Pixel Art Portal Door: A pixel art portal in a round stone gate: violet sparks spiral into a glowing core, the rim crackles with energy and runes light up around the stones in turn.

Pixel Art Portal Door

A pixel art portal in a round stone gate: violet sparks spiral into a glowing core, the rim crackles with energy and runes light up around the stones in turn. Loops, for dungeon exits, world travel and boss doors.

Pixel Art Portal Door is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 2.4 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 8 particle emitters and 2 glowing strokes. 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, 72 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 2.4, 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 2.4 s loop.

Pixel Art Portal Door at 8 moments, from 0 s to 2.1 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Portal Door 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, a vortex, magnets, ribbon trails 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 2.4 s, and one layer fires in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. To change its colour, select "Portal light" 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 glow, Portal light, Coreparticles / additiveA single long-lived particle that stays for the whole loop.
  2. Portal voidparticlesA single long-lived particle that stays for the whole loop.
  3. Swirlparticles / additiveA steady stream of image sprites from a ring. They spiral into a vortex, are swallowed by a magnet at its centre and slow down with drag. Colour runs from violet to white over each life.
  4. Spiral armsparticles / additiveA steady stream of ribbon trails from a ring. They spiral into a vortex, are swallowed by a magnet at its centre and slow down with drag. Colour runs from violet to white over each life.
  5. Rim energystroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. It wobbles like unstable energy.
  6. Rim dashesstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. It is drawn as dashes.
  7. Gate runesparticles / additive12 single particles at set times. They play a flipbook animation. Colour: pale violet.
  8. Escaping motesparticles / additiveA steady stream of image sprites from a disc. Colour: pale violet.

DETAILS

Length
2.4 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, pixel art at 3x
Layers
8 emitters and 2 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whitevioletpale violetdeep violet
Sprites
Built-in shapes only
Tags
pixel art, portal, portal door, magic gate, vortex, teleport, dungeon, 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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