making a spritesheet

gorgse · Post by **gorgse** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 8:35 pm

I am wondering if someone has figured out a way to export a sprite sheet from AS? I like AS's ability to use bones and such to animate, but I am unable to use the results as I need to find away to export them into png form with an alpha background so that I can use them as animations in a game. Any feedback is welcome.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 8:47 pm

Normaly, if you put nothing in the background, it should be transparent if saved as png!

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 8:51 pm

when you say a 'sprite sheet' do you mean you want each frame to be layed out next to the last on a bit strip? the best way is proabably to export a PNG sequnce and then put them all together in photoshop - that way they will all be on an equally spaced canvas...

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 9:11 pm

I would suggest you do this in Photo shop or GIMP. The way I do it is to buy or find free sprite pages and import them into a PS or GIMP. Usually, if its a good sprite page, you can just select the background and remove it...of course after you added an alpha channel. Make sure you double the size of the sheet before you edit it. Then crop around each sprite and save as a png. Import that to AS and use switch layers to animate it.

I did this with a free sprite sheet.

neeters_guy · Post by **neeters_guy** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 12:34 pm

There's a shareware program called SpriteBuilder that assembles individual sprites into a spritesheet. You can choose the arrangement of rows and columns. It hasn't been updated in years though and I'm not sure about png support. But it's a great time saver; a lot easier than manually pasting and shifting hundreds of exported images.

gorgse · Post by **gorgse** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 3:56 pm

Hey thanks for the feedback. I'm guessing I need the pro version to export to png. Does the pro version have a way to automate this to where it exports every frame, like into a psd? Or will I need to do each frame manually? Once I have them in psd format I have a gimp script that will convert them to a strip. The main thing I find attractive about this program is the ability to manipulate images with the bones and therefore animate them.

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:06 pm

Yes either png or psd format, you specify the frame range.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 11:38 am

I do it all the time in ASP. I just export my images (each frame) as png and then load them in my app Sprite Monkey (Mac Only) and create a sprite sheet. If your on windows there are plenty of sprite editors.

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 12:42 pm

I use zsnes http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/snes/zsnes.htmlto remove layers from games and then I use gimp to remove the background then I make rows and columns of the sprites in AS and save the sheet as an image.