Life Steal: Life steal: a claw tears the enemy and orbs of blood are ripped out, flying in arcs over a crimson tether to the caster, who absorbs them and heals.

Life Steal

Life steal: a claw tears the enemy and orbs of blood are ripped out, flying in arcs over a crimson tether to the caster, who absorbs them and heals. Plays once per loop.

Life Steal is an HD effect that loops seamlessly every 2 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas. It is built from 19 particle emitters and 1 laser beam. 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.

Life Steal at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.75 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Life Steal centres on 1 laser beam drawn as glowing strips, with 19 particle emitters around them. Techniques worth a look: ribbon trails, sub-emitters set off by other particles, paths, collisions and post filters (bloom and vignette).

It loops seamlessly every 2 s, and 13 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 1.37 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To change its colour, select "Caster Glow" 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. Enemy Floor, Caster Floorparticles / additiveA single long-lived particle that stays for the whole loop.
  2. Claw Slashparticles / additiveA single particle at the start. It grows as it ages. Colour: red.
  3. Hit Flashparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.01 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: pale red.
  4. Blood MistparticlesOne burst of 26 dots at 0.01 s. They fall under gravity and slow down with drag. Colours range between red and deep red.
  5. Drained Glowparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.05 s. Colour: red.
  6. Siphoned Motesparticles / additiveA stream of streaks from a ring, its rate keyframed over the loop. Colour: red.
  7. Blood Tetherlaser / additiveA laser beam firing sideways. It pulses 4 times a second. It wobbles along its length.
  8. Blood Orbs 1, Blood Orbs 2, Blood Orbs 3 +1particles / additive2 single particles at set times. They set off "Absorb Pops" when they die, leave "Blood Drips" behind them, leave "Orb Halos" behind them and travel along a path. Colour runs from deep red to pale red over each life.
  9. Orb Halosparticles / additiveSoft glows set off by "Blood Orbs 1", "Blood Orbs 2" and "Blood Orbs 3". Colour: red.
  10. Blood DripsparticlesStreaks set off by "Blood Orbs 1", "Blood Orbs 2" and "Blood Orbs 3". They fall under gravity and vanish when they hit something. Colours range between red and deep red.

6 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
2 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, HD
Layers
19 emitters and 1 laser
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
redwhitedeep redpale red
Sprites
Kenney Particle Pack by Kenney (CC0)
Tags
life steal, lifesteal, vampire, drain, blood, heal, crimson

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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