Pixel Art Magic Circle Cast: A pixel art spell cast: a rune circle writes itself on the floor around the caster, glyphs light up as power gathers into the staff, and a white flash releases a pillar of light before the runes drift away as motes.

Pixel Art Magic Circle Cast

A pixel art spell cast: a rune circle writes itself on the floor around the caster, glyphs light up as power gathers into the staff, and a white flash releases a pillar of light before the runes drift away as motes. Use it for RPG spell casts, summons, level-up rituals and boss phase changes.

Pixel Art Magic Circle Cast is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 4 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 25 particle emitters, 3 laser beams and 17 glowing strokes. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds.

Colour

Recolours the preview and the free downloads.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 120 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 4, 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 4 s loop.

Pixel Art Magic Circle Cast at 8 moments, from 0 s to 3.5 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Magic Circle Cast is drawn with 17 glowing strokes, lines with a hot core and a soft glow traced along their shapes, plus 25 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: laser beams, magnets, paths, flipbook sprites and post filters (bloom). 2 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 4 s, and 16 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 1.45 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To recolour the line, select "Hexagram" and change Core and Glow; Start and End set how much of it is drawn. Pixel size in the Pixel art panel sets how chunky it looks. The colour swatches by the downloads recolour every layer at once.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Floor lightsprite / additiveA placed glow.
  2. Ambient motesparticles / additiveA steady stream of pixels from a disc. They sway from side to side. Colours range between cyan and blue.
  3. Hexagramstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a star. Its start and end are keyframed, so it writes itself on and off.
  4. Outer ring (far), Inner ring (far), Outer ring (near) +1stroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. Its start and end are keyframed, so it writes itself on and off.
  5. Rune ticks (far), Rune ticks (near)stroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. It is drawn as dashes.
  6. Shock ring (far), Echo ring (far), Climbing ring 1 (far) +7stroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle.
  7. Rune 1particles / additiveA single particle at 0.72 s. Colour runs from white to blue over each life.
  8. Rune 2particles / additiveA single particle at 0.76 s. Colour runs from white to blue over each life.
  9. Rune 3particles / additiveA single particle at 0.79 s. Colour runs from white to blue over each life.
  10. Rune 4particles / additiveA single particle at 0.83 s. Colour runs from white to blue over each life.

25 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
4 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, pixel art at 3x
Layers
25 emitters, 3 lasers and 17 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whitecyanpale cyanblue
Sprites
Heroes by SpriteLab micro mode (Free to use)
Tags
pixel art, pixel, vfx, magic circle, cast, spell, summon, rune, arcane, pillar of light, rpg, 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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