Pixel Art Tornado: A swaying pixel-art tornado of spinning dust bands with debris orbiting the funnel and grit kicked up at its base, as a seamless loop.

Pixel Art Tornado

A swaying pixel-art tornado of spinning dust bands with debris orbiting the funnel and grit kicked up at its base, as a seamless loop. Use it for a wind spell, a storm hazard or a desert level in a pixel-art game.

Pixel Art Tornado is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 2.4 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 432 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 14 particle emitters and 30 glowing strokes.

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 Tornado at 8 moments, from 0 s to 2.1 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Tornado is drawn with 30 glowing strokes, lines with a hot core and a soft glow traced along their shapes, plus 14 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: paths, collisions, particles stretched along their motion and keyframed parameters. 2 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

Every layer emits continuously and the 2.4 s loop closes seamlessly, so it can run for as long as you need. To recolour the line, select "Band 1 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. Ground shadowparticlesA single long-lived particle that stays for the whole loop.
  2. Band 1 far, Band 2 far, Band 3 far +27strokeA glowing line traced along a circle. It is drawn as dashes.
  3. Dust volume, Dust volume, Dust volume +2particlesA steady stream of smoke puffs. They travel along a path. Colour: orange.
  4. Debris, DebrisparticlesA steady stream of debris. They travel along a path and spin. Colour: orange.
  5. DebrisparticlesA steady stream of debris. They travel along a path and spin. Colours range between deep orange and orange.
  6. Orbiting gritparticlesA steady stream of pixels. They travel along a path. Colours range between orange and pale gold.
  7. Dust skirtparticlesA steady stream of soft glows. They travel along a path. Colour: orange.
  8. Storm cloudparticlesA steady stream of smoke puffs from a disc. They orbit the emitter and grow as they age. Colours range between deep violet and deep magenta.
  9. Cloud undersideparticlesA steady stream of smoke puffs from a disc. They grow as they age. Colours range between orange and deep orange.
  10. Thrown gritparticlesA steady stream of streaks from a ring. They orbit the emitter, fall under gravity and bounce when they hit something. Colours range between orange and pale gold.

DETAILS

Length
2.4 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 432, pixel art at 3x
Layers
14 emitters and 30 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly normal
Colours
orangedeep orangepale golddeep violet
Sprites
Kenney Smoke Particles by Kenney (CC0)
Tags
pixel art, pixel, vfx, tornado, wind, whirlwind, storm, hazard, 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.

Step by step: Unity, Godot 4, Roblox, GameMaker, Phaser and PixiJS, Aseprite, Web games (live runtime).

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