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First post, by s0ren

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A little spotting game for you all on this lazy weekend

I remember when i was a kid i wondered why all games used the same explosion graphic. I had first seen it in Red Alert, so i called it the Red Alert Explosion, but i am sure that is not where it is originally from as other games use it at a higher resolution.

The explosion from red alert can be seen here:
GWIbDoD.jpg

Here the explosion is seen in Redneck Rampage (rotated):
g1N1WU4.png

I have seen it in other games that i cant remember now so start spotting! 😀

I *think* i may have seen the explosion in a space battle from one of the star wars films in the original trilogy, which could be where it is originally from. Does anyone know where this explosion is from and why it is/was used so much?
Its like the Wilhelm scream or Amen break of video games 😀

*EDIT - list of games and explosion source info - thanks all!*
List of games:
- Area 51 (1995)
- Defiance
- Descent (not entirely convinced about this one yet?)
- Eradicator
- Ghost in the Shell (PS1)
- Half-life
- Hexen
- Megarace 2
- Microsoft Fury3
- Quake 2
- Realms of the haunting
- Red Altert
- Redneck Rampage
- Shadow Master (PS1)
- Shattered Steel
- Terminal Velocity
- Tie Fighter (1995)
- Twisted Metal 2
- Warhawk (PS1)

Explosion is ZG from "PYROMANIA Volume 1"
https://web.archive.org/web/20020614103632/ht … o1web/p1zg.html
Peter Kuran who made this collection also worked on Star Wars.
There are a few other familiar stock photo explosions in that collection, but I wonder why this exact one appears more often?

Last edited by s0ren on 2023-09-27, 10:36. Edited 5 times in total.

Reply 2 of 25, by F2bnp

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Probably a stock explosion from the same sample set. Same thing happens with a lot of sound effects, X-Com's iconic sound effects on the UI have been used in a variety of games throughout the years, TV series even (I think that's where they originated from) and even incorporated in a soundtrack for some game I can't really recall right now.

Reply 3 of 25, by leileilol

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Indeed. there's loads of games in the era that used the same few professionally licensed mpeg clips as graphics. these explosions are as ubiquitous as Sound Ideas 4000 / 6000 abuse

Hexen not only has used it once, but... twice!

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Even Quake2 used it at one point

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s0ren wrote:

I *think* i may have seen the explosion in a space battle from one of the star wars films in the original trilogy,

likely in a "special edition" at the earliest.

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 5 of 25, by clueless1

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Just going from memory, it seems like X-Wing/Tie Fighter had this explosion?

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Reply 7 of 25, by s0ren

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clueless1 wrote:

Just going from memory, it seems like X-Wing/Tie Fighter had this explosion?

Indeed!
Here from Tie Fighter 1995 (found on youtube)
IyXzpxM.png
Maybe this is where i remember seeing the explosion instead of the star wars movies

Reply 8 of 25, by gerwin

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TIE Fighter has a whole lot of explosion sprites.
But one of them looks a little similar indeed:

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Reply 10 of 25, by leileilol

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Defiance has a low res but really smooth and very alpha blended variant.

I believe Descent's infamously internet copied explosion is the same fireball but condensed down the middle

Eradicator also uses it a lot.

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 12 of 25, by bishopcop

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Most of these explosions came from the Artbeats ReelExplosion collections eg: http://www.artbeats.com/clips/RE228/NTSC this one was on the the world creation toolkit CD(3d studio dos, than later max) so you could see these everywhere at the time.

Reply 13 of 25, by clueless1

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It looks like a potato.

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Reply 14 of 25, by leileilol

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That site sadly doesn't have THE explosino sprite footage though

BUT i did find a mortar exploding, a disc exploding, a grenade exploding. and a flamethrower's flame

more to mention.... Shadow Warrior is also filled with this explosion that has bad scaling and offsets (it'll center itself to the remaining fireball)

Ghost in the Shell on PSX has loads and loads of it.

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 15 of 25, by DracoNihil

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$599 US Dollars for the whole collection? What a steal...

Descent 1 and 2 might have this explosion the OP is talking about but I have no screenshots to show for it.

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Reply 16 of 25, by leileilol

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Shadow Master features it a ton.

Also Warhawk! Another 1995 example

Do FMV games count? Deadly Tide has plenty.

Expendable. more like THE explosionable

Don't forget Half-Life! It uses it rotated 90 degrees for vertical positioning but it definitely is THE sprite. over and over and over

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 17 of 25, by subhuman@xgtx

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leileilol wrote:
Shadow Master features it a ton. […]
Show full quote

Shadow Master features it a ton.

Also Warhawk! Another 1995 example

Do FMV games count? Deadly Tide has plenty.

Expendable. more like THE explosionable

Don't forget Half-Life! It uses it rotated 90 degrees for vertical positioning but it definitely is THE sprite. over and over and over

Quake 1, Fatal Racing, Need for Speed II SE for 3Dfx & Hot Pursuit/High Stakes (yeah... this one doesn't really count but it's an alpha blended grayish variant used for smoke with exactly the same shape 🤣 )

7fbns0.png

tbh9k2-6.png

Reply 18 of 25, by leileilol

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Bumping this because I had forgotten to share some definite information about everyone's favorite fireball just to nail this mystery down for good.

It comes out of Visual Concept Entertainment's Pyromania 1. Peter Kuran is the guy behind it.

VCE Films used to have the clips for sale until 2021. Only some of them went to Pond5 in a cropped altered form, THE explosion not present, but duke/CNC's nuke is, along with diablo's fires.

It would be really really cool if he unearthed and relicensed the original SD versions of the clips in a liberated/PD license for the sake of pop culture preservation as it's the VFX industry equivelant of the wilhelm scream, but that's probably wishful thinking. On the other hand, I haven't seen any recent commercial productions with the familiar Pyromania stuff for decades. ArtBeats sure. but not those.

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 19 of 25, by s0ren

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leileilol wrote on 2022-05-24, 18:15:

Bumping this because I had forgotten to share some definite information about everyone's favorite fireball just to nail this mystery down for good.

Cheers ! I have updated the top post to include more info.

I still think it is a little intriguing why this particular explosion from the stock set was used so often in game production. I recognize some of the others from games as well, but the "ZG" one is just all over the place.