Skipping Stone: A flat stone skips four times across a lake, each touch throwing a smaller crown, drops and ring than the last, then plops in with a few bubbles.

Skipping Stone

A flat stone skips four times across a lake, each touch throwing a smaller crown, drops and ring than the last, then plops in with a few bubbles. Plays once per loop.

Skipping Stone is an HD effect that loops seamlessly every 2.2 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas. It is built from 27 particle emitters.

Colour

Recolours the preview and the free downloads.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 66 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 2.2, 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 2.2 s loop.

Skipping Stone at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.93 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Skipping Stone stacks 27 particle emitters, each with its own job. Techniques worth a look: sub-emitters set off by other particles, flipbook sprites, collisions, particles stretched along their motion and post filters (bloom and vignette). 3 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 2.2 s, and 14 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0.3 s to 1.34 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To change its colour, select "Crown" in the studio and edit Colour A and Colour B. Size on the same layer sets how big its particles are. The colour swatches by the downloads recolour every layer at once.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Ripples, Ripples, Ripples +2particles2 single particles at set times. They grow as they age. Colour: white.
  2. CrownparticlesA single particle at 0.3 s. Colour: pale blue.
  3. Hop Drops Sourceparticles / additiveOne burst of 22 pixels along a line at 0.3 s. They spawn "Hop Drops Rim" as they appear, spawn "Hop Drops Body" as they appear and spawn "Hop Drops Highlight" as they appear. Colours range between orange and gold.
  4. Hop Drops Rim, Hop Drops Rim, Hop Drops Rim +1particlesStreaks set off by "Hop Drops Source". They set off "Drop Ripples" on impact, fall under gravity, vanish when they hit something and slow down with drag. Colour: blue.
  5. Hop Drops Body, Hop Drops Body, Hop Drops Body +1particlesStreaks set off by "Hop Drops Source". They fall under gravity, vanish when they hit something and slow down with drag. Colour: blue.
  6. Hop Drops Highlight, Hop Drops Highlight, Hop Drops Highlight +1particlesStreaks set off by "Hop Drops Source". They fall under gravity, vanish when they hit something and slow down with drag. Colour: white.
  7. CrownparticlesA single particle at 0.66 s. Colour: pale blue.
  8. Hop Drops Sourceparticles / additiveOne burst of 18 pixels along a line at 0.66 s. They spawn "Hop Drops Rim" as they appear, spawn "Hop Drops Body" as they appear and spawn "Hop Drops Highlight" as they appear. Colours range between orange and gold.
  9. CrownparticlesA single particle at 0.94 s. Colour: pale blue.
  10. Hop Drops Sourceparticles / additiveOne burst of 14 pixels along a line at 0.94 s. They spawn "Hop Drops Rim" as they appear, spawn "Hop Drops Body" as they appear and spawn "Hop Drops Highlight" as they appear. Colours range between orange and gold.

6 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
2.2 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, HD
Layers
27 emitters
Blend
Mostly normal
Colours
whitebluepale blueorange
Sprites
ParticleFX Realism by ParticleFX Studio (CC0)
Tags
water, stone, skipping, splash, lake, ripples, fishing

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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