Cracking Ice: Thin ice cracking: cracks race out from the impact in two stages, chips and frost powder pop, then the centre gives way into a dark hole with broken slabs and a splash.

Cracking Ice

Thin ice cracking: cracks race out from the impact in two stages, chips and frost powder pop, then the centre gives way into a dark hole with broken slabs and a splash. Plays once per loop.

Cracking Ice is an HD effect that loops seamlessly every 3 seconds, drawn on a 448 by 448 canvas. It is built from 12 particle emitters and 16 glowing strokes.

Colour

Recolours the preview and the free downloads.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 90 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 3, 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 3 s loop.

Cracking Ice at 8 moments, from 0 s to 2.63 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Cracking Ice is drawn with 16 glowing strokes, lines with a hot core and a soft glow traced along their shapes, plus 12 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: sub-emitters set off by other particles, particles stretched along their motion, keyframed parameters and post filters (bloom and vignette). 2 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 3 s, and 9 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 1.55 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To recolour the line, select "Crack" and change Core and Glow; Start and End set how much of it is drawn. The colour swatches by the downloads recolour every layer at once.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Crack, Crack, Crack +13stroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a path. Its start and end are keyframed, so it writes itself on and off.
  2. Crack Flashparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.2 s. Colour: white.
  3. Crack Flash 2particles / additiveA single particle at 0.8 s. Colour: white.
  4. Ice Chipsparticles3 timed bursts of shards from a disc, 50 in all. They fall under gravity and spin. Colours range between white and blue.
  5. Frost Powderparticles / additive2 timed bursts of stars from a disc, 26 in all. They swell and then shrink away. Colours range between white and pale cyan.
  6. Broken HoleparticlesA single particle at 1.45 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: black.
  7. Hole WaterparticlesA single particle at 1.45 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: deep blue.
  8. Ripplesparticles2 single particles at set times. They grow as they age. Colour: white.
  9. Ice SlabsparticlesOne burst of 11 shards from a ring at 1.45 s. They grow as they age. Colours range between pale blue and blue.
  10. Splash Sourceparticles / additiveOne burst of 30 pixels from a disc at 1.45 s. They spawn "Splash Rim" as they appear, spawn "Splash Body" as they appear and spawn "Splash Highlight" as they appear. Colours range between orange and gold.

3 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
3 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
448 x 448, HD
Layers
12 emitters and 16 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly normal
Colours
whitepale cyanbluedeep blue
Sprites
ParticleFX Realism by ParticleFX Studio (CC0), Kenney Particle Pack by Kenney (CC0)
Tags
ice, crack, frozen lake, thin ice, hazard, break, winter

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).

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