effekseer-vfx-skill
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Agent skills that let a coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, OpenCode and other
Agent Skills hosts) make real-time game VFX the way a VFX artist iterates, in code:
design brief → textures → Python recipe → EffekseerCore build → real Godot filmstrip → look → fix one thing → repeat → independent review
effekseer-vfx — the authoring skill: craft rules, verified Effekseer/Godot engine conventions, about 30 composable
layer primitives, a static linter, the official EffekseerCore compiler with save/open read-back, a Godot Lab that
stages every effect as an exchange between two dummies, filmstrip capture with pixel flags, iteration history and
tamper-evident evidence that ties a review to the exact build it saw.vfx-review — the reviewer skill: a separate agent scores the strip against a fixed rubric without seeing the
recipe, because the author never grades its own work.- Examples — sixteen finished effects with briefs and textures: four ranged pairs (fire, ice, poison, dark:
projectile + impact), one each of hit, slash, charge, shield and heal, and a kaiju set (a charge that climbs the
dorsal plates, a sweepable atomic beam, a photographic explosion), plus three diagnosed before/after cases.
- Large and realistic effects —
scale='kaiju' builds a character-scale recipe 40x larger and 2.5x slower
(sizes, speeds, gravity, budgets and the review camera all follow); beam() makes a held beam whose end point the
game moves every frame (Vfx.beam() → aim() → release()); charge_chain() lights arcs along a chain of
points; photographic fire, soot and smoke flipbooks; soft particles verified in Forward+.
- Combos, blockout and stylized shapes — a sequence brief ties several effects to the beats of a character
animation and gates the work blockout → detail → polish (an independent blockout review must pass before any
texture work); captures can come from the game itself; references carry steal lists the reviewer checks;
vfx paintover turns a captured frame into an image-edit prompt for a concept target. Hard-edged stylized primitives
(spiral_ribbons, spike_crown, speed_streaks, stylized_pair, sparkle), greyscale mask templates, and
screen feedback (screen=: shake, impact frame, hit-stop) that the Lab plays and Vfx.screen_cue hands to the game.
Three ways to make an effect (new in 0.3)
You choose per effect; nothing forces one way.
| Way | How | Plays in |
|---|
| Procedural | layered primitives in a Python recipe, painted textures, EffekseerCore build, Godot review (everything above) | Effekseer → Godot |
| Video flipbook | an image-to-video model (verified with Seedance 2.5; any model with first and last frames works) paints the motion on black; vfx video-flipbook keys, crops, masks and packs it, vfx video-grade gives every sheet of an element the same cel-shaded look | Unity (URP), or Effekseer → Godot |
| Combined | the sheet is the body layer of a recipe (video_body(...)); primitives add the contact flash, sparks, rings, cracks, decals and heat haze | Effekseer → Godot, Unity |
What was not possible before and is now:
- Continuous shape changes. A water column that shoots up, carries the target into the air and collapses as rain;
a fireball that bursts and boils into grey smoke; an orb whose flames churn in a seamless loop. Primitives scale,
fade, scroll and erode a picture; they cannot turn fire into smoke inside one silhouette. A video model draws every
in-between.
- A hand-painted anime look in motion, consistent across a whole element set: one value ramp per element grades
every sheet to the same flat steps (dark rim, body, light, hot core).
- Unity. The skill used to stop at Godot.
vfx unity-install <UnityProject> adds a URP runtime package
(data-driven ElementProfile skills with projectile, instant-bolt and ground-eruption delivery, layered particles,
hit-stop, shake, target lift) and its procedural textures; vfx unity-export copies a sheet with its grid; three
menu items (or one batch-mode command an agent can run) turn sheets into a playable skill and a demo scene.
- Reproducible from a sentence. Every clip's prompt and every sheet's parameters are recorded in
vfx/video_prompts.json, so an agent can rebuild or vary a sheet exactly. Ask: "Make a water-column skill from a
video flipbook and set it up in my Unity project."
Guide: references/video-flipbook.md. The skill ships the
technique only: clips, sheets and characters you generate stay in your own project.
Requirements
| Mode | What you can do | Needs |
|---|
| authoring | write briefs and recipes, lint, process and measure textures | Python 3.11+ or uv on macOS, Linux or Windows (macOS's built-in Python 3.9 is too old) |
| build | compile .efkefc / .efk through the official EffekseerCore | macOS on Apple silicon or Windows x64, network for the first setup (~250 MB into ~/.cache/effekseer-vfx) |
| render | Godot filmstrip review, Lab, preview, packaging | the above + Godot 4 (Forward+) on PATH or in GODOT; ffmpeg for reference clips and recordings |
| video flipbooks | video-* commands | authoring mode + ffmpeg; clips from any image-to-video model |
| Unity | play sheets as element skills | Unity 6 (6000.0+) with URP 17; verified on 6000.5 |
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
