Question regarding variable FPS for sprite sheet animations and the game itself

mehlon

Hi! I’m an artist working on a 2D mobile platformer Unity game, and recently created a jumping sprite sheet of 6 frames, meant to be run in 12 fps. The programmer in the team sent feedback that the sprite sheet was not smooth, and should be meant to run in 30 fps (mobile) or 60 fps (PC). 

I’ve never heard of sprite sheet animations done in 60 fps, so I did quite a bit of research on the net, which states some games use variable frame rates, with sprite sheets running at a lower frame rate than the game itself. 

1. Just wanted to check if this holds true for most games, or if I misunderstood something? 

2. Is 12 fps not used to animate sprite sheets in 2D mobile platform games?

Any help is much appreciated, thank you so much!

Eric Chadwick

It really depends on the game aesthetic. Choppy can look good (think of the Lego Movie, or the Wreck It Ralph arcade game).

Ask your programmer what the asset budget should be, for all the sheets this character will need. Divide by the number of anims to figure out size of each sheet.

Also figure out what resolution the character takes up in-game on the target device. 

These will help inform how large each frame should be, and hence how many frames you can fit in each sheet.