---
title: "Create 2D sprite animations"
content_type: tutorial
url: "https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/create-2d-sprite-animations?language=en"
language: en
difficulty: beginner
duration_minutes: 40
unity_version:
  - "6.3"
supported_unity_versions:
  - name: "6.3"
    url: "https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/create-2d-sprite-animations.md?language=en&version=6.3"
last_updated: "2026-08-04T14:23:50.000Z"
---

# Create 2D sprite animations

Configure an Animator Controller, set up sprite-based animation clips, and build a Blend Tree to animate an enemy character.

Animations make your characters much more engaging. In this tutorial, you’ll configure animations for the enemy.

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll be able to do the following:

- Create a new Animator Controller.
- Configure animation clips using sprite assets.
- Create a Blend Tree to play character animations.

## 1.  Overview

The enemy in your game works right now, but its gliding patrol doesn’t look very natural, even for a robot. You can enhance the enemy that you’ve created by adding animations to make it move in more interesting ways and then apply what you learn to the player character too.

**Note**: For the purposes of this tutorial, we chose to use the **Ruby’s Adventure** asset set, and the images used in instructions will reflect this. If you chose another asset set, the file names will be the same, but in your corresponding theme folder.

## 2. Create an Animator Controller

In Unity, the **Animator** component is used to play animations for a GameObject. The following is a brief summary of how animation is handled in Unity:

- Animation data is stored in special assets called **animation clips.** You’ll create animation clips for the enemy using sprites that we’ve provided.
- You can control how these animation clips play on a GameObject with an **Animator Controller** asset assigned to the **Animator** component.

**Important:** If you’re new to animation in Unity, the [**Creative Core: Animation**](https://learn.unity.com/course/creative-core-animation/tutorial/get-started-with-animation?version=6.0) pathway is a great place to start. It walks you through the basics step-by-step.

To create an **Animator Controller** for the **Enemy** prefab, follow these instructions:

**1.** Open the **Enemy** prefab in prefab editing mode.

**2.** In the **Inspector** window, select the **Add Component** button and search for and add an **Animator** component.

**3.** In the **Project** window, navigate to the **\_2DAdventureGame** > **Animation** > **\[Your Chosen Project\]** > **Enemy** > **AnimationClips** folder.

**4.** Right-click inside the **AnimationClips** folder and select **Create** > **Animation** > **Animator Controller** from the context menu. Name the controller “Enemy”.

![The Project window showing the new Animation Controller created inside the \_2DAdventureGame > Animation > \[Your Chosen Project\] > Enemy folder.](https://storage.googleapis.com/learn-platform-bucket-production/tutorial/b57b9d90-6459-4f8d-ab6b-b04eaa56794d/versions%5B_key==%228d3587bcdfea%22%5D.sections%5B_key==%22feb18a440981%22%5D.body%5B_key==%227718e234a98e%22%5D.image/4.2.2.1%20Create%20an%20Animator%20Controller_20251204_130012.jpg)

**5.** In the **Hierarchy** window, select the **Enemy** GameObject.

**6.** In the **Inspector** window, locate the **Animator** component. Use the **Controller** picker (⊙) to select the **Enemy** controller you just created, or drag it from the **Project** window and release it over the **Controller** setting.

![The Inspector window of the Unity Editor showing the Animator component with the Enemy Animator Controller assigned to the Controller property](https://storage.googleapis.com/learn-platform-bucket-production/tutorial/b57b9d90-6459-4f8d-ab6b-b04eaa56794d/versions%5B_key==%228d3587bcdfea%22%5D.sections%5B_key==%22feb18a440981%22%5D.body%5B_key==%22ff890ae5290c%22%5D.image/4.2.2.2%20Create%20an%20Animator%20Controller_20251204_130031.png)

## 3. Create a new animation clip

Now you’ve set up the **Animator** **Controller**, you need to create an animation clip to contain a walking animation for your enemy character.

To create the animation clip, follow these instructions:

**1.** From the main menu, go to **Window** > **Animation** > **Animation** – or use the shortcut **Ctrl**+**6** (macOS: **Cmd**+**6**).

You can use the **Animation** window as it is, or dock it in a convenient location in your Editor layout.

![The Animation window of the Unity Editor.](https://storage.googleapis.com/learn-platform-bucket-production/tutorial/b57b9d90-6459-4f8d-ab6b-b04eaa56794d/versions%5B_key==%228d3587bcdfea%22%5D.sections%5B_key==%226051800be0c7%22%5D.body%5B_key==%2202b26e828695%22%5D.image/4.2.3.1%20Create%20a%20new%20animation%20clip_20251204_130055.png)

The **Animation** window is laid out as follows:

- The leftmost side contains properties that are animated.
- The rightmost side is a timeline that shows **keyframes**: frames which mark the start or end of a transition in states for those properties.

**Important:** If you’d like a deeper explanation of how the Animation window works, we recommend checking out [**Creative Core: Animation**](https://learn.unity.com/course/creative-core-animation/tutorial/get-started-with-animation?version=6.0).

**2.** Confirm that the **Enemy** GameObject is still selected, then select the **Create** button to make a new animation clip.

![The Animation window, showing the Create button to create a new Animation Clip for the Enemy GameObject.](https://storage.googleapis.com/learn-platform-bucket-production/tutorial/b57b9d90-6459-4f8d-ab6b-b04eaa56794d/versions%5B_key==%228d3587bcdfea%22%5D.sections%5B_key==%226051800be0c7%22%5D.body%5B_key==%225df75af046db%22%5D.image/4.2.3.2%20Create%20a%20new%20animation%20clip_20251204_130113.png)

**3.** Inside the **Animation** > **\[Your Chosen Project\]** > **Enemy** > **AnimationClips** folder, save the Animation Clip as “EnemyLeft”.

