Spritesheets

A spritesheet is a single image that contains multiple smaller graphics, or sprites, used for animation and user interface in 2D games and applications. By packing many frames into one texture, rendering can be performed with fewer texture swaps.

Common layouts include grid-based sheets where frames are arranged in rows and columns, and atlas sheets where frames are irregularly placed with metadata describing coordinates. Frames typically share uniform dimensions to simplify sampling; padding or margins help prevent texture bleeding when filtering.

To animate, a sequence of frames is played in order. A separate metadata file (commonly JSON or XML) maps each frame name to its x, y, width, and height within the sheet, enabling the engine to extract the correct region for rendering.

Creation and integration: artists design sprites, then pack them into a sheet using tools such as TexturePacker, ShoeBox, or Zwoptex. Game engines like Unity, Godot, Phaser, and libGDX read the sheet and its metadata to display animations.

Benefits include reduced draw calls and faster rendering on 2D hardware. Limitations include fixed frame sizes that can waste space, the need to re-pack sheets when sprites change, and potential texture size constraints on older devices. Modern engines support trimming and metadata-driven sheets to mitigate these issues.

Spritesheets have been a standard technique since early 2D games, evolving into texture atlases used by modern engines. They remain a core method for efficient animation, sprites, and UI in 2D graphics.