Animation
Frames packed into one image. The deck plays them back as an animation with the same modulation surface as any numeric parameter — bind the frame index to a kick drum, sweep it on a phrase, randomize on every onset.
A sprite source is a grid of cells — 1×1, 2×2, 3×3, or 4×4. Each cell holds one frame, and the shader samples the active cell via UV offset to drive the animation. Drop images into cells from your library or the OS file picker, generate them with AI, or import a pre-packed atlas. The grid size is the knob that determines both frame count (1 / 4 / 9 / 16) and how the AI prompt is structured.
Cells are first-class. Drop multiple images at once to fill consecutive slots, drag a populated cell onto another to reorder, click X to clear one, or shuffle the whole grid Fisher-Yates style for an instant remix. Sparse grids stay sparse — empty cells participate in the shuffle.
Type a prompt, hit Prompt, and the deck fills every cell. Static mode runs one Replicate call per frame (flux-dev by default) — 1×1 returns in seconds, 4×4 takes a few minutes since it's 16 independent generations. Animated mode swaps in AnimateDiff: one call, 16 temporally-coherent frames pinned to a 4×4 — a real walk cycle instead of 16 variations on a theme. Background removal can run as a second pass per frame (851-labs/background-remover) for transparent sprites; turn it off to halve API calls.
A preset selector seeds the prompt with a priming layer — Game Sprite, Pixel Art, VJ Overlay (white-on-black blend textures), and Auto (minimal hints, let your prompt drive). VJ Overlay force-disables background removal since it would erase the blend texture.
You don't bring a pre-packed PNG. You bring loose frames — drag them in, pick from the library, or generate with AI — and the deck packs them into an atlas with the explicit grid metadata the engine needs (rows, columns, frame count). The result is registered as a sprite-kind media entry, hash-deduped against your library, ready for any clip to drive.
The frame index is exposed as a numeric param, so the full modulation surface applies — audio bands, onset envelope, sweep, mouse, random-on-beat. Loop forward, ping-pong, or scrub on a band envelope.
One texture upload, one sampler. The shader picks the active frame via UV offset — no per-frame decode, no disk hits during playback. Pack hundreds of frames into a single atlas without paying for it on the GPU bus.
Any sprite sheet you generate or pack — static or animated — can be published to the marketplace as a listing. Publishing and installing assets in the marketplace are free for everyone right now while we grow the catalog.
