---
title: "3D Explosion Effects"
package: "@phaser-ae/vfx3d-explosion"
tier: Pro
version: 3.0.0-4
released: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-19
description: "Twelve ready-made 3D explosions and impacts, from a grenade pop to a mushroom cloud, with a muzzle flash, plasma, ice, dust and smoke bombs, spawned by name."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/vfx3d-explosion
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# 3D Explosion Effects

Twelve explosions and impacts for 3D games, each spawned by name with one call, layered the way a real blast reads,
and gone once its last particle dies.

## What it does

The pack registers twelve named effects with the 3D particle system. `game.particles3d.effect(name, opts)` spawns one
at a point or following an object; it plays once and removes itself, so there is nothing to track or tidy away.

The classic `explosion` shows the recipe: a white flash gone in a tenth of a second, a fireball of additive puffs that
expand and cool to ember, a shockwave ring widening flat across the floor, sparks stretched into streaks, debris that
tumbles and lands, and a smoke pall that outlives the rest. The other eleven are variations on it: smaller, bigger,
fireless or in another colour. Every effect but the muzzle flash treats its point as the ground, so you spawn it at
the foot of whatever blew up, and one `scale` grows every size, speed and distance together.

## Features

- **The classic and its sizes** — `explosion`, the smaller `blast` and `grenade`, and `bigBoom`, a mushroom cloud
  about nine units tall with a condensation ring, a dust skirt and embers.
- **The parts alone** — `shockwave`, the ground ring for a landing or a stomp, and `debris`, chunks thrown up for a
  wall coming down.
- **Fireless impacts** — `dustImpact`, a dust ring and pebbles for a heavy hit, and `smokeBomb`, a cloud that hangs
  for seconds, for cover or a vanishing.
- **Other styles** — `plasmaBlast` in white-cyan with crackling arcs, `iceShatter` with spinning shards and a frost
  ring, and `implosion`, violet streaks sucked into a point before a flash.
- **A muzzle flash** — `muzzleFlash`, a white-hot star with a forward tongue, aimed with `yaw` and `pitch` and carried
  by the gun with `follow`.
- **Few particles** — at scale 1 the busiest, `bigBoom`, peaks under 400 live particles and the rest under 150.

## Good for

- **Shooters and vehicle combat** — tanks and turrets going up, and a flash at every muzzle.
- **Action games** — grenades, mines and a boss's reactor going up in a mushroom cloud.
- **Sci-fi and fantasy** — plasma blasts, implosions for a teleport out, something frozen shattering.
- **Destruction** — debris and dust for walls, crates and buildings coming down.

## Make it yours

Each spawn takes a point or an object to follow, `scale`, `yaw`, `pitch` and `roll` in degrees, a layer and a
`timeScale`. A `grenade` at the foot of every mine is one use; a `bigBoom` sixty units away at three times the size, a
reactor going up on the horizon, is another. Every effect is also a plain `Vfx3dDef`: copy one from
`game.particles3d.defs` and register it under a new name with `registerVfx3d`, for a red plasma blast or a slower
mushroom cloud.

## A quick look

An explosion at a tank's base, a distant giant and a muzzle flash aimed along a gun:

```ts
game.particles3d.effect('explosion', { x: tank.x, y: 0, z: tank.z });
game.particles3d.effect('bigBoom', { x: 0, y: 0, z: -60, scale: 3 });   // far off and huge
game.particles3d.effect('muzzleFlash', { x: muzzle.x, y: muzzle.y, z: muzzle.z, yaw: gun.yawDeg, pitch: -gun.elevationDeg });
```

## Works with

- `particles-3d` and `particle-textures` — required: the runtime and the particle frames; `core-3d` includes both.
- `feel` and `post-bloom` — a camera shake for weight, and bloom to make the additive layers glow.
- `vfx3d-fire` and `vfx3d-smoke` — flames that keep burning and smoke that keeps rising after the bang.
- `vfx-explosion` — the 2D effects of the same names.

## Good to know

- One-shots only: nothing here loops. A standing fire is `vfx3d-fire`, a smoke trail behind a missile `trails-3d`.
- The falling pieces are removed below world y = 0 wherever the effect was spawned, so on a raised floor they fall
  through it.
- None of the effects casts a shadow.

---

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