Sprite Generator

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Introduction

The Sprite Generator is a powerful AI tool designed to streamline the creation of 2D game assets. It combines the capabilities of image generation and video animation to produce both static sprites and fully animated sprite sheets from simple text prompts or existing images. This tool is perfect for rapid prototyping, creating unique characters and objects, and generating game-ready assets without needing advanced artistic or animation skills.

With the Sprite Generator, you can:

• Create static sprites from a text description, including characters, objects, and VFX.
• Animate your own images or newly generated sprites with a text prompt.
• Generate sound effects for your animations.
• Export your animations as sprite sheets, a zip file of individual frames, videos, or GIFs.

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Getting Started

The Sprite Generator offers two main workflows, accessible via tabs at the top left of the interface:

• New Sprite: Start from scratch by describing the sprite you want to create with text. The AI will first generate a static image, which you can then choose to animate.
• Animate Sprite: Start with an existing image, either one you've generated in Ludo or one you upload yourself, and describe the animation you want to apply to it.
• Transfer Motion: Apply the specific movement from a video reference or an existing animation to a static sprite image.

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Creating a New Sprite (Text-to-Sprite)

3. Creating a New Sprite (Text-to-Sprite)

This workflow is ideal when you have an idea but no starting visual.

1. Select the "First Frame" Tab: This is the default view when you open the tool.
2. Select the sprite type: Choose Sprite (characters, props) or Sprite VFX (explosions, magic) or UI Asset (buttons, bars, ...)
3. Describe Your Sprite: In the main text prompt box, write a detailed description of the static sprite you want to create.
   • Focus on its appearance, not its movement.
   • Example: "A magical sword with a glowing blue blade and a golden hilt."
4. Apply Filters (Optional):
   • Art Style: Choose the specific visual style.
   • Perspective: Select a camera angle like Isometric or Side-Scroll.
   • Aspect Ratio: You can leave this on "Auto" for the best fit.
5. Generate the Sprite: Click the "Generate Static Sprite" button.
   • The AI will produce a set of static images based on your prompt.
6. Iterate: If you're not happy with the results, refine your prompt and generate again.
7. Proceed to Animation: Once you have a static sprite you like, hover over the image card and click the "Use as First Frame" button.
   • This will automatically move your chosen image into the "Animate" tab, ready for the next step.

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Preparing Animation Keyframes

Before generating an animation, it's crucial that your First Frame (and optional Final Frame) accurately represents the starting and ending points of the desired motion. The AI uses these keyframes as its primary guide.

This is the most important step for a good result. For example, if you want to create a "walk right" animation, your First Frame sprite must be facing to the right. If the sprite in your First Frame is facing forward, the resulting animation will likely be incorrect.

The "Animate Sprite" tab provides two powerful tools, directly accessible under your keyframe previews, to help you prepare your frames: "Change Pose" and "Open In Editor".

Change Pose

This tool is built specifically for adapting character sprites into new poses. When you click "Change Pose", a modal will appear where you can:

• Select a Pose Preset: Choose from a wide range of common game poses (like 'Idle (Right Facing)', 'Walk / Run (Left)', 'Crouching', etc.) to automatically re-orient your character.
• Use Additional Instructions: You can also select a base preset and then provide text in the "Additional instructions" box to further refine the pose.
• If the provided sprites don't match your desired pose, select "Other" and describe the pose in the prompt box.

Open In Editor

The "Open In Editor" button provides a more general and powerful way to modify your keyframes. This is ideal for making specific changes or touch-ups that "Change Pose" doesn't cover.

Inside the Image Editor, you can use various tools. For instance, selecting the "Full Edit - Smart edit" mode allows you to make precise changes using only text instructions. If you want more precise control, you can select an "Inpaint with Mask" edit mode.

