Animation States¶

An animation state is a named sequence of frames for one action, such as run, duck, or jump. States let your app choose the right sequence while keeping related frames together in the Art editor.

When the state strip appears¶

The state strip appears for a sprite that has two or more named animations, or for a sprite marked as the character type.

Each animation is shown as a labeled, colored group. Its frames appear inside that group. A frame used by more than one state has a shared badge, and frames that do not belong to any state appear in an Unassigned section at the end.

State strip with colored run, duck, and jump animation groups

A simple sprite with one animation keeps the plain frame strip.

Work with one state¶

Each state has its own controls:

Play loops only that state, so you can preview its motion.
Rename changes the state's label.
+ Frame adds a frame directly to that state.

These controls keep state-specific editing local to the group you are working on.

Find empty states¶

Your app's code can ask a sprite to play a state. If that state has no frames, a warning chip appears in the editor.

Add a frame to the state or update the app code so the requested state contains something to play.

Set frame timing¶

Frame timing controls how long each frame remains visible. The default is 100 milliseconds (ms) per frame.

An animation frame set to 0 ms would not be visible. Studio reports a build warning when it finds one, so you can give the frame a visible duration before installing the app.

For saving and recovering edits to the underlying drawing, see Drawing and version history.