Simple Sprite Maker Help › Frames & Animation
Frames & Animation
The timeline at the bottom of the window shows every frame in your project. Click a frame thumbnail to jump to it.
Managing frames
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| New frame | ⇧⌘N |
| Delete frame | ⌘⌫ |
| Previous frame | ⌘← |
| Next frame | ⌘→ |
| First frame | ⇧⌘← |
| Last frame | ⇧⌘→ |
You can also click the dashed "+" box at the end of the timeline to add a frame.
Reordering frames
Drag a frame thumbnail along the timeline to reorder it. A blue insertion line shows where the frame will land. The cursor changes through three stages — pointing hand on hover, open hand while held, closed hand while dragging — to indicate the drag is in progress.
Right-click a frame for Move Left / Move Right options; these are disabled at the timeline edges.
Animation preview
Toggle the floating animation preview window with ⌘R (or View > Animation Preview). The preview plays your frames in a loop. Adjust the playback rate with the FPS slider in the preview window — supported range is 1 to 24 frames per second.
The preview's background can be checkerboard, white, black, or a custom color. The default is set in Settings > Animation.
Onion skin
Onion skin shows ghost copies of nearby frames overlaid on the current frame, so you can keep motion consistent.
From Tools > Onion Skin:
- Enabled (⌘G) — toggle onion skin on or off.
- Previous Frames — show 0 to 3 frames before the current one.
- Next Frames — show 0 to 3 frames after the current one.
- Opacity — base ghost opacity (10%, 25%, 35%, 50%, 75%, 100%). Frames further from the current one fade out automatically.
- Color Tint — when enabled, previous frames are tinted blue and next frames tinted red.
Defaults for new documents live in Settings > Onion Skin.