## 4. Create the left walk animation

Your enemy will be able to move in every direction. To start, you’ll create your first animation to simulate the basic walking cycle to the left using four different sprites that we’ve provided.

You can create the illusion of movement in Unity by switching which of these sprites is rendered for the GameObject over time, like a physical flipbook animation.

To configure your first animation, follow these instructions:

[Video](https://storage.googleapis.com/learn-platform-bucket-production/tutorial/b57b9d90-6459-4f8d-ab6b-b04eaa56794d/versions%5B_key==%228d3587bcdfea%22%5D.sections%5B_key==%22c824a6d7fe84%22%5D.body%5B_key==%227522b3f071eb%22%5D.overviewVideo/4.2.4.1%20Create%20the%20left%20walk%20animation_20251204_130139.mp4)

**1.** In the **Project** window, navigate to **Assets** > **\_2DAdventureGame** > **Art** > **\[Your Chosen Project\]** > **Characters** and find the **EnemySheet** asset.

This asset is a **sprite atlas** (also called a **sprite sheet**) – a file that contains multiple sprites in a single image, like the tilesets you’ve previously split into separate sprites.

**2.** In the **Inspector** window, set the **Pixels per Unit** property to **100**, then select the **Apply** button.

This setting will ensure that the **Enemy** animations are the same size as your **Enemy** GameObject in the scene.

**3.** Select the arrow icon on the right side of the asset to reveal the individual sprites within the sprite atlas.

**4.** Hold **Shift** and select the four sprites showing the enemy facing the left side, which will select all four.

These sprites are the following:

- **\[Enemy Name\]WalkSides1**
- **\[Enemy Name\]WalkSides2**
- **\[Enemy Name\]WalkSides3**
- **\[Enemy Name\]WalkSides4**

**5.** Drag the sprites from the **Project** window and release them over the **Animation** window.

This process creates an animation using the four sprites.

**6.** In the **Animation** window toolbar, select the **Play** button to preview the animation in the **Scene** view.

The animation will play very quickly!

**7.** In the upper-right corner of the **Animation** window, next to the timeline scale, select the **More** (**⋮**) menu and enable **Show sample rate** if it’s not already enabled.

A **Samples** property will display above the properties list on the leftmost side of the **Animation** window.

The **Samples** property controls the number of **frames per second** that Unity renders the **Enemy** GameObject’s sprite. The default value is **60**, which means that each sprite is only displayed for 0.016 seconds (1 second /60 frames). Unsurprisingly, this is very fast!

**8.** Set the **Samples** property to **4**, then play the animation again.

Now each sprite is shown for 0.25 seconds (1 second /4 frames). This speed is much more appropriate for the character.

**9**. If you want to, adjust the speed further until you’re happy with the rate of the animation.

## 5. Create the right walk animation

You might have noticed that there is no set of sprites walking to the right in the **Enemy** sprite atlas – this is because you can just flip the sprites to create an animation for the opposite direction!

To create a right walk animation, follow these instructions:

[Video](https://storage.googleapis.com/learn-platform-bucket-production/tutorial/b57b9d90-6459-4f8d-ab6b-b04eaa56794d/versions%5B_key==%228d3587bcdfea%22%5D.sections%5B_key==%22ea1748728570%22%5D.body%5B_key==%22134a43b5daa3%22%5D.overviewVideo/4.2.5.1%20Create%20the%20right%20walk%20animation_20251204_130337.mp4)

**1.** In the **Animation** window, open the **EnemyLeft** dropdown and select **Create new Clip…** Name your new clip “EnemyRight”.

**2.** Drag the same four **\[Enemy\]WalkSides** sprites from the **Project** window and release them over the **Animation** window.

**3.** Set the **Samples** property to **4.**

**4.** On the leftmost side of the **Animation** window, select the **Add Property** button.

**5.** Use the foldout (triangle) to expand the **Sprite Renderer** component and enable the **Flip X** property, then select the **Add** (**+**) button.

The **Flip X** property controls whether the sprite is horizontally flipped for a given frame.

**6.** Select the first frame of the animation in the timeline (**Frame 0**), then enable **Sprite Renderer.Flip X**.

**7.** Select the fourth frame and check that **Sprite Renderer.Flip X** is enabled for the frame.

This will ensure that the sprite stays flipped for the entire animation. The diamond icons aligned with the **Sprite Renderer.Flip X** property at frames **0** and **4** indicate that there is a change in the value of the property at that frame.

**8.** Save your changes to the Unity project.

# Additional animation clips for each direction

The process of creating animation clips can be time-consuming, so we’ve pre-made the rest of the animation clips that you’ll need for the enemy character. The two clips that you’ll use in the rest of this tutorial are **EnemyUp** and **EnemyDown**, located in the **Animation Clips** folder. These pre-configured assets will be used as you create the enemy **Animation Blend Tree** in the next tutorial.

![In the Project window, the EnemyDown and EnemyUp Animation Clips are highlighted inside the \_2DAdventureGame > Animation > \[Your Chosen Project\] > Enemy > AnimationClips folder.](https://storage.googleapis.com/learn-platform-bucket-production/tutorial/b57b9d90-6459-4f8d-ab6b-b04eaa56794d/versions%5B_key==%228d3587bcdfea%22%5D.sections%5B_key==%22ea1748728570%22%5D.body%5B_key==%22d0c11e86c015%22%5D.image/4.2.5.2%20Create%20the%20right%20walk%20animation_20251204_130414.jpg)

## 6. Next steps

In this tutorial, you’ve created two animations for the enemy that will be paired with the two preconfigured animations supplied in the asset package. Next, you’ll configure those animations to play based on in-game data – in this case, the **Enemy** GameObject’s direction of movement.