How to Export Sprites from SpritePilot for Unity

6 min read · Updated October 2026

Unity doesn’t read sprite-sheet data files on its own, so the export that works is one Unity can cut up by itself: a grid sheet for its Sprite Editor, or every frame as its own named PNG. This guide covers what to choose in Export & Download, the numbers to type into Unity, and the import settings that get crisp sprites into your project. Turning them into clips and an Animator is covered in the Unity animation article linked at the end.

Open Export & Download — free, in your browser, no signup.

Which export to choose

If every frame is the same size, as frames from Grid Slice, the GIF and video converters and the Pixel Art Editor are, export one grid sheet and let Unity slice it (path A). If the frames differ in size, as frames found by Alpha / Background detection usually do, download them as separate PNGs instead (path B). Export & Download centers every frame in a cell the size of the largest one, so on a grid sheet the smaller frames would float in their cells, off the line their feet should share.

Path A — one grid sheet, sliced in Unity

Export a plain grid. In Export & Download, set "Sprite Sheet Layout" to "Grid Layout", leave "Trim transparency" off, and keep "Padding" and "Extrude" at 0. Unity won’t read a metadata file, so you can untick "Export metadata file". Click "Download Sprite Sheet", then rename sprite-sheet.png to something like slime.png before importing it: Unity names the sliced sprites after the texture.
Note the frame size. Unity’s slicer needs the size of one frame, which SpritePilot showed you when the frames came in: the "Each cell" line in Grid Slice, the "px each" line in the GIF and video converters, or the Pixel Art Editor’s canvas size. The grid has as many columns as the square root of the frame count, rounded up, so 10 frames make 4 columns and 3 rows, with two empty cells at the end.
Import it as sprites. Drop the PNG into your project and, in the Inspector, set Texture Type to "Sprite (2D and UI)", Sprite Mode to "Multiple", Filter Mode to "Point (no filter)" for pixel art, Compression to "None", and Max Size to at least the sheet’s longest side. Click Apply.
Slice it. Click "Open Sprite Editor", then "Slice". Choose Type "Grid By Cell Size", enter the frame size as Pixel Size, leave Offset and Padding at 0, and set Pivot: Bottom for characters, Center for things that spin. Turn "Keep Empty Rects" off so the empty cells don’t become sprites, click Slice, then Apply.
Find your frames. The sprites appear under the texture in the Project window as slime_0, slime_1 and so on, numbered from 0, left to right and top to bottom. That is the same order and the same numbering as the frames in SpritePilot’s export, so a tag "hop 4–9" is slime_4 to slime_9 in Unity. Drag one into the Scene to see it.

Path B — every frame as its own PNG

Name and order the frames. Open "Rename & Reorder Sprites" and name the frames so they sort in play order, such as hop_1 to hop_6: when you drag sprites into the Scene to make a clip, Unity orders them by name, with hop_2 before hop_10. Fix the order with the arrow buttons. Leave "Trim transparency" off, because Unity never sees the trim offsets and trimmed frames would jump.
Download the ZIP. Click "Download as ZIP". individual-sprites.zip holds one PNG per frame under the names you typed, plus a metadata.json listing their sizes when "Export metadata file" is ticked; Unity doesn’t need that file.
Import them together. Unzip the PNGs into your Assets folder, select them all in the Project window and set them in one go: Texture Type "Sprite (2D and UI)", Sprite Mode "Single", Pivot "Bottom" for characters, Filter Mode "Point (no filter)", Compression "None", and the same Pixels Per Unit for all of them. Click Apply.
Pack them in Unity (optional). Separate textures work as they are. To draw them all from one texture, add them to a Sprite Atlas asset and let Unity pack them, with its own padding between the sprites.

Note: Why not SpritePilot’s TexturePacker JSON? Unity has no importer for atlas JSON, and the free TexturePacker Importer from the Asset Store doesn’t read JSON either: it looks for the .tpsheet data file that the TexturePacker app writes in its Unity format, which SpritePilot doesn’t produce. Using the JSON in Unity therefore takes an editor script of your own. The same goes for "Pivot Point" and "Animation Tags", which only travel in the metadata: set the pivot in Unity’s slice or import settings, and use your tags as the list of which frames belong to which clip.

Tips

Exported with Padding or Extrude? Slice with Offset = Extrude and Padding = 2 × Extrude + Padding, in both x and y. With Extrude 1 and Padding 2, that is Offset 1 and Padding 4.
If one of your frames is completely transparent, such as a pause in a GIF, "Keep Empty Rects" off drops it and every number after it shifts by one. Turn the option on in that case and ignore the extra sprites from the empty cells at the end.
SpritePilot remembers your export settings for next time, and keeps the names, order and tags you set with your session in this browser — they’re still there when you come back.

Go deeper

Unity 2D Sprite Sheet Animation: From Sheet to Animated Character — The next step: clips at the right sample rate, Animator transitions that react at once, and a C# controller.
Sprite Pivot Points Explained: Center, Feet and Flipping — Where the pivot belongs, and why Unity counts y from the bottom.
Trimming Transparent Pixels From Sprites: Smaller Sheets Without Jitter — Why trimmed frames jump when the offsets are lost, and how Unity’s Sprite Atlas handles empty space instead.
Why Lines Appear Between Your Tiles (and How to Get Rid of Them) — Point filtering, the Pixel Perfect Camera, padding and extrude.