Glossary

Animation: a sequence of steps, each showing a frame for a number of ticks.

Auto Modularize: a tool that cuts whole sprites into parts they share and rebuilds the frames from them.

Budget: the overlay that shows what a pose or scene costs on a Mega Drive in hardware sprites and tiles.

Easing: how an object speeds up and slows down between two keys in a scene.

Event: a named signal on an animation step, such as a footstep, that the game receives when the step starts.

Frame: a pose built from parts. A frame can contain other frames.

Hardware sprite: a rectangle of up to 32 by 32 pixels that the Mega Drive can show on its own. A character is made of several.

Hitbox: a rectangle on a frame that tells the game where the character can be hit or where it hits.

Hold: how many ticks an animation step stays on screen.

Key: a stored position, flip, turn and visibility of a scene object at one frame of the scene. A key can also swap the object's image.

Key colour: a colour of an image that is treated as transparent.

Layer: one object of a scene in the timeline.

Loop from: the step where later passes of a looping animation start, so the steps before it play only once.

Mapping: a list that swaps some modules for others, or hides them, everywhere at once.

Module: one part cut from an image, the building block of frames.

Onion skin: faint copies of neighbouring frames or steps, shown to compare poses.

Origin: the point of a frame the game positions, usually between the feet.

Part: one use of a module or frame inside a frame, with its own position, flip and turn.

Pivot: the point of a module that is placed when the module is used in a frame.

Point: a marked spot on a frame, such as a hand or the tip of a sword, for the game.

Preview mapping: the mapping all tabs show, chosen at the top of the window. It only changes the view.

Role: a short name for a hitbox or point, such as head, so the game can find it in every frame.

Root motion: movement that comes from an animation's step offsets, such as a step forward.

Scene: objects on a timeline, moved with keys, for cutscenes or tests.

SGDK: the development kit most Mega Drive homebrew games are made with.

Step: one entry of an animation: a frame, how long it holds, and its offset, flip and turn.

Tick: the unit of animation time. Tick rate says how many ticks make a second.

Tile: an 8 by 8 pixel block of graphics in the Mega Drive's video memory.

H40, H32: the Mega Drive's two screen widths, 320 and 256 pixels, each with its own sprite limits.