probably be good. Make sure that all pivots are aligned to world!

Create a Super Spray wherever you want the particles to come out. On my wand it's on the tip.

If you move the time slider you can see particles fly out of the emitter. Probably too fast and straight..

We want them to move slower and fan out. And we want them to spray constantly. As for now, the emitter starts, then stops, then starts over again.

To change this we will have to enter Modify-mode and tweak the settings. So select the emitter and click the modify tab!

There are a lot of stuff to choose from here, but the important ones, the ones used by Morrowind, are in the first three groups. The other won't export anyway.

PARTICLE GENERATION: Stuff that have to do with when the emitter emit stuff, how many particles it will emit, the speed of the particles, the life length of them, size, etc. Very Important!

BASIC PARAMETERS: The spread of the particles, size of emitter and Max Only settings.

PARTICLE TYPE: Properties for materials. Also check Facing to get a more accurate in-game view.

I'll go in deeper on each setting below!

Use Rate: # of particles/frame. Use this!

Use Total: Total # of particles used.

Speed: The speed of the particles. 10 is fast. 1 is slow.

Variation: Variation in speed (%). Speed 5 and variaton 50 gives 5±50%, or 2,5-7,5.

Emit Start: The frame the emitter starts to emit.

Emit Stop: The frame the emitter stops to emit.

Display Until: After this frame no particles will be visible.

Life: The amount of frames a particle will last.

Variation: Variation in life (%)

Size: Particle size. 5 is a normal value for a Bethesda spark.

Variation: Variation in size (%)

Grow For: The amount of frames it takes for a particle to reach full size after birth.

Fade For: The amount of time for a particle to shrink before death.

Seed: This defines the pattern the emitter uses to emit. Change this for a unique emitter.

Click New for a random seed.

Try these out in Max to see what I mean. Hard to describe..

Off Axis: Not used. Rotating the emitter works the same.

Spread: The amount of degrees the particles will spread. Max: 180

Off Plane: N/A

Spread: The amount of degrees the particles will spread. Max: 180

Icon Size: Size of the emitter.

VIEWPORT DISPLAY

Dots: Show particles as dots in the viewports.

Ticks: Show particles as ticks in the viewports.

Mesh: Render particles in the viewports.

Percentage of Particles: The amount of particles visible in the viewports (%)

STANDARD PARTICLES

Choose Facing! This makes the particles face the camera, just like they do anyway in Morrowind.

Time: Set this to the value of Life. Shouldn't need this, though.

As you change the settings for your emitter further on, you will (hopefully) understand better.

THE BASIC SETTINGS

We will now set up the basic settings for an emitter.

Open up the Particle Generation group. As for now the Use Rate should stay at 10. You'll need to have a look in Morrowind to see how many there should be. Older computers are known to slow down when the amount of particles is too big. If this happens, but you think there aren't enough particles, you could try to alter the size instead.

Set Emit Start to -100 to make it loop. Set Emit Stop to 100.

Open Basic Parameters. If your resolution is low (below 1600*1200) you may want to grab the edge of the Modify rack and drag until an extra rack is created.

Now you should see both Particle Generation and Basic Parameters.

Increase Spread (Axis) to 60. The particles should fan out.

Use the spinner, the arrows, next to Spread (Plane) and slowly increase the value to 180. If you look in the viewport you should se how the particles rise from the 2D plane to make them fan out in 3D.

If you press play now you can see that the particles moves WAY too fast!

Go back to Particle Generation and set Speed to 2,0 and press play. Better?

A variation in speed can remove some of the "plastic" look a particle system can get. The particles won't all move the same, giving it them a more random look. Set the variation to anything you like (you don't need to..), somewhere between 10-50% usually looks good!

If you feel like changing the Life or Variation (Life) value, do so!

Open the Particle Type group and select Facing in the Standard Particles sub-group. Facing forces the particles to always face the camera. As this is automaticly done in Morrowind this is not neccissary, but it helps if you want to know how your Particle System will look in-game. To see them in the viewport you will have to change Ticks to Mesh in Basic Parameters, sub-group Viewport Display. Slows down Max!

Jump back to Particle Generation and change Size to 5,0. The particles will look larger than they appear in Morrowind, since the texture you use will have alpha layers. If you use a Bethesda spark they may require even larger particles!

If you would like to see some variation in size, 10-50% is good here too.

If you want a particle system that is thick at the base and thin at the ends, like a flame, you may want to edit Grow For to a smaller number and Fade For to a larger.

