Sprite Sheet Maker

• Easy to use
• Basic version is available for free
• Import bmp, png, jpg, swf
• Export for many game and web frameworks
• Image optimization
• Available for Windows and MacOS
• Free for bloggers and game framework developers

TexturePacker – the best sprite sheet maker available

TexturePacker is the best sprite sheet maker available for MacOS and Windows. It reads a directory and adds all image files (png, bmp, gif, jpg.) – and with the next update even frames from Flash .swf files – to a sprite sheet which you can export to png, jpg. It also allows image optimization for iPhone/iPod/iPad – exporting PowerVR’s native pvr file format.

Many different settings allow you to optimize the sprite sheet you are making – e.g. by removing transparent pixels and allowing you to create an even better packing ratio. Padding can be added to avoid artifacts and much more.

This sprite sheet maker is not restricted to equal sized sprites like many are. You can pack any image size you want. The optimized max rects algorithm will give you good results – no matter what sprites you have to pack.

How sprite sheets can speed up your 2d and 3d games

When starting to develop a game you need a big amount of image data. For a 3d game this is the texture data that is projected on an object’s surface – for a 2d game these are simply the objects and characters that bring your game to live.

In both cases many images are required. While it is working at the beginning to use single images it has several disadvantages:

• Single files take a much more time to load
• When drawing the sprites on the screen the graphics processor must switch between the sprites which also consumes time
• Many files are hard to handle
• Many files consume much more memory

With a sprite sheet these problems do not exist: The sprites are all stacked in one (or more) sprite sheets. An additional file tells the game engine where to find which sprite and how to display it. Think of it like packing many files in a zip file.

Advantages:

• Fast loading
• High compression rate
• Optimized drawing by reducing texture switching
• Simple handling of the files