Player damage VFX using animated sprites

Every game that you play, you will see some sort of visual effect that tells you that the player is hurt or has taken some damage. With first person or third person you usually see some sort of red screen flash.

For my space shooter a red splash screen to display damage is not very viable so we need to find another way to show the player that they have taken damage.

A screen shake could work as a viable option to show the player that they have taken damage but I went with a small animation using sprites that shows the player that the ship has taken damage.

To create this, I followed the same process as creating the shield and the thruster. You can follow along in full with the shield article.

First you should have all of the sprites needed for your particular animation inside your project. You will need to click on the gameobject that you would like to add the animation to and open up the animation window in your project, Window ->Animation ->Animation.

You then create the animation and save it, then you will need to select all of your sprites and drag them into the animation window. You will then be able to view the animation by pressing the play button inside the animation window.

I am activating the gameobject with the damage animation attached when the player is taking damage, and that is it. If I add a health pickup to the game I would simply deactivate the gameobject and re-add some health.