Smelter Grate Fire 0.3.1

Adds animated flames to the regular Valheim smelter's rear grate and lets you choose its fire color. The added flame follows the existing burning state.

Choose your fire color

1. Open in-game text chat and enter /smeltercolor. The slash is required.
2. Click or drag on the color wheel to choose hue and saturation. Adjust Brightness.
3. Press Apply to save the selection for all regular smelters you see, including newly built smelters and the rear grate.

Cancel, × and Escape discard the staged selection and close the window. Vanilla immediately restores the original colors and saves that preference. Vanilla colors are the default. Opening the command again uses the same window. The handled command is not sent as public chat.

The chooser uses original dark-timber and forged-metal artwork, brass knotwork, an illustrated title, framed color wheel and ember slider. Buttons and large labels use the approved Smeags Forge Display Artistic lettering; small instructions retain the readable game font. Artwork and the font atlas are embedded in the DLL, so no system-font installation or extra dependency is needed. The chooser scales to fit the game window and is designed for mouse and keyboard.

Client-local visuals

The saved color applies to all regular smelters on your client, across worlds in the same BepInEx profile. It is not a per-smelter setting and is not synchronized with other players. Each player can choose their own color. Other players need their own copy of the mod to see the added rear flame on their client. Dedicated servers do not need this visual mod.

Color affects the four continuous flame effects, fire glows and two interior ember surfaces. Color also covers the top decorative plume and the smoke, fire and cinder particles spawned when adding coal or ore. The two built-in smelter point lights also follow the applied color, including light cast onto nearby surfaces. Their native intensity, range, flicker, fading and distance/activation behavior remain under vanilla control; only their color changes. Vanilla reset restores their original colors. Physical smoke simulation, blocking, emission and lifetime are unchanged. Production/output bursts retain their vanilla appearance. Saturated colors can appear brighter or darker depending on game textures and lighting.

No changes to smelting speed, fuel, recipes, output, damage, heat, colliders or audio. Vanilla burning and idle behavior stays in control. Blast furnaces are excluded. The mod writes no world data and adds no network settings.

Requirements

BepInEx 5 only; Harmony is supplied by the loader. The manifest declares denikson-BepInExPack_Valheim-5.4.2351.

Tested on Windows with Valheim 1.0.20 (Steam build 25909357) and BepInEx 5.4.23.5 / BepInExPack_Valheim 5.4.2351.

Installation and updates

Install through your Valheim mod manager, or use its local-mod import feature for this ZIP. Replace an existing manual DLL so only one copy remains installed.

For manual installation:

1. Close Valheim.
2. Open the active mod-manager profile folder, or the direct Valheim installation containing BepInEx.
3. Copy the archive's BepInEx folder there. The DLL belongs at BepInEx/plugins/SmelterGrateFire/SmelterGrateFire.dll.
4. Start the game. A regular smelter with coal and ore should show the added rear flame. Use /smeltercolor in text chat.

Your preference is FlameColor in BepInEx/config/local.smeltergratefire.cfg: an HTML #RRGGBB color, or empty for vanilla. Prefer the chooser; close the game before editing this file manually.

To uninstall, close the game and remove the package in your mod manager, or remove its DLL for a manual installation. Optionally remove its configuration file to discard the saved color. Restart afterward. Worlds need no cleanup.

Validation and known limits

Multiplayer use of an earlier release was reported by the user on October 25, 2026; the exact build and configurations were not specified. That report does not verify the new 0.3.1 lighting change or establish universal compatibility.

Version 0.3.1 passed isolated, instrumented lighting tests for Apply, staged selection/Cancel, exact Vanilla reset, disable/re-enable and active unload, fuel/ore off-on, distance culling/return, recreated lights, new smelters and saved-color reload. Native intensity, range, activation and deterministic flicker/movement checks passed. Night-time screenshots confirmed selected blue/green illumination on nearby surfaces. Existing command, chooser controls, particle colors, actual coal/ore loading and rear-flame duplicate checks also passed. A single-process non-owner simulation confirmed local tinting without claiming ownership; this is not a multiplayer test.

