Water Portal: A standing water portal: water flows around a tall oval rim, streaks spiral into a deep glowing centre, drops fling off the rim and drip from the bottom into a rippling puddle.

Water Portal

A standing water portal: water flows around a tall oval rim, streaks spiral into a deep glowing centre, drops fling off the rim and drip from the bottom into a rippling puddle. Seamless loop for gates and teleporters.

Water Portal is an HD effect that loops seamlessly every 3 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 384 canvas. It is built from 16 particle emitters and 1 glowing stroke. Some particles draw ribbon trails.

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.

Water Portal at 8 moments, from 0 s to 2.63 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Water Portal stacks 16 particle emitters, each with its own job. Techniques worth a look: glowing strokes traced along shapes, a vortex, magnets, ribbon trails and post filters (bloom and vignette). 3 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

Every layer emits continuously and the 3 s loop closes seamlessly, so it can run for as long as you need. To change its colour, select "Inner Glow" 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. Portal DepthparticlesA single long-lived particle that stays for the whole loop.
  2. Inner Glow, Core Lightparticles / additiveA single long-lived particle that stays for the whole loop.
  3. Inner SwirlparticlesA steady stream of ribbon trails from a disc. They swirl around a vortex, are swallowed by a magnet at its centre and slow down with drag. Colours range between pale blue and blue.
  4. Rim WaterparticlesA steady stream of ribbon trails. They travel along a path. Colour: blue.
  5. Rim FoamparticlesA steady stream of ribbon trails. They travel along a path. Colours range between white and pale blue.
  6. Rim Glowstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. It wobbles like unstable energy.
  7. Flung Drops Sourceparticles / additiveA steady stream of pixels from a ring. They spawn "Flung Drops Rim" as they appear, spawn "Flung Drops Body" as they appear and spawn "Flung Drops Highlight" as they appear. Colours range between orange and gold.
  8. Flung Drops RimparticlesStreaks set off by "Flung Drops Source". They set off "Drop Ripples" on impact, fall under gravity and vanish when they hit something. Colour: blue.
  9. Flung Drops BodyparticlesStreaks set off by "Flung Drops Source". They fall under gravity and vanish when they hit something. Colour: blue.
  10. Flung Drops HighlightparticlesStreaks set off by "Flung Drops Source". They fall under gravity and vanish when they hit something. Colour: white.

6 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
3 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 384, HD
Layers
16 emitters and 1 glowing stroke
Blend
Mostly normal
Colours
bluewhiteorangepale cyan
Sprites
ParticleFX Realism by ParticleFX Studio (CC0)
Tags
water, portal, gate, teleport, vortex, magic, dungeon

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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