Topic 06 · Using downloaded art

Export for your engine.

One dialog, five layouts. The headline one — Animation → sheet — writes a packed PNG plus a JSON atlas that Godot and Unity load and play straight away. Here's the button, and a table of exactly what each type drops on disk.

1Open the export dialog

Click the Export icon in the buf-list toolbar (the file strip on the left) — or press Ctrl + E. The Export Sprite Sheet window opens with a live preview.

2Choose a layout, then Export

Set four things, watch the preview update, and hit Export (bottom of the dialog):

typeHow it's arranged / split — the five options in the table below.
layerAll layers (composite) flattens everything into each frame; or pick one layer to export alone.
columnsSheet width in cells. 0 = one long strip; 8 = wrap every 8 frames.
gapPadding in pixels between cells, if your engine needs a margin.

3What each type produces

Pick type by what your engine wants. Filenames use the name you save as (name):

Type	Files on disk	Use it for
Animation → sheet	name.png name.json	Engine import. Packed frame sheet + a JSON atlas (frame rects, count, timing). Godot / Unity load it and play the animation — the one to reach for.
Each tag → row	tags_rows.png	One sheet, each tag (`row0…N` / Idle, Walk…) on its own row — the classic "one action per row" layout.
Each layer → row	layers_rows.png	One sheet, each layer on its own row — handy to eyeball the whole stack at once.
Each layer → file	name_layer0.png name_layer1.png …	One PNG per layer — keep body / weapon / fx as separate images to recombine in-engine.
Each frame → file	name_frame0.png name_frame1.png …	One PNG per frame — for engines/importers that want loose numbered frames.

Empty layers are skipped; the JSON sidecar is written only for Animation → sheet.

✓Done — drop it in your project

For Godot/Unity, take the Animation → sheet pair (.png + .json): the atlas already knows the frame size, count and timing, so there's nothing to re-enter. Need a plain strip instead? Set columns to 0 and export any type.

Save vs Export Save keeps your editable project (.aseprite / .json / .png by extension — layers, tags and all). Export is the flattened, engine-ready output. Keep both: save to edit later, export to ship.