Hits that feel heavy: hitstop, impact frames and shake

A hit that lands on the right frame with the right pause feels twice as strong as the same animation without them.

Land the effect on the hit frame

Mark the keyframe where the hit connects with a KeyframeMarker (for example Impact) and trigger everything from track:GetMarkerReachedSignal("Impact"): the effect, the sound, the damage number, the shake. Timing them with task.wait drifts as soon as the animation speed changes.

Anticipation

Effects start before the hit. A glow that shrinks into the contact point over 0.1 to 0.15 s, or particles gathering inward, tells the eye where to look a beat early.

Hitstop

Freeze the effect, and ideally the attacker's animation, for a few frames at contact. Drive particles, meshes, lights and trails from one clock so a freeze or a slow-motion moment keeps them all in step. A slowed smoke layer that keeps playing at full speed breaks the illusion.

Impact frames

One to three frames of a full-screen colour flash via ColorCorrectionEffect:

• black frame: Contrast 2 to 3, Saturation -1;
• white frame: Brightness 1, Saturation -1;
• the two can overlap about 0.15 s apart.

Use them on big moments only. On every hit they become noise.

Camera shake that doesn't drift

• Rotation only, and gated by distance (fade it out between about 150 and 350 studs).
• Take each frame's offset back off. The player's camera computes its next frame from where it is now, so a shake written as camera.CFrame *= offset every frame accumulates and tips the view.
• Always stop sustained shakes. A shake left running is the most common "my camera is broken" report.

How long each part lives

Partly adapted from Roqer's roblox-animation-vfx skill (github.com/S4US/Roqer, MIT licence, TabooHarmony).