[lowfighter]

The mat file distance works to DECREASE the pop up distance. Say somewhere else the pop up distance is set to 5000 m. If in mat file you set it to any higher distance it will have no effect. But if you set it to alower value say 1000m it will make the object pop up at 1000m. With the smoke and fire the original mat files had a distance set to 3000m or something, lower than the "real" pop up distance. That's why increasing the mat distance worked for smoke and fire. There's another object with mat distance set to smaller than the "real" one, namely the small tree, it's set to 1000 meter, I just set it then to 10000 meter, and the tree pops up now to a higher distance (of course smaller than 10000 meter)
The M8 knowing how to increase the pop up distance is FC, he was telling that in another thread...