PR03: Sprite Sheets

A sprite is an image used for a game, including assets that are composited to make up the visuals of a game. They generally contain no transparency and are 2D bitmap images.

A Texture Atlas is an image containing lots of smaller images which are all used as textures for a game. This is usually created for efficiency rather than many smaller images to help rendering speeds. Tiled based games often use these. Art Style guides may be used in other games, such as those that are not tile-based.

Sprites were generally created as 16x16 pixel images, but various other sizes work - generally all still in multiples of 16. This often depends on personal preference or what 'aesthetic style' is the goal of the game. Most platforms have 2D games, but currently they are most common on handheld devices like the 3DS or mobile phones. As their screen sizes are very small, it makes sense to have much smaller assets to make the game more readable and easier to see.