A few years ago, I got the opportunity to architect and code the fire propagation system in Far Cry 2. At that time, it was a gigantic task and it scared the hell out of me. Luckily, it turned out well enough.

With the upcoming Far Cry 3, several people recently asked me how the system worked. I realized that I never took the time to write it down. So, before I forget and also because it might be useful to somebody out there, here’s a high level overview of its inner workings. Pretty programmer art included as a bonus.

Quite an interesting read on how the fire simulation in Far Cry 2 works. I remember how much fun I had burning things down in the game so I think it’s cool to see how it works under the hood.

I especially like how the author has struck a good balance between “real life accuracy” and “ease of computing/ease of understanding”.