Frame animation

Build motion one drawing at a time

Draw a pose, duplicate it and change the moving parts to make a character’s idle loop or a flickering light. Onion skins help you compare poses; each frame’s duration controls how long it stays on screen.

Start an animation

1. Choose File > New.
2. Set Start with to Animation.
3. Set the canvas dimensions, background, initial frame count and duration.
4. Click Create.

To animate a still image, choose View > Animation and add frames. Opening an animated document also shows the Animation strip.

The Animation strip sits below the canvas. Drag its upper divider to resize it; frame thumbnails scroll horizontally. Layers remain in the right dock.

Documents with two or more frames show a film-strip symbol () in their tabs. The status bar identifies the active frame, for example Animation · Frame 2/4. Click that indicator to show the strip. Single-frame documents show Still image.

Import a sprite sheet

Import a horizontal strip, vertical strip or uniform grid as animation frames.

1. Choose File > Import Sprite Sheet…, then Choose image….
2. Split by Columns / rows, or choose Cell size (px) and enter the frame width and height.
3. Check the preview grid. Choose row order (left to right, then down) or column order (top to bottom, then right).
4. Set Duration in milliseconds and click Import.

The new animation opens with its frame strip visible. Import requires at least two valid cells.

For an exact horizontal or vertical strip, Pixelithra suggests square frames using the shorter image dimension. Adjust the suggested size if your frames are rectangular or the sheet has margins or multiple rows.

Expand Margins and spacing when the sheet has a border or gaps. Starting offset X/Y sets the first frame’s top-left corner; Between frames X/Y sets the horizontal and vertical gaps. These pixels are excluded from imported frames. The preview outlines the actual cells. Use the mouse wheel over the preview or its magnifier buttons to zoom in and out. Middle-drag or hold Space while dragging to inspect another part of the enlarged sheet. Preview zoom does not change the imported frame size.

Keep empty frames is enabled by default to preserve timing. Turn it off to skip fully transparent cells; the summary shows the resulting frame count and duration. An entirely empty result cannot be imported.

Grid counts must divide the area after offsets and gaps exactly. Pixel-size mode imports complete cells and reports unused pixels at the right and bottom edges. Sheets may contain up to 1,024 cells. Import does not unpack irregular atlases or infer separate animations from character rows. Source images and existing documents stay unchanged.

Draw and organize frames

Click a thumbnail to make it the editing frame. Duplicate frame inserts an independent copy after it; Insert blank frame retains the layer stack with empty artwork. Draw directly on the selected layer of a blank frame.

Use Delete frame to remove a frame; the final remaining frame cannot be deleted. The trash button removes all selected frames, including their contents. Right-click a selected thumbnail to act on the selection; right-click an unselected thumbnail to target only that frame. Delete selected frames removes frames; Clear raster contents (keep frames) empties the selected raster layer cels without removing frames or changing their durations. These edits support Undo. At least one frame must remain.

Drag a thumbnail before or after another frame to reorder it. The insertion line shows its new position. Release to move the frame, or press Escape to cancel. Change Duration for the selected frame in milliseconds (1–60,000). Frame edits support undo and redo.

Pixels, paths, live fills, drawing offsets, layer visibility and opacity belong to individual frames. Eye and opacity edits affect the selected frame and support undo/redo, including after navigating to another frame. Layer names, order, folders, locks and blend modes remain shared across the sequence. Switching frames clears the temporary raster selection and pending transform.

Select and edit several frames

Ctrl-click toggles individual thumbnails; Shift-click selects a range. A plain click selects one frame. The current frame remains the drawing target. Changing Duration applies to the selected frames in one undoable edit.

Open  Animation options beside the strip title to  duplicate or  delete selected frames, or clear/copy/move selected raster cels. These cel commands affect each selected layer in every selected frame. Frame deletion must leave at least one frame.

For copy/move, choose the destination of the first source frame and layer. Gaps between selected frames and layers are preserved; destination cels are replaced. Pixels move with their offsets, visibility and opacity. Layer identity and frame timing stay unchanged. If source and destination overlap, the move uses the original source contents. Hidden, locked, editable-path or live-fill cels are rejected without changing the document. Use Undo to restore the whole grouped operation.

