Animate a sprite
Draw a pose
Create a project and draw on the active image layer. The timeline is always below the canvas.
Add frames
Use + Frame for a blank frame or Duplicate for an independent copy. Duplicate linked reuses the same cel image; edits to linked copies affect the shared pixels until you choose Unlink selected cels.
Use onion skin
Open the Effects panel. Set Previous onion frames, Next onion frames, and Onion opacity to compare neighboring poses. Onion overlays do not appear in exports.
Set timing and clips
Select frames using Shift for a range or Command/Ctrl for individual selection. Adjust Duration ms. Open Edit clips to create a clip from selected frames, name it, and choose Direction and Repeats (0 loops continuously).
Preview and export
Press Play animation or Space. Open Export, choose Animated GIF, then set Scale and Clip. Save an editable project backup as well.
Procedural 2D motion
Effects → Motion and particles opens controls for baked position animation and deterministic particles on selected frames. The results are editable cels. Keep separate frames or an undo point before applying a bake.
These are ordinary 2D drawing operations. PixelWall does not generate artwork with embedded AI, and it does not currently provide a 3D model rendering workflow.
Timing, color, and capacity
The current GIF encoder reserves a transparent entry and keeps up to 255 distinct opaque colors per frame. More colorful frames are quantized to a 216-color RGB grid. Alpha below 128 becomes transparent; other pixels become opaque.
GIF delays round to 10 ms units with a 10 ms minimum in the current encoder. Some viewers impose a longer minimum. The editor limits the complete scaled GIF sequence to 67,108,864 output pixels; choose a smaller scale or shorter clip when needed.
The document engine accepts canvas sides from 1 to 65,535 pixels, with at most 4,194,304 canvas pixels, up to 256 layers including groups, and up to 2048 frames. A document may store at most 16,777,216 image pixels across its distinct images. Linked cels share image data. Browser canvas limits and available memory can be lower, especially for very wide sprites. Check representative artwork on your device.
Common questions
Is animation editing free?
Yes. Frames, timing, clips, linked cels, onion skin, playback, and 2D motion editing are free. Pro unlocks the listed batch and animation exports.
Does a linked duplicate make a separate drawing?
It shares the cel image. Use an ordinary Duplicate or Unlink selected cels when the pixels must diverge.
Do imported GIFs keep layers?
No. A GIF contains rendered frames, palette colors, transparency, and timing. It does not carry your original editable layer structure.