JohnKinyanjui/sprite-maker

What it solves

Sprite Studio addresses the difficulty of creating production-ready 2D game assets using AI. While generating a single image is easy, game development requires stable character identities, clean transparency, consistent palettes, and mechanically correct animation loops that don't "slide" or lose visual coherence across frames.

How it works

It is a local-first desktop workbench that integrates AI image generation with traditional game art tools. The workflow involves:

1. AI Generation: Users describe assets via chat. The system uses a "Sprite Director" to maintain a source master image and generates animation frames sequentially, using the previous frame as a reference to ensure identity and motion consistency.
2. Deterministic Rigging: A native Rust engine allows users to place joint points and capsule bones on sprites. This engine handles pixel-perfect rendering and two-bone Inverse Kinematics (IK) for planted contacts (e.g., keeping feet from sliding during a walk cycle).
3. AI-Assisted Rigging: The system can suggest rig points and bones automatically by sending the sprite to an agent CLI.
4. Asset Management: It organizes work into worktrees (Characters, Environment, etc.) and manages assets via SQLite, while keeping the actual PNG files in a standard folder structure for easy use in game engines.

Who it’s for

Game developers and 2D artists who need to rapidly prototype or produce consistent, animated sprite sheets and coordinated asset packs without leaving a single workspace.

Highlights

• Identity-Preserving Animation: Generates high-frame-count loops (24–48 frames) by generating frames one-by-one with strict neighbor references.
• Rust-Powered Rigging: A deterministic engine that uses points and capsules instead of hand-painted masks for bone-based animation.
• Coordinated Packs: The /pack command creates multiple separate assets that share a single art direction.
• Terrain Atlases: Generates complete terrain sets as a single large PNG atlas to maintain visual continuity.
• Local-First Architecture: Built with Tauri, Svelte, and Rust, ensuring assets remain as ordinary files on the user's disk.