Sprite-gen turns one drawing into a game sprite sheet

An indie game maker who cannot draw can still test a character in a game. Sprite-gen takes one picture and returns a sheet of frames the game engine can read. The sheet has transparent backgrounds and a matching JSON file.

The project is by GitHub user aldegad. Its repository had 3,716 stars, 390 forks and an Apache 2.0 licence on 6 November 2026, per the GitHub API. Trendshift's daily list ranked it 17th on the same day. The repository was created on 12 May 2026.

What it does

Sprite-gen runs locally as a Python command-line tool, the README says. The user supplies one still image of a character or prop. The tool then generates more poses of the same character. It removes the background to create true transparency. It lines the frames up on a grid and writes them to one sheet. It also writes a manifest.json file with the layout a game engine needs to find each frame.

A second pipeline takes a short video of a motion. It then produces a looped transparent animation of that motion, such as a walk cycle. The README names Aseprite, Phaser and Flame as game engines the output file formats match.

What runs where

The command runs on the user's own computer. Image generation itself goes to a model the user picks: Codex, Claude Code, or the Grok, OpenAI, or Anthropic APIs through the user's own key. The project does not host a model. It needs Python 3.11 or later. Optional parts of the pipeline use ffmpeg, img2webp and RIFE, a frame interpolator, the README says.

Release v3.15.0 was published on 1 November 2026, the GitHub API shows. That release changed the RIFE model to v4.25 for smoother walk and run cycles, per the release notes. A reader installing from v3.14.0 has to run sprite-gen rife install again, the notes say.

What it means for a small team

A game maker with no artist used to pick between two slow paths. Pay an artist for a sheet, or hand-draw every frame. A tool that takes one drawing and returns a game-ready sheet moves the test of a character to one afternoon. The maker still needs a model key and the local setup. So this is not a one-click product. It is a working pipeline a game maker can run on their own machine.

Three things worth checking before a team adopts it. First, the cost: image generation and interpolation call cloud models on every run, so a long game costs real money per sprite. Second, the output: the sheet is machine-made, so a maker who wants a specific art style still needs to review each frame. Third, the licence: Apache 2.0 allows a commercial game, which is a real question for any tool that touches the final asset.

The project is open source. A game maker can clone the repository today. They point it at their own model key and start with a single picture.

Source

GitHub, aldegad/sprite-gen repository. GitHub, sprite-gen v3.15.0 release.