animation.md

Animation

Aseprite's main goal is to be a tool to create animations. The timeline gives you total control over frames, layers, and cels.

The general workflow is:

1. You draw the first frame
2. Then you add new frames (e.g. pressing Alt+N) and continue drawing them
3. You can navigate frames using Left and Right arrow keys (or , and .) to go to the previous or next frames respectively
4. You can preview the animation using the Play button or pressing Enter key
5. You can tag a range of frames for future reference or to separate different animations of the same sprite

There are some extra tools like the Preview Window and Onion Skinning that will make your life a lot easier to animate.

Common Operations

1. Add a new frame copying the current one
2. Add a new empty frame
3. Copy frames or cels
4. Move frames or cels
5. Remove frames
6. Reuse frames
7. Tag several frames
8. Change the duration of a specific frame
9. Copy layers/frames/cels between files
10. Loop a section
11. Reverse frames

Onion Skinning

See the Onion Skinning section.

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SEE ALSO

Timeline | Onion Skinning | Continuous Layers