Anime Water Dragon: A water dragon for anime battlegrounds and fighting games: a serpent of water rises, arcs over shedding mist and droplets, and dives into the ground in a splash crown with ripples and spray.

Anime Water Dragon

A water dragon for anime battlegrounds and fighting games: a serpent of water rises, arcs over shedding mist and droplets, and dives into the ground in a splash crown with ripples and spray. Plays once.

Anime Water Dragon is an HD effect that loops seamlessly every 2 seconds, drawn on a 512 by 512 canvas. It is built from 12 particle emitters. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds. Some particles draw ribbon trails.

Colour

Recolours the preview and the free downloads.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 60 frames at 30 fps. Use it in commercial games, no credit needed.

Licence: use it in any project, including paid commercial games such as a game sold on Steam. There is no per-project licence to buy and no credit needed. Terms.

Roblox: the download is a flipbook for a ParticleEmitter. Set FlipbookLayout to Grid8x8, FlipbookMode to OneShot and Lifetime to 2, then emit one particle per cycle. Roblox setup.

REMIX WITH AI

Try:

Left empty, it just opens in the agent, free. Each change is one AI build, and you start with free builds.

Engine data for Unity, Godot, GameMaker and Aseprite comes with a plan: open it in the studio.

OPEN IN THE STUDIO

Change the colours, timing or size, or export for Unity, Godot 4, GameMaker, Phaser, PixiJS and Aseprite.

Try variations: new colours, motion and shapes of this effect, free in the studio.

FRAME BY FRAME

8 evenly spaced moments across the 2 s loop.

Anime Water Dragon at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.75 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Anime Water Dragon stacks 12 particle emitters, each with its own job. Techniques worth a look: ribbon trails, sub-emitters set off by other particles, paths, flipbook sprites and post filters (bloom).

It loops seamlessly every 2 s, and 10 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0.04 s to 1.06 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To change its colour, select "Splash Crown" in the studio and edit Colour A and Colour B. Size on the same layer sets how big its particles are. The colour swatches by the downloads recolour every layer at once.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Body MistparticlesSmoke puffs set off by "Water Body". They grow as they age, spin and slow down with drag. Colour: pale blue.
  2. Water Body, Body Shineparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.04 s. It travels along a path. Colour: blue.
  3. Body Coreparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.04 s. It travels along a path. Colour: white.
  4. Dragon Headparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.04 s. It travels along a path. Colour: pale cyan.
  5. DropletsparticlesImage sprites set off by "Water Body". They fall under gravity. Colours range between white and pale blue.
  6. Splash Crownparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.92 s. Colour: pale blue.
  7. Hit Flashparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.92 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: white.
  8. Shockwaveparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.94 s. It grows as it ages. Colour runs from white to blue over each life.
  9. Shockwaveparticles / additiveA single particle at 1.06 s. It grows as it ages. Colour runs from white to blue over each life.
  10. Splash DropsparticlesOne burst of 34 image sprites from a disc at 0.94 s. They fall under gravity and vanish when they hit something. Colours range between white and pale blue.

One more layer is in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
2 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
512 x 512, HD
Layers
12 emitters
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whitepale bluebluepale cyan
Sprites
ParticleFX Realism by ParticleFX Studio (CC0), Kenney Smoke Particles by Kenney (CC0)
Tags
water dragon, dragon, water, anime, battlegrounds, serpent, splash, blue

USING IT IN YOUR GAME

Phaser, PixiJS
The PNG sheet is a plain grid of frames that both can slice. A TexturePacker JSON atlas comes with a plan, from the studio.
Unity
Import the PNG sheet as a Sprite with Mode set to Multiple and slice it, or open the effect in the studio for a ready-made grid.
Godot 4, GameMaker, Aseprite
Open it in the studio and pick your engine in Export: with a plan, it writes the files that engine imports.
Web and chat
The GIF plays anywhere; the APNG keeps soft edges on any background.
Blend mode
This effect is made of light. For the same glow in your game, draw the sprite with additive blending, or export it on black from the studio for additive shaders.

Step by step: Unity, Godot 4, Roblox, GameMaker, Phaser and PixiJS, Aseprite, Web games (live runtime). Drawn with additive blending: see glow effects without a black box.

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