Pixel Art Aurora Sky Loop: A seamless pixel-art aurora: curtains of one-pixel light rays, white-green at the lower edge and fading through teal to violet, sway and ripple over a starry sky above a dark pine ridge.

Pixel Art Aurora Sky Loop

A seamless pixel-art aurora: curtains of one-pixel light rays, white-green at the lower edge and fading through teal to violet, sway and ripple over a starry sky above a dark pine ridge. Use it as a night sky backdrop for winter levels, title screens and world maps.

Pixel Art Aurora Sky Loop is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 6 seconds, drawn on a 480 by 288 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 14 particle emitters. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds. Some particles draw ribbon trails.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 180 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 6, 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 6 s loop.

Pixel Art Aurora Sky Loop at 8 moments, from 0 s to 5.25 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Aurora Sky Loop is pixel art, drawn at 3x pixels so it sits on the same grid as your sprites, and built from 14 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: ribbon trails, keyframed parameters and post filters (bloom). 8 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 6 s, and 2 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 2.6 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To change its colour, select "Curtain haze" in the studio and edit Colour A and Colour B. Size on the same layer sets how big its particles are. Pixel size in the Pixel art panel sets how chunky it looks.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Twinkling starsparticles / additive12 single particles at set times. They swell and then shrink away. Colour: white.
  2. Shooting starparticles / additiveA single particle at 2.6 s. Colour runs from white to pale blue over each life.
  3. Aurora sky glow, Snow sheenparticles / additiveA single long-lived particle that stays for the whole loop.
  4. Far curtain, Main curtain glow, Main curtain +6particles / additiveA steady stream of rings from a ring. Colour: white.
  5. Curtain hazeparticles / additiveA steady stream of soft glows across a box. Colours range between green and teal.

DETAILS

Length
6 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
480 x 288, pixel art at 3x
Layers
14 emitters
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whitegreentealpale blue
Sprites
Built-in shapes only
Tags
pixel art, pixel, vfx, aurora, northern lights, sky, night, stars, winter, background, ambient, loop

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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