Pixel Art Magic Projectile: Pixel art magic projectile in flight: a violet orb with two orbiting motes that leave a sparkling helix, a soft tail and a pulsing ring stood on its side.

Pixel Art Magic Projectile

Pixel art magic projectile in flight: a violet orb with two orbiting motes that leave a sparkling helix, a soft tail and a pulsing ring stood on its side. Use it as the bullet for wands, staffs and magic attacks in RPGs and shooters; a seamless loop, held in place so the game moves it.

Pixel Art Magic Projectile is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 1.2 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 8 particle emitters and 1 glowing stroke. 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, 36 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 1.2, 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 1.2 s loop.

Pixel Art Magic Projectile at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.05 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Magic Projectile is pixel art, drawn at 3x pixels so it sits on the same grid as your sprites, and built from 8 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: glowing strokes traced along shapes, sub-emitters set off by other particles, paths and keyframed parameters.

It loops seamlessly every 1.2 s, and one layer fires in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. To change its colour, select "Soft tail" in the studio and edit the Colour over Life gradient. Size on the same layer sets how big its particles are. 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. Helix sparkleparticles / additivePixels set off by "Orbiting motes". Colour runs from white to violet over each life.
  2. Helix glowparticles / additiveSoft glows set off by "Orbiting motes". They shrink as they age. Colours range between magenta and violet.
  3. Orbiting motesparticles / additiveOne burst of 2 dots at the start. They leave "Helix sparkle" behind them, leave "Helix glow" behind them and travel along a path. Colour: white.
  4. Soft tailparticles / additiveA steady stream of soft glows from a disc. They shrink as they age. Colour runs from pale violet to deep violet over each life.
  5. Glintsparticles / additiveA steady stream of sparks from a disc. They swell and then shrink away. Colours range between white and pale violet.
  6. Orb ringstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. It is drawn as dashes.
  7. Haloparticles / additiveA steady stream of soft glows. Colours range between violet and magenta.
  8. Orbparticles / additiveA steady stream of soft glows. Colours range between pale violet and magenta.
  9. Heartparticles / additiveA steady stream of dots. Colour: white.

DETAILS

Length
1.2 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, pixel art at 3x
Layers
8 emitters and 1 glowing stroke
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whitepale violetmagentaviolet
Sprites
Built-in shapes only
Tags
pixel art, magic projectile, projectile, magic bolt, orb, spell, 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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