Introduction
Unreal Engine primarily uses 3d meshes for its graphics, However, we can also use it to create 2D Sprite animations and 2D games too. We can use something in Unreal Engine called flip books.
Pixel art is a form of digital art where images are created and edited at the pixel level using a graphics editing software. What really defines pixel art is the unique visual style, where individual pixels server as the building blocks that make up that image.
Sprite Sheet
A sprite sheet is an image that consists of several smaller images (sprites) and/or animations. Combining the small images in one big image improves the game performance. A sprite sheet includes multiple frames of a sprite (aka a character) doing simple actions; such as jumping, running, flying, walking or attacking – each frame staying within the same size proportions as one another.
Sprite sheets are used in early 8 and 16 bit games because they are a lot more efficient and the performance is better as all the data needed is contained in a single file and texture. Sprite sheets also allow us to easily adjust multiple frames at once.
Creating a Sprite
For this workshop, we are required to create our own sprite and animate it. I used an app on my iPad called Procreate to create my sprite, this way my character was much more accurate as I was able to use my hand and a pencil to draw it, rather than my mouse which puts a lot of strain on my wrist. However, I only knew after my finished drawing that there was an alternate website we could use called Piskel. This was useful as it made animating and creating sprite very easy. However, I struggled to upload my previous procreate drawing to Piskel without it becoming blurry and much lower quality.
Here is my initial character for the sprite work:
My experience, as little as it is right now, using Piskel has been somewhat complicated and negative. I am struggling to find an alternative way of animating my character, worst case scenario I recreate something on Piskel, but I disdain using my mouse and keyboard to draw.
Tilesets
Tilesets are groups of square tiles that allow you to visually create your maps. There are different tabs for each tileset. You can make your own custom tileset by changing the ‘maximum allowed’ number of tilesets.
Tilesets contain things such as walls, platforms, backgrounds etc. In some cases, you would need to create a sprite object for every wall, with tilesets its much easier.
I’d imagine creating a tileset is similar to creating a sprite. Creating one could be as simple as drawing a pixelated square and duplicating it where its needed to create the texture of a wall or a platform.
Conclusion
This is a simple blog to discuss tile sets and sprite sheets in Unreal Engine and Piskel, which I used to create my sprite. The concept of tile sets is straight forward and can be useful when aiming to create a 2D game in Unreal Engine, or probably any video game software.
Leah Morrell Games Designer 