I'd use 10 or so plains, each with a flame image - not a fire texture, but just a flame - then you move each plain from the base of the fire up, while scaling down and fading the flame object, perhaps move the flame on X and Z subtley as well. When the flame object is fully faded out you restart it at the base of the object and reset it's fade. This is how they did a lot of the fire effects in UT2003. It should give the effect of a good log fire, it does look better than those round fireballs that we're used to
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I've developed a pretty cool particle engine for my compo entry, you simply make a particle by passing the coordinates to a function, like smoke(x#,y#,z#). I'll probably release a demo after the deadline, but without a decent system it is easy to waste resources on them, so doing things like checking if a particle is on screen on creation to decide whether to keep it or not means that I'm not making particles I don't have to (so more particles on screen automatically).
Van-B
I laugh in the face of fate!
