Godot 4 Sprite Sheet Import — SpriteFrames without Hand Slicing
Godot's SpriteFrames editor starts at 4×4 and remembers no grid. Here the grid is measured from the pixels, each row becomes a named animation, and the export is a SpriteFrames resource plus a ready AnimatedSprite2D scene.
- Godot 4Verified· Godot 4.7.2
- Unity 6Verified· Unity 6000.5.3f1
- Phaser 3 / 4Verified· Phaser 3.90 + 4.2
- PixiJS 8Verified· PixiJS 8.21
- Aseprite JSONVerified· Phaser load.aseprite · PixiJS 8.21
- .asepriteVerified· Aseprite 1.3.18
- Spine / libGDXVerified· spine-canvas 4.2
- Starling / Sparrow XMLVerified· Phaser 4.2
- LÖVEVerified· LÖVE 11.5
- DefoldBuilt· Defold bob.jar 1.13.1
- GameMakerUNVERIFIED
- CSS spritesVerified· Chromium
- GIF / APNGDecoded· Pillow
What it does
- Grid, margin and spacing measured from the art, shown with a confidence before anything is cut.
- Animations per row (or by hand on the timeline) with per-frame durations — Godot gets relative durations and loop.
- Trim keeps each frame's offset through AtlasTexture margins, so frames do not jump.
- The scene uses Nearest filtering and the bundle ships lossless, mipmap-free import settings.
How to do it
- Drop the sheet and press Apply.
- Rename the animations and adjust their timing.
- Open Pack & Export and pick Godot 4.
- Copy the folder into your project and open the .tscn.
Engine exports and how each was checked
"Verified" means the exported files were loaded by the real engine or tool on real CC0 assets and the result was compared with the source. Anything that was not loaded is labelled as such.
| Target | Files | Check |
|---|---|---|
| Godot 4 | .tres SpriteFrames · .tscn AnimatedSprite2D · .png.import | Verified Godot 4.7.2Loaded by Godot; every animation frame drawn and compared with the source file. The scene uses Nearest filtering; rotation is never used. |
| Unity 6 | .unity.json · Editor/NerulioSpriteImporter.cs · AnimationClip | Verified Unity 6000.5.3f1Batch mode: sprite rects, pivots, pixels, clip keys and durations checked. |
| Phaser 3 / 4 | atlas JSON (multiatlas) · .anims.json | Verified Phaser 3.90 + 4.2Frames and animations drawn by both versions. |
| PixiJS 8 | spritesheet JSON · animations · anchor · meta.scale | Verified PixiJS 8.21Rotated and multi-page atlases included. |
| Aseprite JSON | hash / array · frameTags · slices | Verified Phaser load.aseprite · PixiJS 8.21Tags keep their direction and repeat count. |
| .aseprite | layers · tags · durations · slices | Verified Aseprite 1.3.18Opened and rendered by the Aseprite command line. |
| Spine / libGDX | .atlas | Verified spine-canvas 4.2Every region drawn by the Spine runtime, rotated and trimmed; libGDX itself was not run. |
| Starling / Sparrow XML | XML per page | Verified Phaser 4.2Phaser 3.90 draws trimmed XML frames wrongly (its own bug); the "Sparrow XML (Phaser 3)" preset turns trim off and passes in 3.90 and 4.2. |
| LÖVE | Lua quads · nerulio_atlas.lua · main.lua | Verified LÖVE 11.5Every frame drawn and every animation stepped through the shipped helper. |
| Defold | .atlas · .tilesource | Built Defold bob.jar 1.13.1Built by Defold's command-line builder; the built texture's UVs were read back. |
| GameMaker | spr_<name>_stripN.png · gamemaker.json | UNVERIFIEDNot loaded in GameMaker (no headless GameMaker). The strips are cut the way its strip importer cuts them. |
| CSS sprites | .css · preview .html | Verified ChromiumEvery class drawn from the shipped stylesheet. |
| GIF / APNG | one file per animation | Decoded PillowEvery frame and delay decoded again after export; APNG is exact. |
Evidence
GIF decoder: 408 of 408 frames identical to Pillow on 29 real GIFs; APNG 132 of 132 on 16 files. .aseprite: 231 corpus files imported, re-written and reopened in Aseprite 1.3.18 with the same tags, durations and pixels (231/231). Exports: 49 runs in the real engines on real CC0 assets, 47 pass — the 2 failures are Phaser 3.90's trimmed-XML bug, which the Phaser 3 preset avoids.
Limits
- A grid or island guess is a preview with a confidence; nothing is cut until you press Apply, and every choice has one-click alternatives.
- .aseprite files whose layers do not compose exactly (e.g. group opacity) are imported flattened, and the Import panel says why.
- Rotated frames in an imported atlas stay rotated; their export is UNVERIFIED.
- Images up to 32,768 px per side (268 million pixels), subject to your browser's memory.
Questions
Does it work for Godot 3?
The export targets Godot 4 (verified in 4.7.2). Godot 3 was not tested.
Can I keep one PNG and just get the regions?
Yes: with trim off and the sheet packed as it is, the AtlasTexture regions point at your cells.
Is it free, and do I need an account?
Everything on these pages is free and works without an account. There is no watermark and no export that is held back.
Are my sprites uploaded?
No. The Studio decodes, packs and exports in this browser tab. Projects are autosaved in the browser (IndexedDB) and can be saved as a .nerulio file.
Does it need Aseprite or an engine plugin installed?
No. .aseprite files are read and written in the browser, and each engine bundle carries what that engine needs (for Godot, the import settings and scene; for Unity and the Godot TileSet, a small editor script).