Pixel Smoke Puff: Pixel art smoke puff effect: a retro poof of white smoke that billows out and vanishes in square pixels with hard shading steps, no dithering.

Pixel Smoke Puff

Pixel art smoke puff effect: a retro poof of white smoke that billows out and vanishes in square pixels with hard shading steps, no dithering. For spawns, despawns and hits.

Pixel Smoke Puff is a pixel art effect that plays once over 1 seconds, drawn on a 192 by 192 canvas at 4x pixels. It is built from 1 simulated smoke and fire layer and 1 particle emitter. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 30 frames at 30 fps. Use it in commercial games, no credit needed.

Roblox: the download is a flipbook for a ParticleEmitter. Set FlipbookLayout to Grid8x8, FlipbookMode to OneShot and Lifetime to 1, 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.

FRAME BY FRAME

8 evenly spaced moments across the 1 s clip.

Pixel Smoke Puff at 8 moments, from 0.06 s to 0.94 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Smoke Puff is built around a fluid simulation of fire and smoke on a grid, with 1 particle emitter on top. Techniques worth a look: particles feeding the fluid and keyframed parameters.

It plays once over 1 s: everything goes off at the start and then dies away. To change the flame colour, select "Poof" and edit Fire colours; Smoke colour sets the smoke. Pixel size in the Pixel art panel sets how chunky it looks.

Layers, in draw order

  1. PooffluidSimulated fire and smoke from a round source, in one burst. "Gas lobes" feed it.
  2. Gas lobesparticles / additiveOne burst of 18 soft glows from a disc at 0.02 s. They feed smoke and heat into the fluid, shrink as they age and slow down with drag. Colours range between orange and gold.

DETAILS

Length
1 seconds, plays once
Canvas
192 x 192, pixel art at 4x
Layers
1 emitter
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
orangegold
Sprites
Built-in shapes only
Tags
pixel art, smoke, puff, poof, retro, despawn, fluid

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.

MORE Smoke & Fire

Hit Smoke Puff particle effectHit Smoke PuffPixel Fire Blast particle effectPixel Fire BlastPixel Fire Column particle effectPixel Fire ColumnTeleport Smoke Puff particle effectTeleport Smoke PuffCampfire with Rolling Smoke particle effectCampfire with Rolling SmokeDark Miasma particle effectDark MiasmaHoly Light Smoke particle effectHoly Light SmokeNapalm Firestorm particle effectNapalm Firestorm

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All Smoke & Fire effects or the full library.