Enigma's Realistic Smoke Rework

Now with flames. Yes, it still says smoke.

Smoke that behaves like smoke, and flames that follow their fuel. Smoke rises, finds its way out of rooms, bends in the wind and thins out in the rain. Flames grow with a full fire, shrink as the fuel runs low, and give in to strong wind and rain.

Replaces vanilla smoke. Client side, every setting can be changed live in game, and nothing it does touches your saved world. Only want the smoke? Turn off Flame effects in the General settings and the flames go back to the game's own.

Download  |  Settings  |  Report a bug  |  Changelog

Updating from 0.3.0? The settings were renamed and regrouped. Your old values carry over, and a copy of your original config is saved next to it as EnigmaPrime.RealisticSmokeRework.cfg.pre-0.4.bak. Open your settings once (F1) and check that your old values still match.

What it looks like

Everything below describes the default settings.

Vanilla vs Enigma's Realistic Smoke Rework

Same fire, same spot. The difference is in how the smoke moves, grows, bends and fades.

Finding the way out

Smoke looks at the space around it and heads for the most open way out, through gaps, windows and flues, instead of piling against the first ceiling. If it cannot get out right away, it collects at the highest point, spreads out, then finds the opening and leaves.

From inside: smoke gathers under the raised roof, then heads for the opening.

From outside: it finds its way out even when the exit is far from the fire.

Chimneys and flues

Narrow spaces give smoke a gentle pull upward. A puff that gets stuck shrinks a little more with each check, hitbox included, until it slips through, then grows back to full size outside.

Wind

Wind bends the plume with gusts and swirls. Fresh hot smoke is pushed around less than smoke that has cooled. Vanilla smoke mostly just rises. With the mod, it drifts downwind.

Indoors.

Outdoors.

Cold and rain

In freezing weather smoke stops climbing at about 20 meters above the fire and spreads out sideways, and in cold weather at about 30 meters. Both heights can be changed in the settings. In rain smoke fades faster.

Fire strength

The fuel in a fire sets the size of its smoke and its flames together. A last-log fire makes small, slow puffs and a small wavering flame. A full fire makes big, fast smoke and tall, bright flames. Fires in between scale smoothly.

Flames follow fuel

A full fire burns taller and brighter than the game's. As the fuel drops, the flames and their light shrink smoothly instead of staying the same until the last log. Adding fuel gives a short flare. Weaker fires flicker more, and nothing flickers harder than the game's own Reduce Flashing Lights setting allows.

This covers fireplaces, torches, braziers and the like. Handheld torches, smelters, kilns and cooking stations are not touched.

Add fuel to a low fire and it flares up for a moment, then settles back to the size that fits its new fuel level.

Refueling a low fire.

Wind and fire

Strong wind on an exposed fire shrinks its flames. A weaker fire gives in to lower wind than a full one. Past that point, campfires, hearths, bonfires and braziers drop to the game's own low flame with its little puffs of smoke, and torches go dark. Walls and roofs protect a fire, using the game's own shelter check. The fire stays lit as far as the game is concerned, so it keeps warming and cooking. Nothing changes for other players.

Rain and fire

An exposed fire dwindles the longer it stays in the rain, until it looks out, with only thin wisps of smoke. Get it under cover and the flames come back. Like the wind effect, this is visual only: the game still treats the fire as lit. The sealed lanterns (jack-o-turnip and snow lantern) ignore wind and rain.

Features

Smoke

• Finds the way out of a room, or pools under the ceiling when there is none.
• Wind, cold and rain change how it moves and how long it lasts.
• Fire strength changes puff size, speed and timing, so smoke comes out in uneven pulses.
• Narrow flues and chimneys pull smoke up and out. The main menu fire gets the same treatment.

Flames

• Flames and light follow the fuel, from a roaring fire down to a small flicker, with a flare when you add fuel.
• Strong wind blows down exposed flames, rain dwindles them, and shelter protects them.

Settings

• Over 50 settings, all with sliders in game.

How it works

Each puff of smoke checks the space around it every second or so. It looks for walls, roofs and openings, then steers toward whatever gives it the most room. Heat decides how fast it rises and how much the wind can push it. Cold weather lowers its ceiling. Rain thins it out faster.

Smoke far from you skips the wall checks and just rises and drifts, so a base full of fires stays playable. Flames work the same way: fires far from you are checked rarely and not animated, and nearby fires only do work when something changes.

Download

Install from Thunderstore with r2modman or the Thunderstore app. BepInExPack Valheim is installed automatically:

https://thunderstore.io/c/valheim/p/Enigma_Prime/Enigmas_Realistic_Smoke_Rework/

To change settings in game, install Configuration Manager and press F1.

Settings

Every setting is explained in docs/CONFIG_REFERENCE.md, including notes for server owners.

