Pixel VFX Pack – 8 Effects x 6 Variants (Prefabs Ready)

8 pixel-art effects in 6 variants each (48 strips of 12 frames, 64x64), pre-sliced for pixel art, with a prefab and AnimationClip per strip and a demo scene.

Key features

• 8 pixel-art effects x 6 variants = 48 sprite strips, 12 frames of 64x64 each
• Pre-sliced in every .meta: Sprite Mode Multiple, Point filter, no compression, no mip maps, 64 pixels per unit
• 48 prefabs: drag in and press Play; plays once and removes itself
• PixelVfxPlayer: fps, loop, play on enable, destroy / disable / hide / hold at the end, Finished event, unscaled time
• 48 AnimationClips for Animator workflows (12 fps, no loop)
• Demo scene with all 48 effects (no input setup needed)
• Python generator included for new variants
• Offline PDF documentation

Technical details

• Sprites: 48 PNG strips, 768x64, RGBA, alpha only 0 or 255; 12 frames of 64x64 each, sliced as sprites <name>_0 to <name>_11.
• Import settings in every .meta: Texture Type Sprite, Sprite Mode Multiple, Mesh Type Full Rect, Pixels Per Unit 64, Filter Mode Point, Wrap Clamp, Compression None, no mip maps.
• 48 prefabs (SpriteRenderer + PixelVfxPlayer, Sprites-Default material, Order in Layer 10), 48 AnimationClips, 1 demo scene (Demo/PixelVFX_Demo.unity).
• Scripts: 3 C# files in 2 assembly definitions (TheKnightShift.PixelVFX and TheKnightShift.PixelVFX.Demo), namespace TheKnightShift.PixelVFX. C# 9 or older, core UnityEngine APIs only, no package dependencies.
• Documentation: Documentation/PixelVFX_Documentation.pdf, README.txt.
• Generator/: vfxgen.py and vfxgen_plus.py, Python 3 source, not used by Unity.
• Everything installs under Assets/TheKnightShift/PixelVFX. Package file about 190 KB (about 1 MB unpacked).

Pixel VFX Pack is 8 one-shot pixel-art effects for 2D games: explosion, smoke, magic burst, impact, lightning strike, heal, dust cloud and pickup sparkle. Each comes in 6 variants, 48 sprite strips in all, each 12 frames of 64x64 pixels with hard-edged alpha. The 6 variants of an effect share its shape and size and differ in debris, sparks, bolts and puff placement, so think of it as 8 effects with subtle variations, not 48 different effects.

It is set up so you don't have to. Every PNG arrives already sliced into its 12 frames, with Point filtering, no compression, no mip maps and 64 pixels per unit, so the pixels stay crisp. Every strip has a ready prefab: drag it into your scene, press Play, and it plays once and removes itself. From code it is one line: PixelVfxPlayer.Spawn(explosion, position).

The small PixelVfxPlayer component sets the frame rate, looping, play-on-enable and what happens at the end (destroy, disable for pooling, hide, or hold the last frame), and raises a Finished event. If you prefer the Animator, every strip also has an AnimationClip (12 fps, no loop). A demo scene plays all 48 in a grid.

The Python generator that drew the strips is included (standard library only), so you can render more variants from new seeds outside Unity.

Quick start: drag any prefab from Prefabs/ into your scene and press Play, or open Demo/PixelVFX_Demo.unity.

The 8 effects

• Explosion: fireball with a dithered fire ramp, smoke ring and sparks
• Smoke: grey puffs that rise, grow and break up
• Magic: cyan and violet shockwave ring with sparkles
• Impact: white and yellow hit flash, then radial hit lines
• Lightning: jagged bolt strikes down, flickers once, leaves a spark burst
• Heal: green ground ring with rising plus-shaped sparkles
• Dust: landing or dash dust cloud rolling out along the ground
• Sparkle: gold four-point stars that pop in and twinkle out

The other six effects fade out and end on 1-3 empty frames (impact draws 9 of its 12). Explosion and smoke end on a still-visible frame; the prefabs remove them when they finish. Explosion art touches the 64x64 cell border from frame 6 on and smoke art on frames 11-12; the other six effects stay at least 2 pixels inside the cell.