Pixel Art Sword Clash

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Sword Clash is drawn with 11 glowing strokes, lines with a hot core and a soft glow traced along their shapes, plus 12 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: collisions, particles stretched along their motion, keyframed parameters and post filters (bloom and colour grade). 4 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 1 s, and 12 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 0.34 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To recolour the line, select "Slash l glow" 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.

Layers, in draw order

1. Floor lightparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.18 s. Colour: pale gold.
2. Slash l glow, Slash l line 1, Slash l line 2 +7stroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a path. Its start and end are keyframed, so it writes itself on and off.
3. Clash starburst, Flashparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.18 s. Colour: white.
4. Clash starparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.18 s. It shrinks as it ages. Colour: white.
5. Clash star turnedparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.21 s. It shrinks as it ages. Colour: pale gold.
6. Clash ringstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle.
7. Sparks leftparticles / additiveOne burst of 16 streaks at 0.18 s. They fall under gravity, bounce when they hit something and slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to orange over each life.
8. Sparks rightparticles / additiveOne burst of 16 streaks at 0.18 s. They fall under gravity, bounce when they hit something and slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to blue over each life.
9. Lock sparksparticles / additiveOne burst of 10 streaks at 0.25 s. They fall under gravity, bounce when they hit something and slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to gold over each life.
10. Glintsparticles / additiveOne burst of 6 small shapes at 0.2 s. They fall under gravity, bounce when they hit something, swell and then shrink away and slow down with drag. Colour runs from white to gold over each life.

3 more layers are in the studio.