FiveM explosion effects

GTA V’s own explosions do the damage, the sound and the camera shake, but they look the same on every server. A custom explosion effect gives a heist, a weapon or a scripted event its own blast. Each effect below plays once with the _once effect of its .ypt.

Fuel Drum BlastTransformer BlowoutMidair Fireball ExplosionFrag GrenadeDynamite BundleSticky BombToxic Gas ExplosionMushroom Cloud

Pair it with a game explosion

For damage and sound, call AddExplosion at the same coordinate with isInvisible set to true, so the game’s own fireball does not draw, then play your effect there. Use StartNetworkedParticleFxNonLoopedAtCoord so every player nearby sees it.

local asset = "pfx_fuel_drum_blast"
RequestNamedPtfxAsset(asset)
while not HasNamedPtfxAssetLoaded(asset) do Wait(0) end

-- Damage, sound and shake from the game (isInvisible true hides its fireball); the look from the effect.
AddExplosion(x, y, z, 2, 1.0, true, true, 1.0)
UseParticleFxAsset(asset)
StartNetworkedParticleFxNonLoopedAtCoord("pfx_fuel_drum_blast_once", x, y, z, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, false, false, false)

The asset and effect names come from the effect’s name: the README in the export lists the exact ones.

Settings that hold up in GTA V

• Size. About 3 m for a grenade, 5 to 8 m for a fuel drum or car, 20 m and more for a mushroom cloud seen from a distance.
• Origin: Ground for blasts that sit on the floor, Centre for mid-air ones.
• Glow on Auto. The fireball keeps its light at night; the smoke after it takes the scene’s light.
• Keep the cycle short. About 1 to 1.5 s gives all 36 frames to the blast itself. A long tail of smoke reads better as a separate smoke effect.

Export one

1. Open Fuel Drum Blast in the studio, or any effect from the library. Change colours, size or timing first if you like.
2. Press Export, choose FiveM under Export for and turn on GTA file (.ypt).
3. Set Size, the effect's widest side in metres (from the sizes above), and Origin to Ground, so it stands on the floor at the coordinate you pass. Glow, lighting and frame blending pick sensible values from the effect.
4. Set Package to .ypt file for your own resource, or Resource for a ready one with a test command.
5. Press Export, put the .ypt in your resource's stream folder and play it with the natives on the FiveM setup page.

A free account gets 3 exports a day, and the ready .ypt counts as one, alone or in a resource with fxmanifest.lua and a test command. The frames as one 6 x 6 or 7 x 7 sheet PNG are free the same way. Any plan, from $7.99 a month, has no daily limit, for a whole server's set of effects at once.

Grand Theft Auto and GTA V are trademarks of Take-Two Interactive Software. FiveM is a Cfx.re project. ParticleFX Studio is not affiliated with either.