Your first animated sprite

In this lesson you take a sprite sheet, cut it into modules, make frames from them and turn eight of them into a running animation. At the end you export it as an animated GIF.

Use any sheet you like. The steps use the Adventurer sheet from the example projects, examples/adventurer/adventurer_sprite_sheet_v1.1.png: a character drawn in 32 by 32 pixel cells, one animation per row, on a transparent background. Its second row is an eight-step run.

1. Start a project

Choose File ▸ New Project, then File ▸ Save As... and save the project in the same folder as your sprite sheet. The project remembers where its images are relative to the project file, so keep them together.

2. Add the sheet

Open the Modules tab. Under the Images list, choose + Add ▾ ▸ Image... and pick your sheet. It appears on the canvas.

If your sheet has a solid background colour instead of transparency, select the image, choose Pick next to Key colour in the inspector and click the background. That colour becomes transparent everywhere. The Adventurer sheet is already transparent, so skip this.

3. Cut it into modules

Choose Slice ▾ ▸ Grid slice... under the Modules list. Set Tile size to 32 by 32 and leave Skip empty tiles on, so empty cells do not become modules. The window counts the modules it will make. Choose OK.

Every sprite now has an outline: each one is a module. Click one to select it. The inspector shows its name, position, size and Used by, which counts the frames that use it.

Whole sprites or parts?

Here each module is a whole sprite, which is the quickest way to start. The editor is at its best when modules are parts, such as a head or an arm, that many frames share. Build frames from parts shows how. If you have whole sprites and want parts, Auto Modularize can find them for you.

4. Make frames

An animation is made of frames, so each sprite needs one. Choose Tools ▸ Create Reference Frames From All Image Modules.... It makes one frame per module, with the module placed on the frame's origin. Their names start with "Ref".

For a single module, select it and choose New frame in the inspector instead.

5. Make the animation

Open the Animations tab and choose + New under the animation list. Double-click its name and call it "run".

The Frames palette below the list shows your frames. Find the eight frames of the second row and double-click them in order: each double-click adds a step after the current one. You can also drag frames into the sequence at the bottom, exactly where they should go.

If a step ends up in the wrong place, drag it along the sequence. Del removes the selected steps.

6. Set the timing

Timing is counted in ticks. In the inspector, Tick rate says how many ticks make a second. Set it to 12.

Each step holds for a number of ticks, shown by its width in the sequence. New steps hold for one tick, which gives this run twelve steps a second. To slow a step down, drag its right edge, or select it and press ]. [ makes it shorter.

7. Play it

Press Enter to play and again to stop. Use , and . to step through it one pose at a time.

While it plays, try Speed ½× to look at the motion closely, and set Onion to Previous to see the step before as a faint red ghost. Onion skin is the quickest way to check that a run does not jump.

8. Export a GIF

Choose Export GIF... in the inspector. The GIF shows one cycle of the animation exactly as the editor does, pixel for pixel. It is a good way to share the run with someone who does not have the editor.

Save your project with Cmd+S.

Where to go next

You have a running character made of whole sprites. To build characters from parts, read Build frames from parts. To see how a finished project is put together, open the Prince of Persia example.