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Animating a Sprite

1. Select the "Animate" Tab: If you used the "Use as First Frame" button, your image will already be loaded here.
2. Upload or Select an Image:
   • If the tab is empty, you can upload a new image or choose one from your history.
   • Tip: The image should contain only the sprite. While the AI removes backgrounds automatically, a clean input often yields better results.
3. Configure Animation Settings: Before generating, adjust the model settings found under the prompt bar:
   • Model: Choose between Standard (better for consistency and predictable movements) or New (higher video quality and more dynamic motion).
   • Duration: Select the length of the animation (e.g., 1.5s, 2s, 4s). shorter durations are often better for simple loops like idling.
4. Describe the Animation (Optional):
   • In the text prompt, describe the action (e.g., "jump," "attack," "glowing pulse").
   • You can leave this empty to let the AI infer a natural motion (like breathing/idling) based on the image.
5. Adjust Animation Margin:
   • Auto: Recommended. The AI determines how much space the sprite needs to move.
   • Manual: Use this if your sprite gets cut off during large movements (like a sword swing).
   • No margin: The input image is not cropped and no margin is added. It is animated exactly as it is.
6. (Optional) Sprite Sheet Options: You can adjust the sprite sheet options before generation to get the animation previews with the right settings. But note that these do not affect the generation of the animation, and can be changed after the generation for free. See the "Sprite Sheet Options" section of the documentation for more details.
7. Click "Animate" to generate the animation.

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Transfer Motion

The Transfer Motion feature allows you to take the specific movement from a video or an existing animation and apply it to a static sprite. This is a powerful tool for replicating complex movements or ensuring consistency across different characters.

Use Cases:

• Instant Professional Animations: Use the built-in animation presets to instantly apply standard game movements (walk cycles, attacks, deaths) without needing to prompt.
• Character Consistency: Create animations for new characters that move exactly like your existing ones.
• Skinning: Re-animate the same character model wearing different outfits or holding different weapons.
• Real-world Reference: Upload a video of a specific movement (e.g., a person performing a karate kick) and apply that exact motion to your game sprite.

How to Use:

1. Select the "Transfer Motion" Tab.
2. Select Source Image: Upload an image or choose a sprite from your Favorites.
   • This is the static character or object you want to animate.
   • The pose of the character should approximately match the reference animation. For example, if the animation is walking away from the camera (north), the image should have the character facing the back.
3. Select Reference Animation: Provide the motion you want to transfer to the source image.
   • Presets (Recommended): Browse a vast library of game-ready animations to guarantee specific movements.
     • Select Category: Choose from categories like Locomotion, Melee Combat, Defense & Reactions, or Interaction.
     • Choose Animation: Click on a specific move (e.g., "Run Forward," "Sword Slash," "Crouch Walk").
     • Configure Perspective: In the preview window, use the tabs to select your game's camera style: Side, Hero, Isometric, Tactical, or Top-Down.
     • Set Direction: Use the directional wheel to choose exactly which way the character should face and move (e.g., clicking the "SE" arrow for an isometric run towards the bottom-right).
   • Upload Video: You can upload a video file from your device.
   • Choose from Favorites: Select a previously generated sprite animation or video from your Ludo favorites.
   • Video Requirements: For best results, reference videos should be relatively short (up to 5 seconds), have sufficiently high quality (at least 480p), and feature minimal or no background with only the subject present.
4. Advanced Options: Just like the standard animation tab, you can adjust sprite sheet export parameters. This can be changed later after the animation by re-exporting.
5. Click "Transfer Motion" to generate the new animation.

The result is a sprite animation that you can preview, download, or export as a sprite sheet, identical to the results from the standard "Animate" tab.

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Sprite Sheet Options

Before generating an animation, you can expand the Sprite Sheet Options menu to control the technical specifications of your output. These can also be adjusted for existing animations by clicking on the Adjust Sprite Sheet button in the animation.

