Create an Animation and Bake a Sprite Sheet

Applies to: Makko ▸ Art Studio (Animations)

Prerequisites: A saved character in your Character Library

Time to complete: 8–12 minutes

Overview

From a character's page, you can generate an AI-assisted animation, preview it, extract frames at your chosen frame rate/size, and bake a sprite sheet ready for manifesting and engine export.

Steps

1. Open Art Studio ▸ select your character ▸ click View character.
2. Click Create animation (top-right).
3. Enter Animation name and Description.
   • Tip: The Description is your initial animation prompt.
4. Choose Background color and Animation complexity (Simple or Complex).
5. Click Generate.
   • Result: A preview video is produced.

Extract frames

1. In Extract frames (left panel), set:
   • Frame rate (fps) (number of frames generated per second of animation)
   • Frame size (size of character)
   • Background color (auto-detect fills in; adjust if needed)
2. (Optional) Edit Frames:
   • Click the film icon in the upper right corner
   • Use this view to delete duplicate frames or ensure an animation loops properly
   • Click Exit Studio when done
3. Click Extract frames.
   • Result: Frames appear in Extracted frames (right panel).

Bake a sprite sheet

1. In Baked sprite sheets (lower half), click New sheet (top-right of that area).
2. Enter a Sheet name (no spaces allowed).
3. Click Bake sprite sheet (bottom).
   • Result: A Makko-formatted sprite sheet is created and listed in Baked sprite sheets.

Tips

• Use simple animation names so the AI agent can properly assign animations to actions (jump, run, etc.)
• Use Simple Animation Complexity for loops (idle, walk), Complex for multi-pose or effect-heavy motions.
• Match Frame rate to your target engine (common: 12, 24, or 30 fps).
• Keep Frame size consistent across all animations for the same character to avoid jitter when swapping states.
• If you want transparency, set Background color to your intended chroma key or transparent if available.

Troubleshooting

• "Extract frames" is disabled → Generate and preview the animation first, then set Frame rate and Frame size.
• Background color didn't auto-detect → Manually choose the color used in the preview video; re-extract.
• Preview won't play → Refresh the character page; confirm your network is stable; regenerate if the preview failed to render.
• "Bake sprite sheet" not clicking → Ensure you created a New sheet and used a valid Sheet name (letters/numbers, no spaces).