Animation Frames

Quick refs: walk-cycle-keyframes.md, attack-anticipation.md

Frame-by-frame = drawing each frame. The pixel-art-classic technique. Different from skeletal where you transform parts of the rig — see unity-2d-animation for that.

Frame count conventions

Animation       Frames   FPS      Total time   Notes
Idle (subtle)   2        4        500ms        Breathe, sway. Avoid 1f (static).
Idle (active)   4-6      6-8      500-1000ms   Tail wag, weapon shimmer.
Walk            6-8      10-12    600-700ms    Full gait cycle, must loop.
Run             6-8      12-15    400-550ms    Faster cadence than walk.
Sprint          4-6      15-20    250-350ms    Stretched legs, hair flow.
Jump            3-5      ad-hoc   200-400ms    Anticipation + release + air.
Attack (light)  4-6      12-15    300-450ms    Anticipation + impact + recovery.
Attack (heavy)  6-10     8-12     600-1000ms   More wind-up, slower recovery.
Damage / hit    2-4      ad-hoc   100-200ms    Brief, snappy.
Death           4-8      8-10     500-1000ms   One-shot, ends with last frame.

These are rough. Adjust to character feel: a heavy character has slower, more weighted animation; a kid has fewer, snappier frames.

Cadence rules

A walk cycle has two contact frames (foot lands) and two passing frames (foot crosses below body). Full cycle = 8 keyframes ideally, but reusable: cycle frames mirror legs left/right so 4 unique drawings

horizontal-mirror copies.

F1: contact (right foot forward)
F2: down position (knees bent, body lowest)
F3: passing (right foot under body, left ahead)
F4: up position (body highest)
F5: contact (left foot forward) - mirror of F1
F6: down position - mirror of F2
F7: passing - mirror of F3
F8: up position - mirror of F4

For 6-frame walks, drop F2 and F6 (compresses the down-position phase).

See quick-ref/walk-cycle-keyframes.md for the canonical sequence with arm + body bob notation.

Anticipation, impact, recovery

The 3-beat structure of any action animation:

Anticipation (1-3 frames)

Character prepares: pulls back, crouches, draws weapon. Tells the player "something's about to happen." Length scales with attack power.

Impact (1 frame, sometimes 2)

The actual hit. Single most important frame. Often paired with hitstop (game freezes for 1-3 frames) and visual flash. Pose is most extreme.

Recovery (1-3 frames)

Character returns to neutral. Eases back into idle. Vulnerable window in fighting games.

Example light attack (5 frames):

F1: anticipation (sword raised)
F2: anticipation (weight shift forward)
F3: impact (sword extended, hit) ← hitstop trigger
F4: recovery (sword past target)
F5: recovery (returning to neutral)

See quick-ref/attack-anticipation.md for canonical anticipation poses.

Squash and stretch (limits in pixel art)

In animation principles, squash-and-stretch shows weight + flexibility. In pixel art, hard-pixel constraints limit how much you can deform:

Subtle squash: 1-2 pixel vertical compression on impact / landing. Always works.
Heavy squash: 4+ pixel compression. Looks cartoony, may break character silhouette. Reserved for comedic / cartoon styles.
Stretch on jump: 1-2 pixel vertical extension. Natural for athletic characters.

Avoid sub-pixel deformation (looks blurry). Use whole-pixel deform.

Looping cycles

A loop must be seamless: last frame must transition naturally to first frame.

Test: play frames F1-F8-F1-F8 manually in Aseprite (with onion skin) — the F8 → F1 transition should feel as natural as F4 → F5.

Common bug: F8 designed as "end pose" instead of "predecessor of F1" — loop hitches.

Easing in frame timing

Frame timing controls the FEEL. Two approaches:

Constant FPS

Every frame = same duration. Mechanical. OK for idle / walk.

Eased timing (variable per frame)

Hold key poses longer, brisk through transitions. More expressive.

Example heavy attack with variable durations:

F1: 100ms (slow anticipation start)
F2: 80ms (committing)
F3: 250ms (HOLD on impact - emphasizes power)
F4: 60ms (snap to recovery)
F5: 150ms (settle)

Aseprite supports per-frame duration. Unity Animator supports curves on sprite-swap. Engine support varies.

Sub-pixel motion problem

A sprite at world position (10.3, 5.7) renders at integer pixel (10, 6) on screen — but if the camera moves at 0.1 px/frame, the sprite might shimmer between (10, 5) and (10, 6) frame-to-frame. Looks broken.

Solutions:

Snap world positions to integer pixel before rendering. Most "pixel-perfect cameras" do this.
Use a higher render resolution for pixel-perfect, render to a smaller texture, blit. Allows sub-pixel motion at the cost of half-pixel sprite locations (still cleaner than shimmer).
Lock camera to integer movement (camera teleports 1 px at a time).

Modern indie pixel art generally accepts sub-pixel but uses approach #2 for camera + sprite anchoring.

Sprite sheet layouts

Aseprite tags + export

Each animation = one tag. Export as sprite sheet with:

Frame format: rows or columns, padding.
JSON sidecar: tag names, frame durations, slice metadata.

Unity Aseprite Importer reads the JSON natively and creates an animation clip per tag.

TexturePacker

Standard tool for atlasing sprite sheets:

Trim transparent borders (saves space).
Pad between sprites (avoids bleeding).
Rotate sprites for tighter packing.
Outputs JSON / XML / engine-specific (Unity, Godot, Phaser, Solar2D).

Manual grid layout

Rows = animations, columns = frames. Easy to read. Wastes space if animations have varying frame counts. Best for small projects.

Atlas vs per-frame textures

Atlas: one large texture, source rects per frame. Fewer draw calls, more cache-friendly, standard.
Per-frame: separate texture per sprite. Easier debugging, larger memory footprint, OK in development.

Modern engines all use atlasing under the hood; you author per-sprite and the import pipeline atlases.

Common bugs

Stiff walk = too few frames OR identical pose mirrored without weight shift.
Floaty jump = no anticipation, no apex pause, no impact frame.
Loop hitch = last frame doesn't transition to first.
Inconsistent contact frames: foot at different position frame 1 vs frame 5 (cycle drift). Onion skin to verify.
Sub-pixel shimmer: camera or sprite at fractional pixel.
Drift in cycle (sprite moves a few pixels each loop): root motion baked into sprite. Solution: anchor cycle around fixed point; movement comes from gameplay code, not animation.
Animation longer than gameplay window: 6-frame attack at 60ms each = 360ms; if attack should be 200ms, cut to 4 frames or speed timing.

gamedev-2d-art-animation-frames