• Number of Frames: Select how many frames your animation will have (e.g., 4, 9, 16, 25, ...).
  • Higher numbers create smoother animations but result in larger file sizes.
  • Note that this is the maximum number of frames in the animation. Depending on the selected animation duration and other options, the actual number of frames might be smaller.
• Sprite Size: Choose the resolution for the sprite (e.g., 64px, 128px, 256px). Note that the size of the frame might be bigger due to whitespace around the sprite.
• Pixel Art Filter: Apply a filter to enforce a pixel-art look on the generated frames (useful if your input is pixel art but the animation smooths it out too much).
• Loop Animation: Toggle this ON for movements that repeat, like walking, running, or idling. It trims the animation to try to get the last frame to connect seamlessly back to the first.
• Trim Animation Whitespace: Toggle this ON to automatically crop empty transparent space around the sprite.

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Viewing and Interacting with Results

After an animation is generated, it will appear in the gallery below the input area.

• Video Preview: The default view is a video of the animation on a neutral background. This lets you preview exactly how the animation will look like with the selected number of frames.
• Contextual Options (Three-dot menu):
  • Change Pose: Opens the Pose editor for modifications in the initial image.
  • Edit Image: Opens the original static sprite in the Image Editor for modifications.
  • Generate New Animation: Keeps the same static sprite but allows you to enter a new animation prompt.
  • Transfer Motion: Automatically switches to the Transfer Motion tab and sets the current animation as the Reference Animation. This allows you to quickly apply this specific motion to a new source image.
  • Download Video / Download GIF / Download individual frames: Saves the respective file to your computer.
• Add to Favorites: Saves the animated sprite to your Favorites.

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Exporting Sprite Sheets

The primary output of the Sprite Generator is a game-ready sprite sheet.

1. On a generated animation card, click the "Export Sprite" icon (looks like a download arrow).
2. An "Export Sprite Sheet" dialog will appear.
3. Here, you can make final adjustments to the Loop Animation, Number of Frames, and Frame Size.
4. Click "Export Sprite Sheet".
5. A single PNG file containing all the animation frames arranged in a grid will be downloaded. This file can be directly imported into game engines like Unity, Godot, or Unreal Engine.
6. The contextual options of the sprite preview (Three-dot menu) will have additional export options, including Video, GIF, and a Zip file with the individual frames.

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Exporting & Animation Packs

The Sprite Generator allows you to bundle multiple animations into a comprehensive "Animation Pack" for your game engine.

This feature is essential for creating a consistent character moveset. It allows you to manually align and resize multiple animations (e.g., Idle, Run, Jump) relative to each other before exporting them as a single bundle.

1. Click the "Export Pack" button located above your generated results.
2. Select Animations: A gallery will appear. Click to select all the animations you want to include in this character's pack (e.g., select your Idle, Run, and Attack animations).
3. Align and Resize (Crucial Step):
   • The tool will display your selected animations side-by-side.
   • Manual Adjustment: Use the controls directly underneath each animation preview to fix alignment issues:
     • Size: Adjust the scale percentage if one animation generated a character that is slightly too small or large compared to the others.
     • Vertical (Y) & Horizontal (X) Offset: Manually shift the sprite up, down, left, or right. Use this to ensure the character's feet are planting on the exact same "ground line" across all animations.
     • Snap: Quickly re-center the sprite in the frame.
4. Configure Export Settings:
   • Choose if you want a ZIP file of spritesheets, or ZIP with the individual frame images.
   • Toggle Smooth Art if you want to soften pixel edges.
5. Click "Export Animation Pack" to download a ZIP file containing perfectly aligned sprite sheets for every selected animation.

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Generating Audio

You can add sound effects to your animations directly within the tool.

1. On a generated animation card, click the musical note icon.
2. An input box will appear. Describe the sound you want to hear.
   • Example: "shattering glass sound," "whoosh of a sword swing," "robotic footsteps."
   • You can also leave the input box empty. The AI will generate suitable sounds automatically.
3. Click the arrow to generate. The audio will be added to the video preview.
4. You can download the audio as a separate MP3 file from the three-dot menu.