Simply put, I am making Ganondorf's Sword. You know, the one the sages try to kill him with but he ends up using as his own? Well, seeing as the sword glows like the sun and you can't tell what the weqapon actually looks like, I figured I would make a simple grey and black texture and make the thing glow. Well, glow maps don't do what I want. Anyone who's played the game (LoZ:TP) knows that the sword glows a bright golden color; you can't even see past the glow. I was wondering if I could replicate that glow. Or do I have to make an intricate texture with colors on it? I am not trying to cut corners, I just want it to look as it does in the game.

You can't, not possible with the engine. At best, you would have a very shiny, yellow blade, that clows in the dark, but doesn't actually cast any light. Glow maps are controlled by the white/blackness of the glowmap texture, and is colored by the material's emmisive properties. Adding any sort of enchantment to the weapon would of course, ruin this.

Ah well. Thanks anyway. At present, I am having a hard time simply getting the weapon into the game. The CS tutorial is really vague for 3ds Max / NifSkope...

I assume you're talking about
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index..._Custom_Weapons

Yeah, it's old, and only talks about the older plugin. But the process is pretty much the same once you replace those outdated areas with newer stuff. Essentially, 3dsmax can't import the collision bits proprtly for them to be used on weapons, or even clutter. So what you need to do instead is export a mesh without collision, open it in nifscope, copy the nitristrips branch, open another weapon .nif (within the same instance of nifscope) and paste your weapon mesh in, link it to the ninode, and remove the existing mesh. After that the only real problem is re-arranging and resizing the existing collision pieces to have the same general proportions as your mesh. Essentially, the .obj method, but using part of an existing nif.

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index..._Copy_and_Paste
covers some of the basics.

Sir, it appears I am once again in your debt. That second link taught me what I needed to know, and my weapon is now in the game and (after much work) an acceptable size for holding / looking okay. I have but one problem left; the texture. Seeing as the one I have on there right now (black and yellow) is total crap, I need a new one. But since a golden glow effect is impossible with this engine, I come to you once again for help. What would you suggest?\

EDIT: To refine, if you could simply tell me how to achieve that shiny yellow, glow-in-the-dark texture, that would be great.

A glow map is essentially a DDs file (named <whatever>_g.dds) with the main channel grayscale. The portions of the main channel which is more white, glow more than areas which are more black. These work with the emissive color of the material (inside nifscope). The emissive color determines the coloring of the glow. Essentially, the glowmap controls intensity and what portions are glowing, emissive color determines what color those areas glow. The effect in game however is not so spectacular that it would serve for the look you are wanting, but might be able to get you with something acceptable since you can make a white/silverish metal blade, and use the glow map for the coloring.

Thanks a ton. After I messed with the existing textures, the emmissive color, and created a glow map (it is almost all pure white), I had a sword that well represents the blade of the Demon Theif. Thank you, and look for it when I post it on TESnexus this evening!