What image to upload
- PNG or JPEG. You do not need a large file: the app scales the reference to 480 px on its longest side before it starts.
- One character, full body, seen from the front or close to it.
- Both feet visible, side by side, pointing toward you and standing flat. MoveLab redraws it as the front view every direction is built from.
- A busy background is fine. The first step redraws the character as a clean front view on a transparent background.
Optional character notes let you describe details the picture does not show, such as the back of a costume or what a character carries.
What the zip contains
- One folder per direction: front, frontRight, right, backRight, back, backLeft, left and frontLeft, which are S, SE, E, NE, N, NW, W and SW on the compass.
- frame_0001.png onward in each folder: 256 × 256 px frames on a fully transparent background, in time order at 24 fps.
- sheet.png in each folder when it is small enough: the same frames as one grid image, row by row.
- manifest.json: each direction's compass heading, frame count, frame size, frame rate, duration and sheet layout.
- LLMS.txt: the guide for your coding agent, described below.
LLMS.txt: import instructions for your coding agent
Open the unzipped folder in your AI coding agent and ask it to add the character to your game. LLMS.txt tells it, step by step:
- how the folders map to compass directions, and why left and right are separate drawings that should not be mirrored;
- how to find a foot anchor in every frame so the character does not drift;
- how to find the exact cycle and check the seam before cutting the loop;
- how to downsample to about 8 to 12 frames for pixel art and resize every direction at one scale;
- how to clean up stray shadow under the feet;
- a checklist for wiring the animations into the game.
Engine import
The frames are plain PNG files, so no plugin is needed:
- Unity: import the frames as sprites, then drag one direction's frames into the scene to create an animation clip.
- Godot: add each direction as an animation in a SpriteFrames resource on an AnimatedSprite2D.
- GameMaker: import one direction's frames into a sprite and set its playback speed.
- Phaser: load a direction's frames, or its sheet.png with a 256 × 256 frame size, and create one animation per direction.
No credits to buy
MoveLab runs on your Windows, macOS or Linux computer and is paid for once on itch.io. It uses your own OpenRouter API key, so there are no credits to buy from us; OpenRouter bills you only for what you generate.