Pixel Art Muzzle Flash: Pixel art muzzle flash: rapid gunfire with a two-frame star of fire, a forward flame cone, a tracer, a brass casing that spins and bounces on the floor and a curl of smoke for every shot.

Pixel Art Muzzle Flash

Pixel art muzzle flash: rapid gunfire with a two-frame star of fire, a forward flame cone, a tracer, a brass casing that spins and bounces on the floor and a curl of smoke for every shot. Use it for rifles, machine guns and pistols in shooters and run-and-gun games; a seamless three-shot loop.

Pixel Art Muzzle Flash is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 0.6 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 8 particle emitters. 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, 18 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 Grid4x4, FlipbookMode to OneShot and Lifetime to 0.6, 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 0.6 s loop.

Pixel Art Muzzle Flash at 8 moments, from 0 s to 0.53 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Muzzle Flash 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: collisions, keyframed parameters and post filters (bloom). 3 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 0.6 s, and 8 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. To change its colour, select "Muzzle glow" 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. The colour swatches by the downloads recolour every layer at once.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Floor flicker, Muzzle glowparticles / additive3 single particles at set times. Colour: orange.
  2. Muzzle smokeparticles3 timed bursts of smoke puffs, 6 in all. They sway from side to side and grow as they age. Colours range between light grey and grey.
  3. Flame coneparticles / additive3 timed bursts of soft glows, 21 in all. They turn to face where they move. Colour runs from white to orange over each life.
  4. Muzzle starparticles / additive3 single particles at set times. Colour: white.
  5. Tracerparticles / additive3 single particles at set times. Colour runs from white to gold over each life.
  6. Casingsparticles3 single particles at set times. They fall under gravity, bounce when they hit something and spin. Colour: gold.
  7. Casing glintparticles / additive3 single particles at set times. They swell and then shrink away. Colour: white.

DETAILS

Length
0.6 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, pixel art at 3x
Layers
8 emitters
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whiteorangegoldpale gold
Sprites
Kenney Smoke Particles by Kenney (CC0)
Tags
pixel art, muzzle flash, gun, gunfire, shooting, rifle, shooter

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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