[MOD] Prolonged smoke & fire: Crashed aircraft, static aircraft and large blocks (buildings)

[Stonehouse]

As the title suggests, this mod is intended to prolong the smoke and fire effect for a crashed aircraft, destroyed static aircraft and large blocks (which generally in IL2 editor speak equates to large buildings in this instance) 

Note that the crashed aircraft effect recycles the "smoke_volume" effect script and that the stock smoke volume effect is a pretty feeble greyish coloured smoke column. I've altered the script to use one of the smallest darker city fires as looking around at pics of aircraft crashes from the WW2 period when they burnt on impact you tended to get quite thick black smoke off the fire. 

Note stock time to live for the effect is 60 secs. I've made it 900 secs or 15 minutes. It's possible that if there are very large numbers of crashed aircraft sites that performance will be impacted. However, so far with 8-10 fires all going I have not seen any issue.

The mod for smoke and fire for destroyed static aircraft is similar but slightly different effects are used. 

For smoke and fire for large blocks (again these are blocks from the Mission Editor block category plus the destructible buildings embedded on the map I believe)

• The intent of the mod is aimed at buildings, and I am hoping that by only playing around with the 50m, 80m, 120m and cathedral demolition effects I have limited the impact to buildings. It may however go further than intended and it would be good to know this plus the details of the block destroyed that gets the modded effect that looks bad. This requires using the mission editor to identify the block/object.
• Blocks nearly all use the same collection of effects (this includes static vehicles etc) with each effect definition for each block and consists of the following static emitters:
  • Buildingdemolition05.txt
  • Buildingdemolition10.txt
  • Buildingdemolition30.txt
  • Buildingdemolition50.txt
  • Buildingdemolition120.txt
• The exception I have noted so far are bridges (which use similar but different bridge demolition files) and large cathedrals like Notre Dame Damiens which uses the BuildingDemolition_Cathedral.txt static emitter
• Block detail objects use DetBuildingDemolition05.txt, DetBuildingDemolition10.txt, DetBuildingDemolition30.txt and DetBuildingDemolition50.txt
• For the majority of blocks the building demolition file selected to create the effect is based on the destruction radius of the destroyed block. So, a tiny block with a 5m destruction radius will use the 05 file while a large block with a 120m radius will use the 120 file.
• As mentioned above I have (tried to) limit the effect of this mod to larger buildings by only altering 50m, 80, 120m and cathedral sized blocks. This (I believe) will mean things like static vehicles will not be affected.
• I ended up using just cityfiresmall01 and cityfire01. These are looped effects so don't go away. 50 and 80m use cityfiresmall01 and 120m and cathedral use cityfire01. 
• While so far unconfirmed it is possible that the effects generated by the mod may always have the smoke blowing north (as happens with effects spawned by the Dynamic Effects and Units mod) - I'm hoping however as these are created from within the game's normal destruction logic that the modded effects will pick up the ambient wind direction instead as occurs with the stock smoke from block destruction.

Notes:

• Smoke column should remain for the mission once created. "Always visible" attribute has not been set for large blocks as this caused some performance issues in extreme cases. Therefore, for large blocks the graphics engine stops generating the smoke once players are far enough away but will start generating them again if they come back close enough.
• Fire effects loop unfortunately. This is similar to the situation with the prolonged smoke and fire mod and so far, I haven't found a way around it other than have the whole effect given by the mod fade out very quickly like the stock smoke for destroyed static aircraft.
• Effects and textures are completely separate to the game so I'm hoping for very low maintenance requirements for the mod.
• I changed the name of the Smoke and fire for crashed aircraft mod for the new forum, so the mods conform to a uniform naming style.

JSGME ready

Smoke and fire for crashed aircraft

https://www.mediafire.com/file/wjsn43kv34u3qnl/Smoke_and_fire_for_crashed_aircraft.zip/file

(6.107b compatible)

Smoke and fire for destroyed static aircraft

https://www.mediafire.com/file/dgeffus9v83vh13/Smoke_and_fire_for_destroyed_static_aircraft.zip/file

(6.107b compatible)

Smoke and fire large blocks

https://www.mediafire.com/file/ywcfgll3rb44lmw/Smoke_and_fire_large_blocks.zip/file

(6.107b compatible)

 

Changelog:

26 Nov 2025 - Made available for new forum