Pixel art elemental VFX: fire, ice, lightning, water, earth, wind (30 animated effects, PNG and JSON)

This pack is for developers of 2D RPGs and action games who want to give every spell and every attack an element without drawing the effects themselves. It brings together six elements, fire, ice, lightning, water, earth and wind, each in five roles: impact, projectile in two directions, aura, area and status. Each effect has a documented anchor, per-frame timings and a mode, looping or played once, so it sits on your sprites. The pack contains no characters. Its palette builds on the one from the pixel art dungeon kit, and the effects are made for dark or mid-tone scenery.

• 30 animated effects, in 36 animations and 308 frames, across 6 elements: fire (fire), ice (ice), lightning (lightning), water (water), earth (earth) and wind (wind).
• Each element comes in all five roles, named <element>-<role>:
  • Impact (fire-impact, ice-impact…): plays once, placed on the point of contact;
  • Projectile (fire-projectile…): loops, drawn facing east (-e) and north-east (-ne), so two animations per element;
  • Aura (fire-aura…): loops, placed on the feet line;
  • Area (fire-area…): plays once, placed on the ground, in the largest cells of the pack;
  • Status (fire-status…): loops, in a small cell to place above the head.
• 12 effects that play once (impacts and areas) and 18 looping effects (projectiles, auras and statuses).
• A 24-colour palette (dungeon-fx-24), as HEX, as GPL and as an image: it takes the dungeon kit colours and adds more for the effects.
• Animated previews of every effect, as GIF and WebP, on a transparent background.
• A demo page that shows every effect on three backgrounds, to open in a browser, offline.

Archive layout:

LISEZMOI-format.txt
demo/index.html
frames/1x/<effect>/<effect>-<number>.png
palette/dungeon-fx-24.gpl
palette/dungeon-fx-24.hex
palette/dungeon-fx-24.png
preview/gif/<effect>.gif
preview/webp/<effect>.webp
sheet/elemental-effects-<1x|2x|4x>.png
sheet/elemental-effects-<1x|2x|4x>.json
strips/<1x|2x|4x>/<effect>-<width>x<height>.png

The format guide LISEZMOI-format.txt is written in French, with an English section at the end.

How to use it

• Strips: one horizontal strip per animation, with no spacing between frames. The cell size is in the file name: most 2D engines slice the strip with a uniform grid.
• Sheet and JSON atlas: the sheet holds every effect, one row per animation. The atlas gives each frame’s position, duration and anchor, plus one tag per animation. An importer for this format builds the animations by itself; otherwise, build each animation from the tags and durations.
• Anchor: each effect has its origin point, written in the atlas and in LISEZMOI-format.txt. Centred for impacts, projectiles and statuses, placed on the point of contact or above the head; on the ground for auras and areas, placed on the feet line.
• Projectile directions: projectiles are drawn facing east and north-east. The other directions come from mirroring or quarter turns, pixel-exact; LISEZMOI-format.txt gives the mapping for each one.
• Scaling up: the files come at 1x, 2x and 4x. For another size, scale by a whole number with nearest neighbour, never with smoothing.

Checks performed

• Pixels: every frame uses only palette colours, with hard transparency, no smoothing and no black outline.
• Grid: every cell is aligned on the 16 px grid, with an always empty border: nothing is cropped.
• Scales: the 2x and 4x versions are identical to an exact enlargement of the 1x, and the atlases match the sheets.
• Atlas: the 36 animations were loaded into a 2D engine by both routes described above, with all 308 frames, exact slicing and exact durations.
• Loops: the last frame of each loop joins the first with no jump.
• Previews: every GIF and every WebP was read back, durations included.

Good to know

• The effects are made for dark or mid-tone scenery. The demo page shows each effect on three backgrounds: you can judge on yours before placing them.
• Durations follow a 50 ms grid: they stay exact in GIF, in WebP, in the atlas and in a game.
• The pack contains no characters.

Production and AI

Each effect was written in code with an AI assistant: several takes rendered to video, one kept, then refined and checked (palette, grid, anchor, loops, timing). No image was produced by an image generator.

• PNG strips at 1x, 2x and 4x: one strip per animation, on a transparent background, sliced by grid in most 2D engines.
• Separate PNG frames: every frame of every effect, numbered, for a frame-by-frame import.
• Sprite sheet and JSON atlas: one sheet per scale and its atlas in the JSON array format common to pixel art editors and 2D atlas loaders, with durations, anchors and animation tags.
• Animated GIF and WebP previews: looping, on a transparent background, viewable in a browser.
• HEX and GPL palette: as a hexadecimal list and in the palette format read by most drawing and pixel art software.

The pack is sold under the commercial licence (terms in French): you can use it in your personal and professional projects, including for your clients and in the games you sell or release, but you may not resell or redistribute the files, on their own or in another pack, even for free.

The pixel art combat effects (hits, slashes, explosions) and the pixel art UI and reward effects (loot, healing, teleport) complete this pack with the same palette, anchors and formats.

Do the effects work with my game engine?

The strips slice with a uniform grid, which most 2D engines do. The JSON atlas follows a common array format; if it is not read as is, LISEZMOI-format.txt explains how to build the animations from the tags and durations.

Do the effects show on light scenery?

They are made for dark or mid-tone scenery. The demo page shows them on three backgrounds: open it to see the result before you integrate them.

Can I use the effects in a game I sell?

Yes. The commercial licence covers the finished products you sell or release, games included. It forbids reselling or redistributing the effects as a pack, even for free. The details are on the licence page.

1.0.0 (11 November 2026): first release.