What is Spriter
Spriter enables the “modular” method of animating where, instead of each frame being a single complete
image, it is constructed from many small, reusable images (such as body parts). Each of these images that
are used to construct the full frame can be scaled and rotated to further increase the mileage an artist can
get from them.
This modular method of animating offers many benefits for several aspects of a game’s development and
the final finished product:
Time! Because an artist will be reusing a handful of modular images to create all of the frames for a
character or effect, there will be much less time spent tweaking and polishing.
Iteration! Let’s say it becomes necessary to change an otherwise finished character’s head design. Instead
of the huge task of redrawing or editing the head in every single frame of full frame animations, the artist
would only need to change the handful of the head images that are used across all frames, turning a huge
task into a quick and painless one.
Tweaking... Because the modular images (body parts) can be freely nudged around or rotated, it becomes
much easier for a non-artist to make tweaks that might be necessary for gameplay, and very easy for the
artist to go and re-address whatever tweaks the designer needed to make.
Character variations! Not only does this method allow for super fast and painless creation of alternate
characters based on the data of another character, it also allows for an extremely time and memory
efficient way of creating all the variations of a character which can change throughout a game (such as
collecting power-ups and new equipment).
Huge savings of file and heap space. Instead of each frame of animation being a large complete image,
it’s simply a tiny amount of data storing the position, rotation etc of each small and re-used “body part”
image. The larger and more robustly animated your characters and effects, the greater the savings will be.
Spriter also offers a wonderfully natural and visual way of editing critical aspects of actual gameplay!
Here’s how:
Per frame, you’ll be able to trigger multiple sound samples (with volume control) in an animation.
Per frame, you will be able to place and name an unlimited number of “action points”. Perfect for telling
the game where to spawn bullets or anchor other sprites etc. (Pro version)
Per frame, you will be able to place, name and set an alpha or numeric value for any images, points,
bones, or collision rectangles! (Pro version)
All with ease and immediate visual or audio feedback within the editor. You will also be able to create an
unlimited number of “variables” for any “character” (a character is a set of animations) and trigger the
change of any variable at any frame of any animation! (Pro version) These features will allow for an
incredibly easy and natural way of tweaking actual aspects of game-play within this easy-to-use and
highly visual editing tool.
Spriter Pro User’s Manual version 1.4