Pixel Art Shield Buff Aura: A pixel art shield buff aura: a dome of hex cells turns slowly round the character with a bright rim and a floor ring, motes rise inside and a pulse ripples up across it.

Pixel Art Shield Buff Aura

A pixel art shield buff aura: a dome of hex cells turns slowly round the character with a bright rim and a floor ring, motes rise inside and a pulse ripples up across it. Use it for shield, barrier, armour and protection buffs in RPGs, MOBAs and action games.

Pixel Art Shield Buff Aura is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 3 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 348 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 10 particle emitters and 8 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, 90 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 3, 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 3 s loop.

Pixel Art Shield Buff Aura at 8 moments, from 0 s to 2.63 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Shield Buff Aura is drawn with 8 glowing strokes, lines with a hot core and a soft glow traced along their shapes, plus 10 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: paths, 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 3 s, and 8 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. To recolour the line, select "Shield base far" 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 light, Dome lightsprite / additiveA placed glow.
  2. Shield base far, Floor ripple far, Shield pulse far +5stroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle.
  3. Hex cells (back), Hex cells (back), Hex cells (back) +5particles / additive2 single particles at set times. They travel along a path. Colours range between pale gold and gold.
  4. Rising motesparticles / additiveA steady stream of pixels from a disc. They sway from side to side. Colour runs from white to orange over each life.
  5. Rim glintsparticles / additiveA steady stream of small shapes along a path. They swell and then shrink away. Colours range between white and pale gold.

DETAILS

Length
3 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 348, pixel art at 3x
Layers
10 emitters and 8 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
pale goldgoldorangewhite
Sprites
Heroes by SpriteLab micro mode (Free to use)
Tags
pixel art, pixel, vfx, shield, buff, aura, barrier, protection, hex shield, status effect, defense, 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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