vfx-magic-glow

Attach a Node3D running the magic_glow.gd controller as a child of the object. It builds a pulsing OmniLight3D plus additive GPUParticles3D motes at runtime, and you tune color, pulse rate, and mote count through exported properties.

Use a StandardMaterial3D with blend_mode set to BLEND_MODE_ADD, shading unshaded, billboard mode BILLBOARD_PARTICLES, and emission enabled with an energy multiplier around 3.0. BaseMaterial3D itself is abstract, so instantiate StandardMaterial3D instead.

Yes. Point the controller's pulse_source_mesh export at a MeshInstance3D and it enables emission on the active material, then tweens emission_energy_multiplier with the same sine phase that drives the light energy.

BaseMaterial3D is an abstract class, so constructing it directly is a parse error that breaks the whole script. Instantiate StandardMaterial3D instead while still using the BaseMaterial3D enum constants for blend and billboard modes.

Skip it for static glows (just enable material emission), flames (use a fire effect), beams (use a lightning effect), or full-screen bloom (use WorldEnvironment glow settings). It is a per-object 3D aura, not a screen-space or 2D solution.

Budget roughly 12 active OmniLight3Ds before culling. Reduce cost with distance fade, smaller omni_range, shadows disabled, and by scaling mote counts down based on camera distance or on mobile.