Cartoon Smoke Trail: A cartoon smoke trail loop: a fiery head zooms round a figure eight and leaves a chain of cel-shaded smoke puffs that pop, hold and shrink away, for rockets, projectiles and zooming characters.

Cartoon Smoke Trail

A cartoon smoke trail loop: a fiery head zooms round a figure eight and leaves a chain of cel-shaded smoke puffs that pop, hold and shrink away, for rockets, projectiles and zooming characters. Seamless loop.

Cartoon Smoke Trail is an HD effect that loops seamlessly every 2 seconds, drawn on a 320 by 320 canvas. It is built from 8 particle emitters.

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.

Cartoon Smoke Trail at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.75 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Cartoon Smoke Trail stacks 7 particle emitters, each with its own job. Techniques worth a look: sub-emitters set off by other particles, paths, particles stretched along their motion and post filters (outline).

Every layer emits continuously and the 2 s loop closes seamlessly, so it can run for as long as you need. It carries little colour of its own, so it takes a tint well: select "Smoke Trail" and set 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. Smoke TrailparticlesA steady stream of dots from a disc. The emitter itself travels along a path. They spawn "Smoke Trail Body" as they appear, spawn "Smoke Trail Light" as they appear and swell and then shrink away. Colour: white.
  2. Smoke Trail Body, Smoke Trail LightparticlesDots set off by "Smoke Trail". They swell and then shrink away. Colour: white.
  3. Fire HeadparticlesA steady stream of dots from a disc. The emitter itself travels along a path. They spawn "Fire Head Body" as they appear, spawn "Fire Head Light" as they appear, swell and then shrink away and slow down with drag. Colour runs from gold to violet over each life.
  4. Fire Head Body, Fire Head LightparticlesDots set off by "Fire Head". They swell and then shrink away and slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to violet over each life.
  5. SparksparticlesA steady stream of shards. The emitter itself travels along a path. They fall under gravity and slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to orange over each life.

DETAILS

Length
2 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
320 x 320, HD
Layers
8 emitters
Blend
Mostly normal
Colours
whiteorangegoldviolet
Sprites
Built-in shapes only
Tags
smoke trail, puff trail, rocket trail, zoom, cartoon, toon, projectile, smoke

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.

Step by step: Unity, Godot 4, Roblox, GameMaker, Phaser and PixiJS, Aseprite, Web games (live runtime).

More free cartoon and anime effects, and how to make your own: 2D cartoon FX.

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