Multiplayer and servers

Client side only. It only changes what each player sees and never touches saved world data. A dedicated server does not need it. If you run a server, see the server notes in docs/CONFIG_REFERENCE.md.

Compatibility

• This mod includes its own smoke collision, so it will not load alongside the Smoke Collision mod. Other mods that change smoke collision cover the same ground and can conflict, so please test your setup if you use more than one.

Performance

Smoke far from you skips the expensive checks, and so do flames. For bases with many fires, lower Detailed range, Max amount or Spawn rate multiplier.

Support

If you like the mod and want to say thanks, you can:
buy me a coffee on Ko-fi

Bug reports and ideas are just as welcome. Open an issue on GitHub and include your BepInEx log and your settings file.

More mods by Enigma Prime

Enigma's Item Salvager
Take your gear apart at the Workbench, Forge, Black Forge or Galdr Table and get some of the materials back.

Enigma's Useful Tasty Mead
A sweet mead that makes your food count as freshly eaten again, lifting your max health, stamina and Eitr before fading back.

Enigma's Enhanced Forging
Smelters, kilns and the Eitr refinery become walk-away machines with inventory screens, a Light button and winding animations.

How this mod was made

The ideas, the design, and every decision about how the smoke should look and behave are mine: where it goes, how it reacts to wind and cold, what the settings should be. However, I am not a programmer. The code was written by Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, working from my direction through Claude Code.

I want to be upfront about that. I am the one who plays the game, so I test every build in Valheim, read the game log for errors, and send back anything that looks or feels wrong until it behaves the way I intended. The code was also checked against Valheim's own code so it hooks in the right places. If you find a bug, please open an issue and I will work on a fix.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

License

All rights reserved. You are free to download and use the mod, but please don't redistribute, modify or re-upload it without asking first, see LICENSE. Valheim is the property of Iron Gate AB and Coffee Stain Publishing. This mod is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.

Changelog

0.5.0

Smoke no longer gets stuck in small holes, and it now billows out from the fire.

• New smoke shape: a new puff starts small and widens quickly, then keeps growing more slowly as it ages. Before, puffs started at full size. Weaker fires start closer to full size, so a last-log fire does not nearly vanish. This is look only.
• Two new settings, Emerge start size (default 0.35) and Emerge time (default 1.5 seconds). Set the start size to 1 to turn it off.
• Smoke expansion now grows fastest at first and slows down as the smoke ages, instead of speeding up in the middle.
• A puff that is stuck in a flue or other cramped space now gets a little smaller with each check, hitbox included, until it slips through. Once it is out, it grows back to full size over a few seconds.
• Flue puff size now sets the smallest size a puff shrinks to. Its default is 0.5 (was 0.7). If you already had a saved value, your value is kept. Set it to 1 to turn the shrinking off.
• Removed the two Debug settings (Debug logging and Force weather). They were only for testing.

0.4.0

Flames have joined the smoke.

Important: settings were renamed and regrouped. Your old values are carried over automatically, and a copy of your original config is saved next to it as EnigmaPrime.RealisticSmokeRework.cfg.pre-0.4.bak. After updating, please open your settings (F1) or your config file and check that your old settings still match what you had.

New: flames follow fuel

• Flames and their light now scale smoothly with the fuel in a fire, from a roaring full fire down to a small flicker on the last log. They stay lit until the game's own out state.
• Adding fuel gives a short flare. The extra "fuel added" particles can be turned off (they are off by default).
• Low fuel fires waver more. This respects the game's Reduce Flashing Lights setting.
• Covers fireplaces, torches, braziers and the like. Handheld torches, smelters, kilns and cooking stations are not touched.

New: wind and rain on fires

• Strong wind shrinks exposed flames. Weaker fires give in to lower wind, and walls and roofs protect them using the game's own shelter check.
• Blown down campfires, hearths, bonfires and braziers drop to the game's own low flame with its small puffs of smoke. Torches go dark.
• Rain slowly dwindles exposed fires until they look out, with thin wisps of smoke. Covering them brings the flames back.
• All of this is visual only. The game still treats the fire as lit, so nothing changes for other players and fires keep warming and cooking.
• The jack-o-turnip and the snow lantern are sealed, so wind and rain do not affect them.

Settings

• New numbered sections: General, Global, Flames, Flames wind and rain, Smoke, Smoke visuals, Smoke wind and weather, Performance, Debug.
• Settings that change every fire at once are now in their own Global section and marked (Global).
• Clearer names: the Weak fire settings are now Low fuel (for example Low fuel smoke size), and Fire size effect is now Fuel smoke strength (Global).
• Debug logging is off by default.
• New Flame effects switch in General. Turn it off to keep the game's own flames and use the mod for smoke only.

Performance

• Flames far from you are checked rarely and not animated. Nearby fires cache their shelter results and only do work when something changes.

0.3.0

• First public release.