Summary

The web content provides a detailed guide on creating sprite animations in Unity, including instructions on animating a single sprite and using multiple sprites or sprite sheets for more complex animations.

Abstract

The article titled "Unity — Sprite Animation" explains the process of animating sprites within the Unity game engine. It begins with the importance of animating sprites to add life to a game, using the example of a javelin powerup sprite from the author's project. The guide covers the steps to create an Animator, set keyframes for animations, refine the timing and motion using the Curves feature, and apply these techniques to both single sprites and sprite sheets. The author emphasizes the ease and intuitiveness of Unity's animation tools and highlights the fun and control one can achieve with practice, particularly when using the Curves view for fine-tuning animations.

Opinions

The author believes that adding animations to game sprites is crucial for bringing a game to life.
They suggest that the best time to replace prototype sprites with final designs is after the gameplay functionality is complete.
The article conveys that Unity's Animation tools are user-friendly, making the process of creating animations straightforward.
The author finds that using the Curves feature in Unity provides significant control over the animation's timing and interpolation between keyframes.
There is an opinion that animating with multiple sprites or sprite sheets is an efficient method for quick game animation, provided the sprites are well-prepared.
The author implies that animating in Unity is not only a technical skill but also a creative and enjoyable aspect of game development.
Practice with Unity's animation tools, especially the Curves view, is recommended to master the art of sprite animation.

Unity — Sprite Animation

How we can animate sprites in Unity to bring our game to life.

Creating sprite animations in Unity is easy and intuitive. Let’s look at how to do it so we can bring our game to life!

Start With a Sprite

First, we need a sprite. In my current project, I have a powerup that gives the player a javelin when collected. Right now, I’m using a prototype sprite. But since I’ve got the powerup functionality finished, it’s a good time to change the sprite and animate it.

I found a sprite that I like, so now the powerup looks more appropriate, but it could still use some movement.

Creating a Movement Animation

Let’s start by making the powerup appear as though it’s floating in place.

Step 1: Create an Animator

Open the Animation window by going to Window -> Animation -> Animation.

Now, select the sprite you want to animate in the Hierarchy. Then, in the Animation window, select Create.

Create an “Animation” folder in your project and store the new animation there. Now, with your sprite selected, the Animation window should look like this.

The Animation window after an Animator is added to our sprite

Step 2: Create the Keyframes

Now we can use the Animation window to create each keyframe of the animation. In the top-left of the Animation window, there is a red circle. This is the record button.

The record button in the Animation window

When this button is toggled on, almost anything we do to the gameobject while its selected is recorded as a keyframe.

So, we’ll toggle the record button, and then change the gameObject’s size to create the first keyframe.

Adding the first keyframe by changing the size

Now, the scale property has been added to our Animation track. If we expand it, we can see each individual property that we can edit. In this case, these are the x, y, and z scale axes. Each has a value associated with each keyframe.

The scale property in our Animation window

Now, we just drag the play head over, change the scale again, and a second keyframe will be created. Then we change the values to get our desired result.

Creating a 2nd keyframe in the animation

Let’s preview the animation so far. We can press the play button or the space key.

We can see the animation looping and the sprite going from smaller to larger. But we want the sprite’s size to go from larger to smaller and back again, so we’ll add another keyframe to finish the animation. Since we want the size to return to normal, we can copy the first keyframe and paste it after the second.

Step 3: Refine the Animation

The animation is a bit too fast. To slow it down, we can simply highlight all the keyframes and then drag them to the right to increase the duration.

Now, to adjust the way the size oscilates, we can use the Curves feature. We access it by clicking on the Curves button at the bottom of the animation window.

In this screen we can adjust the curves of the animation to change the way each keyframe leads to the next. (You may need to zoom in initially to adjust the curves.) We can also double-click to add new keyframes.

In this case, this allows us to achieve the effect of keeping the sprite larger for longer.

And now we have a result that looks great.

Animating with Multiple Sprites

We can also create animations with multiple sprites. This simply requires multiple individual sprites, or a sprite sheet.

I’m going to use a sprite sheet for my player and create an attack animation. First, I’ll import the sprite sheet and then slice it.

After we’ve sliced it, we have all the sprites individually under the same file.

The individual sprites nested under the sprite sheet

Simply drag the sprites into the Animator window to create a keyframe for each. Then, we can adjust it to our liking.

Sprite sheet animations are a great, easy way to get your game animated quickly if you have the sprites already.

You can tweak your animations endlessly, and it’s quite fun. Plus, the more you get used to using the Curves view, the more control you’ll have over your animations. It just takes practice.