Export to Sprite Sheet Dialog Box

The Export to Sprite Sheets dialog allows you to export your rig into a sprite sheet and its animation into animation metadata, in a package that can be directly imported into Unity using the Harmony package for Unity.

If you created the different animation clips in the same scene and separated with scene markers, all you need to do is open the Export to Sprite Sheet dialog and export your sprite sheet and animations once.

However, if you separated your animation clips by saving them in different scene versions, you will need to start by exporting the sprite sheet from your base scene, then open each scene version and export their animation clip one by one.

Parameter Description

Select Directory

Asset Path

The target directory in which to export your sprite sheets.

Asset Name

The name of the folder in which the spritesheet and its metadata will be saved. This folder will be located inside the Save Path folder. If it does not exist, it will be created. This will also be the name of your asset in Unity.

Existing Clips

Existing Clips List

If you already exported clips for this character, this will display the list of clips that already exist in the target directory.

Use Scene Markers to Export Clips

Uses scene markers to define the export range, instead of exporting the entire scene—see Creating Scene Markers on Frame Ranges.

Project Settings

Unit Scale

Lets you change the scale when exporting to Unity to accommodate the size of the export without it affecting the Harmony scene. This helps you resize assets properly for Unity without having to resize them in Harmony. The basic scale is one Animation Field for one Unity unit.

Preset

Lets you select the unit conversion from Harmony to Unity, by selecting one of 4 presets. Note: a field is a unit of measure in traditional animation grid—see Modifying the Grid.

Sprite Sheet Preferences

Max Width

The maximum width, in pixels, of the exported sprite sheets.

Max Height

The maximum height, in pixels, of the exported sprite sheets.

Expand Sprite Sheet

Creates sprite sheets in the smallest possible size to contain all the sprites, up until it reaches the maximum width and height.

Fixed Sprite Sheet

Creates a texture of the specified size (Max Width and Max Height) even if it does not fill it up completely by all the drawings in your scene.

Resolution Type

Allows you to choose between one of these two resolution types:

  • POT: Exports to sprite sheets with sizes that are a power of 2. For example: 1024 x 1024. This is optimized for many graphics cards, but consumes more memory.
  • NPOT: Some game engines are optimized specifically to render to non powers of two, so that it will avoid those numbers. Example: 1000 x 1000.

Reuse Frames

This option works in tandem with the Threshold option. The export will compare the drawings in your project to reuse a maximum of similar drawings and reduce the amount of information found in the sprite sheet, making it lighter. The export will omit the creation of new drawings if the difference is less than the threshold percentage.

Threshold

Calculates the differences between multiple drawings. A 2% threshold will prevent the creation of a new drawing if the drawing is too similar to an existing drawing. For instance, with a 2% threshold, and my drawing is 100 pixels big, only 2 of those pixels need to be different from my other drawing in order to create a new one. The higher the threshold, the fewer similar drawings you will have.

Sprite Resolutions

Add Resolution

Allows you to add a resolution in which to export your sprite sheets.

Remove Resolution

Removes the selected resolution from the resolutions list.

Resolutions List

The list of resolutions in which the sprite sheet will be exported. The whole sprite sheet will be rendered once for each resolution in the list.
Delete Existing Clips Select this option to delete clips that you already exported in the export directory.

Bake Animation Curves

Instead of saving your character's animation as interpolations, this bakes them into frame-by-frame geometric transformations. This can help increase performance in your game, as your game engine will not have to interpolate your character's animations on its own. It will however create a heavier package.
Clear Texture Folder When creating the sprite sheet, Harmony creates temporary files in a folder named texture inside the scene directory. Check this option to automatically delete this folder after exporting your sprite sheets.