Since the mod description is pretty long and not all people will read through the whole thing, please make sure to at least carefully read the "Compatibility" and "Installation" chapters at the bottom of the page. The installation is a bit different than most mods and you also need to install compatibility patches when using True Fires together with certain other mods.




The goal of this mod is to improve all aspects of fires in the game as much as possible. This includes:

• Fires themselves
• Meshes of fire sources
• Light sources
• Shadows
  

In addition, this mod contains countless fixes related to fires, meshes, light sources and shadows in general. Besides this, it also incorporates quest-related improvements and fixes as well as several additional improvements and changes related to fire sources which do not fall into these categories.

It also incorporates most of Hyadum27's fantastic New Fires mod (shadow version) although I changed quite a few of the fires.

Furthermore, the mod was tailored to be used together with MrR0x's amazing Immersive Lighting mod. However, it is compatible with any lighting mod, it might just be that some things do not look like intended when using a different lighting mod or, god forbid, Vanilla lighting.

The mod covers the main game and HoS although for the latter, no quest-specific fires got edited.


The Good

Fires

• Drastically increased the draw distance of all fires
• Increased the draw distance of particles such as sparks and smoke
• Created new fires for:
  
  • All types of Eternal Fire braziers and shrines (5 different versions including a huge fire for the brazier at the Great Temple of the Eternal Fire)
  • All types of wall torches including the flame spheres
  • Handheld torches including the flame spheres
  • Fireplaces
  • Forges
  • Campfires with cauldrons
  • The wall braziers with enabled physics
  • The square wall braziers seen in Svorlag
  • A specific type of burning coals
  • Several quest-related fires, see "Quest-Related Improvements & Fixes"
  • Some more unique fires, see "Additional Improvements & Changes"
    
• Added additional fires:
  
  • At the top of all three towers of the Great Temple of the Eternal Fire the bonfires (already there in Vanilla) are now burning
  • The huge brazier at the entrance of St. Gregory's Bridge now has a fire
  • The big torches at the entrance of St. Gregory's Bridge are now burning
    
• Shrinked the square brazier fires from New Fires and better centered them to significantly reduce the clipping of the fire through the brazier mesh
  

Meshes

• Drastically increased the draw distances of meshes of fire sources including all types of red and blue lanterns/lampions
• Increased the LOD for certain meshes such as Eternal Fire braziers and shrines as well as most metallic braziers
  

Light Sources

• Drastically increased the draw distance of all regular light sources and also certain special ones at Crow's Perch and the tower on Fyke Isle
• Tweaked the brightness, radius, flickering and/or color of numerous light sources together with their shadows
  

Shadows

• Significantly increased the quality and draw distance of a lot of the shadows already present in New Fires (shadow version)
• Added shadows to several more light sources such as most hanging & standing lamps, several types of candles and candleholders, certain types of braziers including the ones in Sigismund's bathhouse and Avallac'h's laboratory, medium bonfires and more
• Modified the meshes of the round wall braziers and square wall braziers seen in Svorlag to also cast shadows
• Manually tweaked shadow settings for numerous individual light sources, mostly in Novigrad and Skellige
• Removed weird looking and glitchy shadows from a certain type of wall torch (primarily present in the Royal Palace in Vizima) and a specific type of candelabra
  

The shadows are not perfect though as the engine is quite limited in that regard. However, I tried to do my best to carefully balance the shadow settings between all light sources throughout the game as improving the shadow quality of one light source can easily break others. With the current general settings, very few shadows still glitched out so I tweaked the remaining ones manually or removed, moved and/or replaced the fire sources but it is hopefully not noticeable and mostly even looks better IMO.
Overall, there should hopefully not be any drastic glitches anymore where the shadow disappears completely at a certain position and camera angle.

