VFX Effect

Design an effect the viewer can read in one frame and recognise every time.

What a good effect has

• A shape grammar. Rings, shards, threads, arcs, columns. One family per source. The mage's effects are circles and constellation lines; the warrior's are straight edges and walls. Mixing grammars across one character reads as random.
• A palette. Two colours and one accent. Stated in the design, repeated in every prompt.
• A timing envelope. Wind-up (the tell), release, peak, decay — in seconds. A 0.3 s tell that the audience learns to read is what makes an ability fair in a game and legible in a film.
• A cause. The effect follows a physical event: blade contact, palm strike, landing, the core reaching critical. Written cause-first in every prompt.
• A scale rule. How big at rank 1, how big at ultimate. The ultimate is a different scale, not a different colour.

What the user gets

Rules this entry enforces

• Cause first. Every prompt states the physical event, then the effect. "Blade contacts bone; only then does the burn spread along the crack." Effects that precede their cause are the most common action failure.
• One grammar per source. Enforced across a character's kit or a boss's phases.
• Tell is mandatory. 0.2–1.0 s of readable wind-up on the board and in the clip.
• Peak does not hide the subject. The character's face and weapon silhouette stay readable at peak; an effect that whites out the frame for more than 3 frames is rejected.
• Style ceiling. Photoreal styles express effects through light, particulate and camera; drawn speed lines and impact frames belong to anime and stylised 3D only.
• Damage without gore when the style calls for it. A burn-and-crumble chain (heat mark → cracks spread → carbonise → collapse to ash) replaces blood in ZeroBlood projects. Written as a chain so the model does not skip to the end.

Example

BONE RING (boss signature)
  Grammar: concentric rings, slab uplift
  Palette: cyan-green core light · bone white · dark iron accent
  Envelope: tell 0.8 s (cyan climbs the blade) → release (blade strikes floor)
    → peak 0.6 s (ring of slabs erupts, fog reverses) → decay 1.2 s (dust settles)
  Cause: blade contact with the arena floor
  Scale: 8 m radius phase 2 · 14 m phase 3
  Sound: sub-bass thud, stone shear, wind reversal

CONSTELLATION SHIELD (mage counter)
  Grammar: circle + connecting lines
  Palette: blue-white · pale gold · none
  Envelope: tell 0.3 s (hands rise, points of light appear) → release → peak
    1.5 s (ring holds, projectiles and fog freeze inside) → decay 0.5 s
  Cause: both palms raised and opened
  Scale: 3 m rank 1 · 6 m ultimate
  Sound: glass chime, then silence inside the ring

Related entries

• hero-skill-system — the kit these effects belong to
• boss-battle — signature skills and their counters
• film-action-combat (core) — how effects are timed inside a fight prompt