Now it's time to apply a texture! In the following part I will cover alpha layers. Skip it if you don't feel like you need it, or if you're going for Bethesdas stuff (Textures\vfx_*.dds/tga).

CREATING TEXTURES WITH ALPHA LAYERS:

Open Photoshop and create a new image. It has to be square and the power of 2, eg. 2, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc. I'll make mine 128*128 pixles, but if you have an older video card, lesser then GeForce 2, you may want to stay on 32 or 64.

Draw a spark. A good way to do this is to make the background completely black. Create a new, transparent layer and draw the spark. If you use several layers it becomes easier to work.

When you are done, flatten the image (turn everything into one layer). Select all and copy. Undo the flatting!

Click the button labled Channels (in my picture Kanaler. I'm from Sweden..). Create a new channel, select it and paste.

If you used any color in your spark, they will disappear in the channel. You can only use B/W.

Now it's time to edit the Alpha. Black is transparent, white is solid. Grey is semi-transparent. Edit it until it is the way you want it!

Tip: If you want the white to be more wite (you may have used colors) you can do this with the Intesnsity/Contrast under Image (I'm just guessing the names. Again, my version is Swedish.).

When you are finished editing the alpha, return to Layers mode. If you have been using a specific colour for your spark it may be a good thing to change the background to that colour. If some part is semi-transparent the background will shine through. Not good if it's black..

After the spark is finished, flatten the image again. Save it in the "...\Morrowind\Data Files\Textures"-folder as a DDS or TGA.

Return to 3DSMax.

APPLY TEXTURE AND OTHER ADJUSTMENTS

Create a new material. Select TES Shader and load your spark. If you want it to glow, you just drag the material from Base to Glow and choose Copy, or Instance.

Apply the material to your emitter. This won't look good until you load it in Morrowind, so don't worry!

Make sure you have the emitter selected and click the Utilities tab. If one of the buttons here says MaxProperties, click it. Otherwise click More... and choose it from the list.

Click the Add button.

The ones I've been taught to use are:

zMode10 I have no idea! Add to particle systems!

sgoKeep Some things get optimized away on export. This prevents that. Forces!

Animated Tells Morrowing that the particles are animated. Add to particle systems!

Mobile Add this if particles will be moving.. Like on a weapon. Add to particle systems!

Follow Should the particles cling to their position and use the objects pivot?

If False the particles will stray if you move. Add to particle systems!

Clamp Makes the particle emitter freeze on frame 0.

Add the ones I marked. The Bool box that appears on Animated and Follow returns a True if checked. Animated must be True, Follow should only be True if you are doing a flaming sword, etc.

Make sure all pivot points are aligned to world, EXCEPT FOR THE EMITTER!

Export and have a look at it in Morrowind. Tweak the values to make it look like the way you want it too!

4.3 Forces

We will have a look at the three settings you can give Gravity, and what kind of effects you can create.

This part will be rather small. There are only three settings that affect the outcome of the Gravity. But then, you can create some really good stuff by experimenting with several Gravities with different settings.

Load a mesh with an existing particle emitter. Click on the Create tab, then on Forces (the wave-icon) and finally on Gravity. Place a Gravity icon somewhere in the viewport, close to the particles.

The Gravity has a small number of settings. The only ones we can use are: Strength and Planar/Spherical. There's also a property that can be used to achieve certain effects. (As for the decay.. I'm pretty certain that I've tried this one. As far as I know, it doesn't work. If it does, or you get it to work, please tell me how!)

Click on the Bind To Space Warp-button . Click on your particle system and drag to the gravity icon. The particles should react to this, one way or another. They would probably go straight down, quite fast.

By altering the settings of the Gravity, you can alter the path of the particles. You can make them "bend", or speed up/slow down. If you change Planar to Spherical, you can make them swirl in different patterns.

You'll have to try different settings, both on the Gravity(s) and particle systems. Usually some tweaking is all you need to create a particle system to your liking.

When you have your gravity ready for export, go to the Utilities tab and click MaxProperties. Add sgoKeep.

The last setting cannot be previewed in Max. You'll have to actually play Morrowind to see it. It's the particle systems Follow! Set this to true, and everything will be all right! Set it to false and strange stuff will happen. The Gravity will be glued to the one spot it first is generated at, eg. the place on which you draw your weapon. When you move, the particles will act as if the gravity doesn't move. Every time you reset your weapon (hide/draw, unequip/equip) the point of gravity will be reset. This can seem to be somewhat annoying, but it could also create some nice effects.