didn't there used to be a .vtf edit or something that made the pyros flames less obnoxious, semi see-thru etc?

pretty sure yttriums compeittive viewmodels does this
https://www.teamfortress.tv/34834/yttriums-competitive-viewmodels

this is a pretty good one, I managed to disable my own flamethrowers and now can see through my own FOV but other pyros' flames are still shown and that's what I wanted to disable, im pretty tired of getting blinded by some m1 dumbfuck

you mean grabbing a VTF editor and searching for the flame particle?

if you mean hiding them from your view when you're using a flamethrower, you can do

viewmodel_fov 0
tf_use_min_viewmodels 0

and then mess around with yr class cfgs and weapon slot binds.

if you mean all flame particles, i don't think it's possible to replace those particles with any publicly known method :/

could be wrong though!

Correct. It'd require preloading custom particles which doesn't work due to sv_pure.
There are exploits but the few that know it never made it public because it'd allow for things like preloading the gamebanana wallhack textures

Update: i managed to make it work, here's how:

1. Downloaded GCFScape and extracted tf2_misc_dir.vpk from tf folder
   
2. Inside the extracted folder I deleted all pyro-related particles inside particles folder
   
3. Recompiled the volders in several 000-012 vpks just like the original series
   
4. Replaced the original tf2_misc_000/dir.vpk with the ones with particles removed.

And voila, fire disappeared! Can someone confirm if this is legal? i dont wanna get vac'd LOL

Well it's not a .dll file you put in the folder so why would VAC care?

Like kermit said VAC won't care.
The main issue is the other stuff it'd potentially allow.

It's a grey area for playing in leagues, though I doubt they'd care much about flame particles. There's other things like the box shadows exploit, sound replacements, etc which in the context of league play would be actual cheats and replacing/removing files like this is one way to find such exploits

Enjoy your lack of pyro flames!

Can this method work for unusual effects on sv_pure 1/2?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3j8n81vl6my45h3/particlesfinal.zip (the flamethrower one)

credits to mu

Does this work in sv_pure servers?

How do you do this step? Also for reference I have tf2_misc_dir.vpk then parts 0 through 20, not 12.

I'd like to test it but dropping the folder on vpk.exe doesnt work for me. Just runs for a while then the cmd window suddenly closes and I cant find any output?

weird how mu's name is always on this weird, hacky, can be used to cheat stuff

not exactly sure where do I put these

I don't know how it would work with unusual effects, I can inform you that my method makes my game instantly crash everytime I play casual bugging several models before closing itself, but since I almost never play it I don't mind too much, not sure how sv_pure levels work, I tried to change those offline to test but never got to understand if they were actually changed, or what the difference between 0 / 1 / 2 was. Probably I did something wrong when picking what files to delete before recompiling, or maybe a file validation error.

follow this guide
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=918708716

It explains how to compile large vpk files into several pieces. The original series go from 0 to 20 but with my modified VPK the series compile themselves into 0-12 somehow, I do not have an explanation, I just know it works as I intended.

The folder structure to install these should look like tf/custom/AnyFolderName/particles/particlefile.pcf

The flame ones do work(on sv_pure 0 servers), and its a more convenient than repackaging your core vpks and shouldnt cause you to crash if you join other servers(the mod just wont work). Some of the other particles though... the sticky particles are a bit much to say the least...

Thanks, this worked perfectly for me. Good to know for packaging larger mods.

I had the same experience. They worked when I loaded an sv_pure 0 local server and crashed joining casual. I was curious if this method worked like nohats where you couldnt really mod them so much as outright delete them, looks like it doesnt though.

The sv_pure setting, and I'm not an expert here, are basically a list of certain important game assets. On sv_pure 2 only the base files originally supposed to be there can be used, mods would be ignored(and changes crash your game I guess) On sv_pure 1 those files can be selectively whitelisted by whoever set up the server. I think valve changed the default configuration of the sv_pure 1 whitelist for their servers to be as restrictive as sv_pure 2 which is what broke a shitload of mods for people in the past. On sv_pure 0 its anything goes and custom files can be used freely.

You have to reload the map for the changes to take effect.Say youre in itemtest, pop open the console and type sv_pure 2 then map itemtest. I think some other cvars also needs reloads to take effect but I'm not sure which.

if anyone has their tf2_misc_dir file to be without the flame particles, could they post their vpk file for it here? Ive been trying to remove it with gcfscape and then making a vpk again with vpk.exe but i can't for the life of me get vpk.exe to work for a file that big, and after spending three hours trying to get it to work, im hoping someone in this thread could help.
Sorry if my english is bad