Sprite Slicer¶

The Sprite Slicer tool cuts a single texture into a series of named frames that the engine can use for sprite animation, atlas-based rendering, or individual sprites. Once sliced, frames are referenced by name or index and do not require the original atlas to be split into separate files.

Opening the Sprite Slicer¶

Select a texture in the Resources Browser and choose Open in Sprite Slicer from the context menu, or double-click the texture preview if the texture has already been tagged as a sprite sheet.

Slice modes¶

Mode	When to use
Grid	All frames are the same size and aligned on a regular grid
Free	Frames have arbitrary positions and sizes — draw each frame manually

The Grid mode is the fastest workflow for regular sprite sheets such as animated characters, explosion effects, or item icons.

Grid slicing¶

Set Cell Width and Cell Height to the pixel size of one frame.
Optionally set Offset X / Y (first-cell inset) and Spacing X / Y (gap between cells) if your sheet has padding.
Click Slice — the tool fills the frame list with all cells that fit.
Rename frames as needed. Frame names are used by Sprite::setFrame(name) and Sprite::startAnimation(name, …). SpriteAnimation::setAnimation uses frame indices; identify the action entity by its entity name if you need a searchable label.
Click Save to commit the slice data to the texture resource.

Free slicing¶

Draw a rectangle over each frame region in the canvas.
Give each frame a unique name.
Reorder or delete frames in the list on the right.
Click Save.

Working with frames at runtime¶

After slicing, use frame names or indices in scripts and components:

LuaC++

sprite = Sprite(scene)
sprite:setTexture("characters/hero.png")

-- Show a specific frame by name or index
sprite:setFrame("walk_01")

-- Animate through a frame index range (interval in milliseconds)
anim = SpriteAnimation(scene)
anim:setTarget(sprite)
anim:setAnimation(1, 8, 100, true)   -- startFrame, endFrame, interval (ms), loop
anim:start()

Sprite hero(&scene);
hero.setTexture("characters/hero.png");

// Show a specific frame by name or index
hero.setFrame("walk_01");

// Animate through a frame index range (interval in milliseconds)
SpriteAnimation anim(&scene);
anim.setTarget(&hero);
anim.setAnimation(1, 8, 100, true);
anim.start();

Tips¶

Keep sprite sheets power-of-two in size for best GPU compatibility.
Use consistent frame naming conventions (walk_00 … walk_07) so animation ranges are easy to specify.
A single texture can contain multiple animation sequences — just name them clearly.
For tilemaps and tilesets, use the Tileset Slicer instead, which is designed for tile index workflows.