Changing engine plume colors

[Tengreasypigeons]

So I've been looking for a mod that changes the engine plume colors to make colored plumes like you see in air shows. 

I can't find anything, and I've scoured the internet for help and couldn't find anything, so I've decided to make my own

Anyone here know which direction to point me in or give me some tips? Have never made a mod before, but feel this could be "relatively" easy to start with. 

I thought I could just copy a part and paste it to make 2 copies, then just edit a bunch of .CFG files to make it colored differently but everything I've tried doesn't work and 2 copies of the same part dont even show up

 

Even putting an SRB plume on a Spider may work for what I'm looking for

Edited May 9, 2020 by Tengreasypigeons

[wasml]

When you copy a part you need to change the name or one of the parts won't show up. This is the "name = " line usually near the very top of the cfg file. I may be wrong but I think the plume is specified with something like "fx_exhaustFlame_yellow_medium = " in the config - reassigning a different plume should be a simple matter of changing that line to a different fx but to make your own color I'm guessing you would need to make a your own particle effect. I've seen some very old tutorials on how to do this but nothing recent - tutorials may still be valid. If I can find it again I'll post here.

Edit: Found it:

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by wasml

[Tengreasypigeons]

When I tried that, nothing came up? Like it doesn't show the copied part. Is there a specific place I need to put the files? Like in Gamedata, or Squad?

Thanks. I appreciate it

[wasml]

Anywhere in GameData - though I would make a directory for my modifications - say "GameData\MyPlumes".

To be clear - If you copied the LV-1R engine the cfg starts out

PART
{
	name = radialEngineMini
	module = Part
	author = Squad

you would want to change to something like 
PART
{
	name = RadialEngineMiniNewPlume
	module = Part
	author = Squad

Note the RadialEngineMiniNewPlume

And from a ways back - a humorous plume:

 

[Tengreasypigeons]

Thank you! I'll go look into that and try and learn more. Haha and as funny as the elephant plumes may be, it may also be kind of instructional how to replace plumes with custom things.

I'll go back and try again, but this is what I did

 

Quote

PART
{
    name = TGPSmoke
    module = Part
    author = Squad
    mesh = model.mu
    rescaleFactor = 1.0
    node_attach = 0.0, 0.0, 0.00, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0
    fx_exhaustFlame_yellow_thin = 0.0, -1.4084125, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running
    fx_exhaustSparks_yellow = 0.0, -1.4084125, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running
    fx_smokeTrail_medium_thin = 0.0, -1.4084125, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running
    TechRequired = precisionPropulsion
    TechHidden = true
    entryCost = 0
    cost = 120

and thanks for all the replies. pretty excited to get this to work. In the end I'd really like there to be just a part that you add on that looks like the Colored smoke oils that airplanes actually use, but figure this may be easier, quicker and basically just "good enough" for what I want it to do.