Make Sprite Animations from Character Parts
Sprite Rig is Photobun's free sprite animation maker for cut-out 2D characters. Open a sheet with the separate parts of a character, such as the head, body, arms and legs, and Photobun extracts each part, lets you set the joints and poses, and exports the animation frames as a sprite sheet for your game.
How to Make Sprite Animations from Character Parts
- Click Open a character parts sheet; every part is detected and placed on its own board.
- In Sprite Rig, set the pivot point where each part joins the body.
- Pose the parts and preview the animation.
- Export the frames as a sprite sheet PNG.
Built on the sprite cutter
Parts are separated with the same shape detection as the sprite sheet cutter, so a loose sheet of limbs is ready to rig in seconds.
Joints and pivots
Each part rotates around its own pivot, which is how cut-out animation keeps arms, legs and heads attached as they move.
Sprite sheet export
Frames are rendered into one sprite sheet image with transparency, a format every 2D engine can import.
A real editor for the parts
Repaint a hand, recolour clothes or fix an edge with the full set of brushes and adjustments, then go back to the rig.
Cut-out animation is popular in indie games because one set of drawn parts can produce many frames. Instead of redrawing the character for every frame, you move and rotate its parts, which keeps the proportions consistent and saves hours of drawing.
A good parts sheet has the torso, head, upper and lower arms, hands, upper and lower legs and feet as separate pieces. Draw joints with rounded overlaps so rotations don't reveal gaps, and leave some empty space between the parts so each one is detected on its own.
Exported sprite sheets can be imported into Unity, Godot, GameMaker, Phaser or any engine that slices sheets by frame size. Because the parts live in a full image editor, making an alternate outfit or colour variant is a matter of editing the parts and exporting again.
Frequently asked questions
What is a sprite animation?
It's a sequence of images shown one after another, usually stored side by side in a single sprite sheet. Games play the frames in order to make a character walk, run or jump.
What kind of artwork works best?
Characters drawn as separate parts with a little space between them, on a transparent or plain background. Draw overlapping parts complete, so nothing is missing when a limb rotates.
Do I need animation experience?
No. Rigging comes down to two ideas: where each part pivots and how it is posed. The preview shows the result immediately, so you can adjust by eye.
Is Sprite Rig free?
Yes. It is part of Photobun and free like the rest of the editor, both in the browser and in the desktop app.