VFXAdvanced

Lens Distortion

The frame itself bulges for a few frames on a heavy hit — as if the blow bent the camera's lens, not just the scene inside it.

vfxdistortionimpactpost-processing

Examples

Captured from this page's own interactive demo below.

Overview

Screen shake moves the camera; lens distortion bends it. A barrel-distortion pulse — the whole frame bulging outward for 100–300 ms and snapping back — sells impacts on a different physical level, because it violates the one thing the player assumes is stable: the rectangle of the screen. Explosions, boss slams, ultimates and speed portals all gain a literal 'reality warps' beat.

The shape of the pulse is everything: spike to full strength on the impact frame, then decay with an ease-out. Distortion that eases IN reads as a dream sequence; distortion that lingers reads as a broken monitor. Keep peak intensity moderate (URP's intensity around -0.3…-0.5, or ~0.2 in a custom shader) and always return to exactly zero — a residual 1% warp makes the whole game feel subtly wrong.

It pairs beautifully with its cousins: chromatic aberration tears the colors at the same moment the lens bulges, and a shockwave ring gives the bulge an epicenter. On mobile, prefer a cheap vertex-based or UV-remap implementation over full-screen pixel passes, and skip it entirely on low-end devices — the effect is a spice, never load-bearing.

Interactive Demo

the pulse bends the frame itself — the grid bulges out and snaps back

Strength60%

Duration350ms

Use Cases

Explosions and boss ground slamsUltimate abilities and power activationsPortals, teleports and reality-bending momentsNitro and speed bursts in racing games

Best Practices

Do

✓Spike on the impact frame and decay with an ease-out — the crack is the message, the recovery is the polish.
✓Return to exactly zero; a residual warp of even 1% makes the whole game feel subtly seasick.
✓Layer it with chromatic aberration and a shockwave ring — the trio reads as one physical event.

Don't

✕Don't ease into the distortion — a slow bend reads as a dream sequence, not an impact.
✕Don't hold peak distortion for more than ~2 frames; the bulge is a hit, not a state.
✕Don't run full-screen distortion passes on low-end mobiles — degrade to shake plus flash instead.

Common Mistakes

⚠Distortion strength tuned on a desktop monitor and shipped to phones, where the same warp swallows half the smaller screen.
⚠The pulse triggers on every hit in a fast game, turning combat into a funhouse mirror.
⚠UI rendered under the distortion pass, so buttons and bars wobble with every explosion.

Implementation

Paste this into your AI assistant (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) to add the effect to your project.

Prompt

Add the "Lens Distortion" game-feel effect to my project: The frame itself bulges for a few frames on a heavy hit — as if the blow bent the camera's lens, not just the scene inside it.

How it works: Screen shake moves the camera; lens distortion bends it. A barrel-distortion pulse — the whole frame bulging outward for 100–300 ms and snapping back — sells impacts on a different physical level, because it violates the one thing the player assumes is stable: the rectangle of the screen. Explosions, boss slams, ultimates and speed portals all gain a literal 'reality warps' beat.

Guidelines:
- Spike on the impact frame and decay with an ease-out — the crack is the message, the recovery is the polish.
- Return to exactly zero; a residual warp of even 1% makes the whole game feel subtly seasick.
- Layer it with chromatic aberration and a shockwave ring — the trio reads as one physical event.

Avoid:
- Don't ease into the distortion — a slow bend reads as a dream sequence, not an impact.
- Don't hold peak distortion for more than ~2 frames; the bulge is a hit, not a state.
- Don't run full-screen distortion passes on low-end mobiles — degrade to shake plus flash instead.

Implement the effect in whatever engine/stack the project already uses and follow its existing code style. Wire it up where it makes sense.