Version 0.3.0 verified the artwork layout and readable label fit at 1280x720 and 960x540. Instrumented Unity OnGUI mouse events exercised wheel/brightness dragging, Apply, Cancel, close, Vanilla reset and release outside a button at both sizes. Sampled preview pixels matched the selected RGB exactly. Saved-color reload and the existing command, input, reset, color and rear-flame checks also passed. Smelter behavior remains unchanged.

Patch 0.2.1 additionally verified the top plume and both actual fuel/ore loading paths, including live-effect color changes, exact reset, fresh spawned effects, source-prefab isolation, unchanged particle emission/lifetime/speed/shape/collision and normal resource increments. Blue loading bursts and the green top plume were visually checked. Those automated checks were single-player.

Isolated single-player runtime checks covered command interception, ordinary command routing, repeated opening, apply/cancel, Escape and scene-close handlers, input/cursor release, exact vanilla reset, saved-color reload, existing/new regular smelters and blast-furnace exclusion. In-game screenshots were inspected for the chooser and colored/vanilla fire.

Rear-flame checks covered burning, empty fuel with ore remaining, empty ore with fuel remaining, refueling, save/reload and duplicate prevention. Collider/light/audio counts and smelting parameters stayed unchanged. Shared materials are untouched; ember tint uses per-renderer property overrides.

Independent validation did not exercise physical mouse/keyboard interaction. Commands and control handlers were invoked through a private in-game test harness, including an instrumented Escape key result. Independent multi-client multiplayer testing, dedicated-server operation, controller navigation, broad modpack compatibility and other game versions remain outside the completed test coverage. Mods replacing smelter visuals, hierarchy or input handling may conflict.

Only the production DLL (including original UI artwork and a font atlas), manifest, original icon, README, changelog, MIT license and licensing notices are bundled. No Valheim assets, dependencies, settings or test plugins are included. This archive has not been imported into a mod manager or published to Thunderstore as part of validation.

License

Original project material is available under the MIT license, copyright (c) 2026 SmeagsMods. See LICENSE and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md for scope. The supplied font and derived atlas retain the permission in FONT-NOTICE.md. Game material and third-party dependencies retain their own rights and licenses.

Feedback & Bug Reports

For feedback, questions, or bug reports, join the Discord server.

Changelog

0.3.1

• Made the two regular-smelter scene lights follow the applied flame color while preserving vanilla intensity, range, flicker and activation.
• Added exact original-color restoration on Vanilla reset and safe restoration when the light tracker or mod is disabled/unloaded.
• Added the MIT license for original project material and explicit external-material notices; retained the existing font permission.
• Recorded the user-reported multiplayer verification of a prior, unspecified build, separately from validation of this lighting update.
• Kept the existing chooser artwork, particle colors and rear-flame placement.

0.3.0

• Replaced the color chooser skin with approved timber, forged-metal, brass-knotwork and ember artwork.
• Added the standalone illustrated title and an embedded atlas from the approved display font; retained the readable game font for small instructions.
• Added normal, hover and pressed artwork for buttons, an ornamental wheel frame and a matching brightness slider.
• Shortened the reset button to Vanilla for a clean fit and added an artistic forged-metal/brass frame around the color preview.
• Preserved the chat command, saved preference, reset/cancel behavior and all 0.2.1 smelter visual effects. No gameplay or networking changes.

0.2.1

• Fixed the top decorative plume retaining its vanilla color.
• Fixed the smoke, fire and cinders from both coal and ore loading retaining vanilla colors.
• Applied the client-local preference to newly spawned loading visuals, with live recoloring and exact vanilla reset.
• Preserved shared prefabs, smoke simulation, particle emission/lifetime, lights and gameplay. Production/output bursts are unchanged.

0.2.0

• Added the client-local /smeltercolor command and a dark, gold-accented color chooser.
• Added saved color selection for regular smelter flames, glows and ember interiors, including the rear grate.
• Added Apply, Cancel, close/Escape handling and exact vanilla-color restoration.
• Preserved rear-flame placement and vanilla burning behavior. No gameplay or network changes.

0.1.1

• Added the Discord feedback and bug-report link.
• Corrected requirements to state that this standalone mod requires BepInEx only.
• Documentation-only package update; the DLL remained version 0.1.0.

0.1.0

• Added the rear-grate flame effect, controlled by the regular smelter's vanilla burning state.