I used the BSA unpacker and took a movable static model and made an activator out of it. The preview window shows the smoke animating. , but it doesnt show up in the game when I test it, so I realized that as an activator It needs a script to TURN ON the gamebryo animation. Unfortunately there are no animations listed in the preview of the object... it just magically animates on its own. but the PlayGamebryoAnimation() script command requires a specific animation name. Is there a default animation associated with gamebryo animations?

It helps if you give the .nif in question because animations can be started in many ways and not all activators use purely gamebryo or even use gamebryo at all.

ClearSkyFogFX512.nif is the one in particular. And thanks for the response!

Its set up to to cycle, meaning its automatic no way of turning it off or on by script.

Even if I manually place the above mentioned activator in the scene(no scripts moving placing it or otherwise altering it) it still does not show up visible.

As it turns out I was having some graphics issues with the game. Some sort of bug that makes fog spells and spiderweba not show up. I fixed that bug and it works. Thanks for the help though.