Question About Effect Shaders

[Omny87]

Is there a way to apply an effect shader to only part of an NPC's body/outfit? Like, say I wanted to add an effect shader to an NPC, but not their hat. How would I set the shader properties in GECK or NifSkope to effect everything except their hat? Would I have to add some particular kind of shader flag to the hat itself?

 

I've tried looking up info on shader flags online, but as far as I can tell there's no tutorial or anything that tells you exactly what each flag does. Like, what is "zBuffer Test", or a "Premult Alpha"? The "Interactive Help" is completely useless. You'd think that a modding tool that's been around for like ten years would have some more info on how the hell it works!

 

What I'm trying to do is make a mod that causes people killed by energy weapons to dissolve into a skeleton. I already have it posted here, but I'm trying to work on a more improved version. Right now the way it works is that upon death, NPCs are "dressed" in a skeleton "costume" and covered by a big flashy particle effect. It looks alright, but they just sort of "snap" into a skeleton instantly. However, I found that if I set the skeleton costume's Biped Object slot to "BodyAddOn1" instead of "Upperbody", the skeleton is now "inside" their body rather than replacing it. It's not what I want, but it gave me an idea: what if I could have the effect shader "dissolve away" their body and clothes and turn them transparent, leaving the skeleton visible? Is that possible?