Preview motion

Use Previous frame, Play/Pause, and Next frame. Playback loops using each frame’s duration; pause leaves the displayed frame selected for editing. Canvas editing and frame changes are disabled during playback. Space continues to pan the canvas.

Toggle Onion skins to see the previous and next composite around the active frame. Onion skins are editor guides and never appear in exported artwork.

Save and export

Choose a format in File > Export, then choose Selected frames and layers under Scope in its options to export only the chosen frames and layers. For animation outputs, Entire document includes every frame. The sprite-sheet dialog has its own Scope selector. PNG and JPEG show the single frame they will export and can produce a crisp enlarged copy. See export options.

Save .pxlithra to retain frames, timing, editable drawings and shared layers. Older static native files open as one-frame documents.

Output	What it keeps
PNG or JPEG	Displayed frame only; JPEG composites over white
Aseprite	Frames, pixel layers and durations with shared layer visibility/opacity; paths/live fills rasterize in the copy
PSD/PSB	Frame Animation with pixel layers and per-frame states; independent drawings may use Frame N layers/groups
PNG sequence	One lossless composite per frame plus timing.json
GIF	All composite frames; looping, reduced colors and timing precision
Sprite sheet PNG	Full-canvas frame cells in sequence order, without timing

Animated GIF

Choose File > Export > Animated GIF… to open the dedicated export dialog.

GIF and Sprite Sheet export dialogs can be moved by their title bars, keeping the artwork undimmed while you choose export settings. Set transparency and None or Bayer 4×4 dithering, then export. Without transparency, the current background swatch supplies the matte. GIF has a limited palette and binary transparency; partial alpha is not retained. Frame durations round up to 10 ms units. Dithering is applied only when a frame exceeds the available palette. Keep native or PNG sequence files when you need editable or lossless originals.

Sprite sheet

Choose File > Export Sprite Sheet…. Select Horizontal or Vertical, or enable Grid and set a column count. Rows are calculated automatically; frames fill left to right, then top to bottom. Empty final cells stay transparent. Set outer margin and frame spacing. The checkerboard preview updates before export. Cells keep the full document dimensions; no trimming, scaling or onion skins are added.

Horizontal output with zero padding suggests <title>_stripN.png for GameMaker strip import. Padded, vertical or matrix sheets suggest <title>-spritesheet.png and need the destination tool’s grid settings. PNG sheets do not carry durations.

Photoshop Frame Animation exchange

Choose File > Open to import a supported 8-bit RGB animated PSD/PSB. Frame order, timing, selected frame, editable pixels and supported layer states are retained. Zero-delay frames become 1 ms. Omitted state properties inherit the preceding frame’s state.

Photoshop layer visibility, position and opacity states are retained per frame, with the original layer names, order and folders. A two-layer Photoshop animation stays two layers in Pixelithra, including hidden artwork. Frame editing flags and editor pivots are not retained. Save as .pxlithra to retain the editable states.

Choose File > Export > Photoshop Document (PSD/PSB). Animated documents reuse the original Photoshop layers when their pixel bitmaps are identical across frames and only visibility, position or opacity changes. Independent drawings require separate physical Photoshop layers: in that case a single-layer source exports Frame N layers, and multilayer drawings export groups per frame. This conversion affects only the external copy. The initial visible layers match the frame selected when exporting. Playback loops; durations round up to 10 ms. Paths and live fills rasterize only in the exported copy. Open the file in Photoshop and show Window > Timeline to check the frames, delays and playback. A 100 ms frame is shown as 0.10 seconds in Photoshop. Keep the native source for further editing in Pixelithra.

Interchange limits

Aseprite linked cels import as independent editable pixels. Unsupported tilemaps, changes to palettes/layer properties between frames, and unsupported rendering features are rejected. Aseprite export also rejects native animations with changing per-frame layer visibility or opacity; use PSD or native files to preserve these states. Photoshop import supports one indefinitely looping frame set. Masks, effects, adjustments, text, Smart Objects, video/keyframe timelines, finite repeat counts and unsupported animation states are rejected. Rasterize unsupported content in a separate Photoshop copy first. Conversion may reach the layer/pixel budgets before a similarly sized static import. PSD/PSB export reorganizes the external stack and supports up to 1024 layer records including group dividers, within the bitmap budget. See file formats.

Earlier native files still open. Older versions of Pixelithra may not read current saves.