» Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:54 pm
Hi Prometheus, got your message... replying here because others may be interested. My tornado spell (considering turning it into a shout with a 10 minute cooldown like Call Storm, because... damn) works by creating a stack of volumetric fog activators (using the FXSmokeSmokeLgVol.nif model) each with an attached script that translates them to themselves while rotating 180 degrees, then repeats. This, in combination with the CallStormHazard01 hazard and some custom physics make for a pretty convincing tornado. If I understand you correctly, you don't need physics at all, but just the storm, which should simply things immensely and reduce the strain on the scripting system.
Note that using the CallStormHazard and the Fog objects introduces a rather peculiar bug. From certain angles, the fog will be become almost completely transparent while the CallStormHazard is running, making your storm invisible. The only way I've found to fix it is periodically check the player''s position relative to the hazard center and change its Z angle so that it's always offset 90 degrees from the player heading. It's very annoying and causes a "skip" in the cloud animation when it updates, but it's better than an invisible tornado.
Of course, if you have someone who can create you a nice tornado nif, that would be MUCH easier, but since I don't have the time to learn enough about Blender or Maya to create one, this is how I did it.
Examples of my effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehGMpvTuq0Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNlbRelbNok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYhM8_jVZDw
Edit: Forgot to mention that for the base of the tornado I used one of the Dwemer steam billow animations. While it doesn't actually spin, combined with the rotating clouds around it the illusion is pretty convincing.