Carbon Hit Effects
==================

12 realistic impact and effect sprites for dark interfaces — near black with
warning amber accents. SVG plus transparent PNG at 1x, 2x and 4x.

Carbon Hit Effects is a set of 12 impact and effect sprites drawn in the
realistic style, where a five-stop specular gradient runs down a brushed metal
face with rivets at the corners. It contains a hit spark and a critical burst,
an impact ring and a ground shockwave, a slash arc, a glow orb and a sparkle,
a heal mark and a shield bubble and a dust puff, a lightning bolt and rising
embers.

Every other kit in this catalogue draws the interface. None of them draw the
moment one thing hits another, which is the first thing a combat system needs
and the last thing a solo developer gets to. An effect sprite also has no
outline to hide behind: it lives on top of the game for a few frames and then
it is gone.

The brush texture is a 3px line pattern rather than real noise: noise triples
the PNG weight for a texture nobody can see at 1x. The shadow is layered
rather than blurred so it holds up at 4x.

Inside that style this is the Carbon reading of it: a dark interface on a near
black palette with warning amber accents, built around four corner brackets in
place of a closed border, chamfered buttons at 152x44, hollow-cored bars
divided into 14 segments, and two-tone icons on a 32px grid. Those
measurements are why two families can share an art style without being
interchangeable: the style decides how an edge is drawn, the numbers decide
what the interface is for.

Every sprite is centred in a square canvas and symmetric about that centre, so
the engine only has to scale and fade — an effect anchored off-centre drifts
sideways as it grows, and that reads as a bug rather than a burst. The bodies
are single-colour with no outline, because an outlined spark reads as a piece
of interface rather than as light. The glow orb is built from stacked discs at
falling opacity rather than a blur filter: a filter is rasterised differently
across engines and turns to mush at 4x.

Every sprite ships as an editable SVG and as transparent PNG at 1x, 2x and 4x,
so you can drop the PNGs straight into an engine or open the vector and change
a colour. Built to the same measurements as the rest of the Carbon family,
which means this kit and the Carbon panel kit line up without either being
resized. A good fit for realistic and simulation interfaces.

HOW TO USE

  - Anchor every effect at the centre of its sprite and scale from there;
    these are drawn symmetric so that scale and fade is the whole animation.
  - Play the hit spark for two or three frames at most. An impact that lingers
    stops reading as an impact.
  - Tint by multiplying rather than replacing the colour — the sprites carry
    their own light-to-dark falloff, and a flat colour replace throws it away.
  - Use additive blending for the spark, burst, glow and sparkle, and normal
    blending for the dust puff and embers, which are matter rather than light.

License: CC-BY-4.0 — see LICENSE.txt
Page: https://www.colorosse.com/assets/2d/vfx/carbon-hit-effects
More free assets: https://www.colorosse.com
