A tool to quickly display animations

thomas auguey — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 11:58:12 +0000

Do you draw animations on tablet? Do you want to get a quick preview of your work without creating a project on a specialized tool (Photoshop, etc.) and thus investing time and losing the original formatting of your rough sketch ?

I created this little tool for a specific need: to visualize the animation of a sketch as it is created without necessarily switching my work to a specialized drawing tool.

My use case: I'm working on a small 2D platform game under Unity (programming and artwork). I'm quietly drawing small animations (sketches) on my tablet and I want to have a preview in my game but at the same time I want to keep my drawing in its original/raw form without going to the qualitative phase in a specialized drawing tool (cropping, cutting the image, reworking the colors, reworking the lines, ...).

That's when I thought: it would be cool if I could draw on my tablet while viewing the animation on my computer screen and then quickly export everything into my Unity project (in preview).

This tool allows you to load an image file, then define the areas (rectangles) where the different images of the animation are located. A preview area allows you to see the images scroll at a chosen frequency. Finally, the software helps you define the areas by automatically reducing the transparent parts.

Little bonus: you can export your drawing into Sprites ready for your video game development.

Another little bonus: if you use a folder that's automatically synchronized between your tablet and your PC, there's no need to reload the image; it'll happen automatically each time the file is modified (tested with Syncthing).

The link to the project

PS: This is my first post, and I'm eagerly awaiting your feedback (I'm looking to gain more visibility on social media).

DEV Community: thomas auguey

A tool to quickly display animations