While the context and what is displayed on the images matters, so does the way that the program manages and manipulates the images. As other answers state, a sprite sheet is often used in 2d games for animations or buttons, while the images in a texture atlas are used as textures for mesh objects. The difference, it seems, is how they are typically implemented. This sheet/atlas has both frame by frame animations of the character (typically used in a "sprite sheet") as well as images that will be tiled as a texture for the walls (a.k.a. They also both serve to simplify resource management and lower draw calls by only requiring the management and loading of a single file.
#Texturepacker vs spritehelper software#
They are both bitmap image files (jpg, png, etc.) that contain multiple smaller images, usually in a grid, that are indexed and displayed using software / game engine that locates the individual images by their coordinates. All these textures can be contained accessibly and effectively in a single large image composed of many squares (subregions) devoted to a specific model.Īlso, it may be important to note a texture atlas often contains character skins (character textures) and that the actual animation is (stating the obvious) not stored as 2d imagery as the animation in such cases is generally based on deformation of the mesh with tools like bones.Ī sprite sheet and texture atlas are nearly the same. Especially 3d levels may require multiple different textures for various walls and elements in the 3d scenery. Any 3d object (e.g a weapon, a garbage can) or character can have a texture applied to it. This term (texture atlas) will often be used in a 3d game environment. You can think of these as 2d images "painted" over 3d objects or otherwise applied to them as part of a shader to explain to the renderer (the part that converts 3d data into a 2d image) how they reflect light (normal map) or if there are any grooves, bumps or cracks on their surface (bump map) or possibly something else altogether like opacity and what not. It stores all the various animations created for a specific character.Ī texture-atlas (is often taken to mean a large 2d image that) contains many textures. You can almost think of it as the model of a 2d-character. A sprites-sheet (often refers to a large image that) is supposed to contain the animation frames of a specific 2d character or projectile in a game.