Animate with physics and particles

Physics and Particles are in the left tools panel. Each opens its own inspector. You can use both without AI or rigging.

On desktop, drag the inspector’s left divider to give the controls more room. Tool Options, Physics, Particles, and the other docked tool panels share that width. Your browser remembers it across projects and reloads. Focus the divider and use the arrow keys to resize it; hold Shift for larger steps, or use Home and End for the limits. Double-click the divider to restore the default width. On small screens, the simulation drawer fits the available screen width.

Make painted layers interact

1. Paint each object that should move independently on its own layer. Paint the ground, platforms, or other fixed scenery on separate layers.
2. Choose Physics in the left tools panel. Choose the object in Selected layer, select its timeline layer, or click its painted pixels on the canvas. The inspector follows that selection and shows only that layer’s settings.
3. Set the object’s Physics mode to Moving. Select each painted ground or platform layer and set its mode to Fixed. Leave decorative layers Off.
4. Keep Collision shape set to Artwork outline (automatic) to follow the painted pixels. Turn on Show collision outlines to inspect the result. Transparent gaps are not filled with one large solid box. Circle and box shapes are optional approximations.
5. Select a moving layer to adjust its bounce, friction, mass, gravity multiplier, horizontal or vertical speed, spin, and air resistance. All participating layers interact in the same scene.
6. Under Scene settings, set the shared gravity and canvas boundary behavior. The canvas floor is separate from ground you paint on a Fixed layer.
7. Set Start frame and End frame, then use Preview frame or Play range.
8. Choose Bake frames. Fixed artwork is copied unchanged into every frame in the selected range, and Moving artwork is written at its simulated position. Both use their existing layers; no output layer is added or source layer hidden. You can also bake a scene containing only Fixed layers.

Mode	What happens
Off	The layer remains ordinary artwork and does not participate in physics.
Fixed	Painted artwork becomes a stationary collision surface. Bake copies the chosen original artwork into each frame in the selected range on the same layer.
Moving	The artwork moves and rotates under physics, colliding with other participating layers. Bake writes its animation into its existing layer.
Animated obstacle	Existing frame-by-frame artwork drives the obstacle’s motion and collision shape. Physics does not push it away from that animation or rewrite its pixels.

For a platform you already animated by hand, choose Animated obstacle. Empty frames have no collision shape. Keep Fixed or Moving artwork on its chosen Original artwork frame; changing that frame after a bake requires explicitly replacing the saved source.

Keep participating layers visible. A hidden participating layer must be shown or set to Off before simulation. If a collision outline is too complex, simplify the painted shape or choose a simpler collision shape.

Show floor, beside Floor position, displays the physics floor as a labeled line with light shading below it. It is on by default and follows your draft floor position as you pan or zoom, even before previewing or after a preview fails. You can hide the guide without changing collisions. The choice stays in place while switching tools or layers during the current editor session. The guide never becomes baked pixels or appears in exports.

Add sparks, smoke, rain, snow, dust, or confetti

1. Choose Particles in the left tools panel and select a preset.
2. Place the emitter on the canvas or enter its coordinates. Point, line, and rectangle shapes control where new particles appear.
3. Choose steady emission or a burst. Adjust the amount, lifetime, speed, spread, wind, size, and color ramp.
4. For a steady effect, set Stop emitting at frame. Existing particles can remain visible until their lifetimes expire or the effect’s end frame is reached.
5. For a burst, set Burst frame. The particles are emitted together at that point in the range.
6. Preview and bake. A fixed random seed reproduces the same result with the same settings and frame timings.

Attaching the emitter to the source body combines motion with particles. Collision-triggered emission uses body impacts. A floor or obstacle only affects particles when particle collision is enabled.

How many frames does an effect last?

The range includes both endpoints. Start 8 and End 31 produces 24 frames. The inspector also shows their total time, calculated from the actual duration of each frame. Changing playback speed does not change the simulation or baked pixels.

Physics also has a Simulation speed control in Frame range, below the frame-count and duration readout. Its range is 0.25× to 8×, with a default of 1×. It changes how much physics time passes during each frame: a 100 ms frame simulates 200 ms at 2×, so more motion fits into the same frame range. The readout shows the simulated time for the selected frame, using that frame’s own duration. Timeline durations and playback speed stay unchanged. Preview or bake again to see the new motion. This control applies to the shared layer physics scene; it does not change separate particle effects.

The stop-emitting frame is also inclusive. For example, an effect from frame 1 to 48 can emit through frame 32, then let its remaining particles fade during frames 33–48. The lifetime may extend beyond the end frame, but the bake stops at the chosen end frame.

Use Add frames to extend the timeline explicitly. The supported limit is 64 frames. Dragging the range controls changes which existing frames are used; it does not silently create frames. Saved endpoints follow frame identities when frames are inserted. A deleted or reversed endpoint must be repaired before baking.

Preview, apply, bake, and revise

Preview is temporary and does not save pixels. Apply settings stores the recipe without baking. Bake frames applies the generated artwork as one undoable edit and uses normal project autosave. A changed source, timeline, palette, or document invalidates the preview.

Physics keeps a copy of each Fixed and Moving layer’s original artwork internally. Re-baking uses that original rather than repeatedly moving already-baked pixels. Fixed layers repeat the exact original drawing, including its colors and transparency, throughout the chosen range. Layer identities, names, order, and visibility stay the same. Off and Animated obstacle layers remain unchanged. If you shorten a previously baked range, frames no longer included return to their saved pre-bake contents. Unlock every participating Fixed or Moving layer before baking.

If you paint over a baked Fixed or Moving layer, a later bake stops rather than overwriting your changes. To adopt the new drawing, select that layer, open Advanced, choose its Original artwork frame, then choose Use current artwork as source and confirm. This changes the saved source for future bakes; it does not immediately change the visible pixels. Undo or project history can restore an earlier document.

Particle effects continue to use their own generated output layer. Re-baking replaces output owned by that effect; if its pixels were edited by hand, another output layer preserves those edits. Removing a particle effect’s settings keeps its baked artwork. Locked palettes map particle colors to existing colors rather than adding new entries.

Undo restores the previous document. Save conflicts require reloading or resolving the newer project revision; a stale preview is never permission to overwrite a collaborator’s work.

Export and limits

Baked frames are ordinary Pixel Art layers. Use the existing PNG, GIF, or sprite-sheet exporters. Editor handles and collision guides are excluded.

Playback repeats the clip; it does not guarantee a seamless loop. Review the transition from the last frame to the first. Artwork collision follows painted pixels using bounded compound shapes; it is still a 2D rigid-body simulation, not cloth, fluids, joints, or particle-to-particle interaction.

Administrators can test the same platform engines independently under Administration → Simulation, using the Physics, Particles, and Combined labs. Their scenes are local tests and do not edit a Pixel Art project.