Animator Seni Piksel

Animasi pixel art adalah proses menciptakan ilusi gerakan dengan menampilkan urutan frame pixel art statis secara berurutan. Setiap frame sedikit berbeda dari yang sebelumnya, dan ketika diputar dengan cepat (biasanya 8-15 FPS), otak manusia menggabungkannya menjadi gerakan yang mulus. Ini adalah teknik yang sama yang digunakan dalam video game klasik 8-bit dan 16-bit.

Prinsip dasar animasi pixel art adalah 'squash and stretch' -- merubah bentuk karakter untuk menyampaikan berat dan gerakan. Saat karakter mendarat dari lompatan, mereka 'squash' (menjadi lebih pendek dan lebih lebar). Saat melompat, mereka 'stretch' (menjadi lebih tinggi dan lebih tipis). Ini membuat animasi terasa lebih hidup dan dinamis.

Our tool implements a frame-based animation system: each frame is stored as a 2D array of color indices (or transparent), the timeline defines the order and duration of frames, and the preview player cycles through the timeline at the specified fps. The canvas renderer draws each pixel as a scaled-up square (e.g., a 16×16 frame rendered at 8x scale fills a 128×128 canvas) to maintain the crisp pixel aesthetic. For export, frames are encoded as an animated GIF using a GIF encoder library, or as a sprite sheet (all frames arranged in a grid on a single image).

Animated GIFs are self-contained -- a single file contains all frames and timing information, and can be displayed in any browser or image viewer without special software. However, GIFs are limited to 256 colors and use lossless LZW compression, resulting in large file sizes for complex animations. GIFs are ideal for sharing animations on the web, in chat applications, and in documentation.

Sprite sheets are the standard format for game engines (Unity, Godot, Phaser). All frames are arranged in a grid on a single image (e.g., a 4×4 grid of 32×32 frames creates a 128×128 sprite sheet). The game engine uses metadata (frame positions and dimensions) to extract individual frames at runtime. Sprite sheets support full color (PNG format) and are more efficient for game rendering because the GPU can load the entire sheet as a single texture. Our tool can export both formats -- use GIF for sharing and sprite sheets for game development.