Procedural Flame VFX

Procedural Flame VFX — a playable Godot showroom plus a reusable paid addon

Procedural Flame VFX is a Godot 4.x addon for layered, stylized 2D flame effects. The page includes a free playable Web/Windows demo so you can test the look and motion before buying the addon package.

The paid download contains the reusable addon, generated flipbook sheets, prefab profiles, burst effect, and source generator. The free demo builds are for previewing the effect; the addon source and generated assets are licensed through the paid package.

The hook: generated sheets plus runtime art direction

The flame art is built from deterministic Python-generated flipbook sheets, then composed at runtime in Godot with separate body, core, smoke, sparks, glow, base-hot, and veil layers. Each profile can tune palette, scale, alpha, FPS, intensity, wind, and smooth drift without repainting source art.

Systems implemented

• Free playable showroom — walk around a small 2D scene with a procedural lantern and profile displays.
• Five flame prefab profiles — Soul Brazier, Tall Spirit Jet, Infernal Torch, Twin Spirit Jet, and Void Bowl Flame.
• Multiple generated sheet families — brazier_wide, torch_tall, and wild_burst.
• Layered runtime composition — body, core, smoke, sparks, glow, base-hot, veil, and burst layers.
• Scene-first prefab node — add FlamePrefab2D directly in the editor or drag in the included prefab scene.
• Script spawning API — use the FlameVFX autoload to spawn flames and bursts from gameplay code.
• Wind slider — preview horizontal flame drift in the playable demo.
• Profile-aware bases — demo-only brazier and bowl bases match each flame profile.
• Movement-reactive carried light — the player lantern swings and its internal flame responds subtly to movement.
• FPS test scene — spawns 96 layered flames and displays FPS, average frame time, and low FPS.

Plug-and-play modules you can drop into other projects

• addons/procedural_flame_vfx/flame_vfx.gd — autoload API for spawning flames and bursts.
• ProceduralFlame2D — reusable layered flame node.
• FlamePrefab2D — editor-friendly prefab node with profile selection.
• FlameBurst2D — one-shot burst node using the generated sheet families.
• generate_flame_assets.py — deterministic source generator for rebuilding or extending the flipbook assets.

How the procedural generation works

The Python generator creates shape families from procedural masks, noise, radial glows, smoke columns, ember streaks, and burst rings. Godot selects a sheet_dir per profile and layers the resulting sheets with palette modulation, additive blending, smooth drift, profile-specific scale, and runtime wind.

What you get (free)

• Playable Web demo.
• Playable Windows demo executable.

What you get (paid)

• The reusable procedural_flame_vfx addon.
• Generated PNG flipbook sheets for the current flame families.
• Python source generator for rebuilding and extending the sheets.
• Reusable prefab, flame, and burst scenes.
• Promo GIF, MP4, and screenshots under docs/.

Controls

• Move — WASD or arrow keys.
• Wind slider — adjust horizontal flame drift.
• Show Bases — show or hide the demo-only brazier and bowl bases.

Requirements

The free Web demo runs in a modern browser. The Windows demo is exported for Windows desktop. The paid addon/source project is for Godot 4.6 or newer. Python with Pillow and imageio is only needed if you want to regenerate procedural sheets or promo media.

Built with

Made with the Godot Engine and Python-generated image assets.

License

The paid addon/source package is proprietary. You may use it in your own personal or commercial Godot projects, but you may not redistribute, resell, sublicense, or publish the addon/source/assets as a standalone product, asset pack, template, or substantially similar source package. See the included LICENSE file for the full terms.