Fixes

• Fixed countless issues where light sources suddenly disappeared already at relatively close distance or even at certain camera angles
• Fixed countless totally bugged or strange looking shadows caused by improper fire source placements and/or incorrect light source positions or other parameters
• Fixed countless issues where the meshes of fire sources were misplaced (e.g. were floating), especially in Skellige but also in other locations
• Fixed a few issues where light sources were only partly visible depending on the player's position and camera angle e.g. in front of Cleaver's in Novigrad or at one of the gates in Crow's Perch
• Fixed a few inconsistencies where fires would get extinguished once it rains although they shouldn't be and vice versa
• Fixed a few cases where meshes were not casting shadows
• Fixed the position and thus also the missing fires and buggy shadows of all stove fires in Crow's Perch
• Fixed the light sources and the sometimes missing flames of different types of big candleholders which can be found in Crippled Kate's and Crow's Perch
• Replaced all square braziers on top of the stone pillars with round ones in Trottheim and Redgill, similar to the ones in An Skellige in order to fix the heavy clipping of the fires through the meshes and since they anyway looked strange
• Increased the size of shrinked meshes at a few locations such as in Kaer Trolde harbor and Redgill in order to fix the clipping of the fire through the mesh
• Removed the flares of the round brick ovens in Byways and near Southern Gate, fixed the light sources which only fully showed up at a pretty close distance and increased the fire and mesh draw distances
• Fixed the clipping of the coals through the mesh of small chandeliers as well as the issue were sparks would spawn below the chandeliers
• Fixed the issue where the light source of handheld lamps was outside of the lamp and thus emitted light in 360° and significantly reduced the flare radius so that it is only still present inside the lamp
• Moved the position of certain torches in Farcorners near Portside Gate and in Svorlag due to messed up shadows (probably related to buggy textures)
  

Please note that most of these fixes are for Vanilla bugs but some are also for New Fires (shadow version) due to changed fires and added shadow casting to certain light sources which caused issues at some spots.

Quest-Related Improvements & Fixes

Additional Improvements & Changes

• Removed or reduced the flares of chandeliers, certain types of fireplaces and handheld torches
• Replaced the fire at the Eternal Fire chapel with a new one, increased its draw distance and added a shadow-casting light source
• Replaced the fire of the burning pyre at Ferry Station (appears after you clear the area) with a new one, increased its draw distance as well as the one of the mesh and added a shadow-casting light source
• Replaced the fires of the burning book pile on Hierarch Square (appear only later in the game) with new ones, added a light source including static shadows and increased the draw distance and LOD of the book pile
• Replaced the fires of the small burning book piles in the Bits (appear only later in the game) with new ones and added a shadow-casting light source
• Improved the burning stake outside of Glory Gate (appears only later in the game): added and moved fires, removed weird looking meshes and added new ones (still looks a bit strange though)
• Replaced the fire at the guarded treasure in Hindarsfjall with a new one and added a shadow-casting light source
• Lit up the forge in the Kaer Morhen outer courtyard
• Changed at which times of day certain fires are burning, some due to inconsistencies with other fires and others for personal preference:
  
  • All Eternal Fire braziers outside of caves and dungeons now also burn during day time
  • The wall braziers in the alley from St. Gregory's Square to Temple Isle now also burn during day time
  • The round wall braziers in the interior area on the east side of Kaer Trolde next to the elevator now also burn during day time
  • Certain chandeliers at Hierarch Square and the Fish Market now do not burn during day time anymore
  • No exterior fires in Kaer Morhen castle burn during day time anymore with the exception of the forge
    
• Extended the draw distance of all decorative parts of wraiths so that, among other things, the lamps are always present and don't just show up at a close distance
• Increased the draw distance of the ancient oak on top of Bald Mountain as well as the Great Temple of the Eternal Fire to make the fires not look out of place at greater distances
  

I probably forgot some of the changes but those should be the most important ones.


The Bad

There is most certainly an FPS hit, depending on the location and your hardware setup it can be significant.


The Ugly

You might experience missing meshes when fast travelling from Hierarch Square to certain other places like Oxenfurt or some of the Novigrad gates during night time.
However, this issue seems to be dependent on the hardware setup and so far it was only seen on setups with graphics cards with < 8 GB VRAM.




Click on the images below for interactive comparisons between True Fires and Vanilla:

In general, this mod is not compatible with other mods which modify fires, light sources or their shadow settings. Another general guideline is that True Fires should have priority over other mods in case of conflicts to make it work correctly.

