What is a sprite sheet?
One image that holds many frames of a 2D character or effect, laid out in a grid or packed, plus data saying where each frame is.
Loading one texture instead of dozens of small files is faster and lets the engine batch draws. A grid sheet (every frame the same size, for example 32×32) can be sliced by rows and columns; a packed sheet trims empty space and needs a data file (such as Aseprite's JSON export) with each frame's rectangle and duration.
In Godot, frames from a sheet become a SpriteFrames resource played by an AnimatedSprite2D, with a frame rate per animation.
Sources
Related terms
- Texture atlasA single large texture packing many unrelated images (icons, UI pieces, props) so the game can draw them without switching textures.
- Nearest-neighbour filtering (pixel-perfect)Texture sampling that takes the closest pixel instead of blending neighbours, which keeps pixel art sharp when it is scaled up.