SPRITE SHEET SETUP

Processing Sprite Sheets for Animations in Unity

Here we'll learn how to prepare our sprite sheets for the animations in our Unity games. There are multiple steps we must take to ensure our sprites are processed and sliced properly. Let's begin.

Import the sprite sheet you want to use into your Assets.

SpriteSheetSetup1

Select the sprite sheet and take a look at the inspector tab. First, we want to make sure that Unity doesn't apply any filters or compression that will result in blurry/warped sprites. (This is important for smaller designs like pixel art. Otherwise, feel free to use any filter or compression settings to your liking.) Under Filter Mode, select Point (no filter).

SpriteSheetSetup2

Then under Compression, select None.

SpriteSheetSetup3

By default, your sprites may look like image 1, and after applying these two settings it will look clean like image 2.

SpriteSheetSetup4

Image 1.

SpriteSheetSetup5

Image 2.

At the moment, Unity can only see the sprite sheet as a single sprite. Let's identify the sprite sheet properly so we can begin separating it into multiple sprites. Under Sprite Mode, select Multiple. Finally, click Apply at the bottom of the Inspector.

SpriteSheetSetup6

Click the Sprite Editor button to begin slicing your sprite sheet.

SpriteSheetSetup7

Depending on your sprite sheet layout you can choose different ways to slice it. In this example, we will use Grid By Cell Size to manually enter how big each sprite is.

SpriteSheetSetup8

After you set the size of each sprite to your liking, click Slice to separate the sprites and click Apply to confirm your changes.

SpriteSheetSetup9

And now you'll be able to see the individual sprites sliced from your sprite sheet in your Assets.

SpriteSheetSetup10

That's it! Now you have sprites ready for creating animations for your game objects!

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