There are a few mods which require further explanation:

• New Fires is not compatible but as mentioned above, most fires are included.
• More Shadows is not compatible but as mentioned above, lots of light sources have shadows (maybe even more than in More Shadows but I didn't compare them) and the shadow quality should also be better (again, I did not compare the mods).
• More Shadows for Toussaint is fully compatible as it only edits BaW files which True Fires does not touch.
• VGX Burning Village Cutscene is fully compatible and complements True Fires really well.
• The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project is mostly compatible and for full compatibility you can download the compatibility patch, see "Installation" for details. If you do not use the compatibility patch for whatever reason, make sure to give True Fires priority. In that case you won't have HDRP meshes & textures for the square braziers and metal wall torches.
• Increased Draw Distance and Increased Draw Distance for Toussaint are mostly compatible but if you enable ultra draw distance and have the GOG version of the game, make sure to download the compatibility patch, see "Installation" for details. Otherwise you might experience lights flickering at certain distances and camera angles in Novigrad (only tested with Increased Draw Distance for Toussaint though). I do not know if there are also issues with the Steam version as IDD apparently behaves differently with this game version.
• Natural Torchlight is mostly compatible but make sure to give Natural Torchlight priority over True Fires. The only drawback you will have is that the fire, light source and mesh of Geralt's torch have the Vanilla draw distance but this is only relevant if you are taking screenshots from greater distances. I might release a compatibility patch at some point if there would be interest in it.
• Light and Shadow Full Customization Suite is basically compatible but I highly recommend to not change any shadow settings or light source radii of shadow-casting light sources (at least not in the main game or HoS) to avoid breaking shadows.
  

This list is by no means complete but it might be extended in the future.




Mod

• Download the 1st part from the main files section and put it in your mods directory.
• Download the 2nd part from the New Fires main files section and put it in your dlc directory.
• Add and adjust the mod priority entry in your mods.settings file in case you have conflicts with other mods e.g.
  [modTrueFires]
Enabled=1
Priority=10
  

The mod will only work if you have both parts installed!

Please note that the version numbers of the two parts do not necessarily need to match since for an update I might only need to change one of the parts. Just make sure to always use the latest versions together.

Hyadum27 and I agreed on that split since he was generous enough to let me use New Fires (shadow version) as base for this mod.


Compatibility Patches

If you use The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project:

• Download the compatibility patch from the optional files section, put the modATrueFiresHDReworkedProjectCompatibility folder in your mods directory and the dlcATrueFiresHDReworkedProjectCompatibility folder in your dlc directory
• If you prioritize your mods via the mods.settings file, add and adjust the mod priority entry there to make sure the compatibility mod has priority over both HDRP and True Fires e.g.
  [modATrueFiresHDReworkedProjectCompatibility]
Enabled=1
Priority=9
  

If you use Increased Draw Distance or Increased Draw Distance for Toussaint, you have ultra draw distance enabled and the GOG version of the game (not sure if also required for the Steam version):

• Download the compatibility patch from the optional files section and put the modATrueFiresIDDCompatibility folder in your mods directory
• If you prioritize your mods via the mods.settings file, add and adjust the mod priority entry there to make sure the compatibility mod has priority over both IDD and True Fires e.g.
  [modATrueFiresIDDCompatibility]
Enabled=1
Priority=9
  

I'd like to thank a lot of folks who helped to make this mod happen in one way or the other:

• Hyadum27 for allowing me to use New Fires as a base and for helping me with material and texture edits
• traderain, rfuzzo and all other people who helped to create WolvenKit but also Sarcen for his mod editor on which WolvenKit is based on
• Scoutbr0 for help on various topics, testing, some valuable suggestions and the good collaboration overall
• KoalaNalle for his research on w2l CSectorData editing
• Moahofer30, Vareos98, BlurredNotions, linas001 and GudHawk for testing and lots of additional feedback and suggestions
• HalkHogan for giving me permission to use a few files from HDRP as base for the compatibility mod
• CD Projekt Red for this amazing game
  

For the comparison shots I used Storyboard UI and the following mods which have an impact on the visuals:

• Immersive Lighting
• The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project
• Scoutbr0's unreleased LOD mod (not for all shots)
• rfuzzo's AI 4K Upscaled Project - Clutter (not for all shots)
  

Also, I did not use the HDRP compatibility patch for all screenshots, that is why in some of the True Fire shots you see Vanilla meshes and textures for square braziers and metal wall torches.
Furthermore, some screenshots might look a too dark depending on your screen and browser. Best to just try it out to see how it looks in-game.