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Request for a mini. how do I place effects in my map's as if they were objects?

Obviously they'll need to be attached to an emmiter object, but what is it? I don't want to add them to existing hardpoints.

I looked at the hoth dust, but it uses a weird fx odf, instead of a Particle Editor FX. Looked cool in a hangar though. . .

Animated starships just don't look right without engine wash +glow . . .

Also, the same goes for light odfs, I basically need something with no collision like a spawn pad, and one hardpoint. Also, the hard points name.

I know you said you didn't want to, and I am just winging it, but if you cut the animated starship down to prop-level odf, it wouldn't be to hard to just paste the effect to the given engine glow hard points with the AttachEffect (I think - its something like that) lines.

Check the geo dust stuff, like geo_mist_vent or geo_mist/geo_cloud. Those are tricky to place though because the ZE object isn't very definitive or precise.

yes use the geo stuff, it works the best, but only place into map when the effect is completed because ZE won't list every single object after a while and you end up with 600 invisible objects that you cannot delete....

If their in your map, but for somereason not showing in ze, check either the wld or lyr files (cant remember going from memory). Just open those up w/ a text editor and search for the given object, then delete its reference.

Also, chances are that you can delete them, but you cant find the object in browser, and for some reason you cant select it. This tends to happen with unnamed objects, so clear the search selection boxes in the browser then scroll all the way to the top. You might find a ton of unnamed objects that are only distinguishable by their odf name, and if you have more than one, by their location in the world.

Word Pad and F3 > cannot delete.

And there are no engine hard points. . . ok, anyway ,will look into geo stuff.

geo_prop_splash and kas2_prop_splash are good objects to attach effects to, they are grids that have multiple hardpoints and are completely transparent, they are perfect for placing effects exactly where you want them(fire, smoke, lights, sparks, exhaust, etc...).
You can comment out the hardpoints in the odf that you don't need and just use 1 for attaching your effect to, if that's all you want.