Sprite Animation
FreeCreate pixel-art explainer animations effortlessly.
Free · Opens the source repo
What Sprite Animation does
The Sprite Animation skill allows users to produce a single animated frame suitable for educational explainer videos. This skill is ideal for developers and designers looking to create pixel-art styled animations without the need for JavaScript. The output is a cohesive HTML document that can be screen-recorded into a vertical video, making it particularly useful for social media or presentations where concise visual storytelling is required.
To get started, users will follow a structured workflow that begins with selecting a topic and designing the layout. The skill emphasizes a full-bleed cream background and a clear hierarchy of information, featuring a prominent year display, animated pixel sprites, and kinetic typography. The animations are created using CSS keyframes, ensuring that the output is lightweight and efficient.
This skill is particularly beneficial for those who need to convey historical information or complex ideas in an engaging manner. By utilizing pixel-art aesthetics, it appeals to audiences familiar with retro gaming and animation styles, making it an effective tool for educational content. Users can easily customize the animations to fit their specific topics, ensuring that each output is unique and tailored to their needs.
Overall, the Sprite Animation skill is a straightforward yet powerful tool for creating visually appealing and informative animations that can enhance any educational narrative.
When to use it
Use this skill when you need to create a pixel-art style animation for educational content, particularly when a retro aesthetic is desired.
When not to use it
This skill is not suitable for projects requiring advanced animations or interactivity beyond simple looping CSS effects.
What you can build with it
Creating Educational Videos
Use this skill to produce animated explainer videos that convey historical facts or concepts in an engaging pixel-art style.
Social Media Content
Generate eye-catching animations for social media posts that require a retro aesthetic to attract viewers.
Presentations and Workshops
Incorporate pixel-art animations into presentations to enhance storytelling and maintain audience interest.
How to install Sprite Animation
View source1. Install with the skills CLI
npx skills add nexu-io/open-design/sprite-animation --agent claude-code2. Or install it manually
Download the skill folder and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/ for all projects, or .claude/skills/ to scope it to one repo. Restart Claude Code so it picks up the new skill.
Anthropic's agentic coding CLI, and the reference implementation of Agent Skills. Drop a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills and Claude Code loads it automatically whenever a task matches the skill's description. Claude Code docs
Inside SKILL.md
Written by nexu-ioSprite Animation Skill
Produce a single animated frame of an educational explainer — the kind you might screen-record into a vertical video. Pixel-art mascots, big year display, looping CSS animations, kinetic Japanese / English display type.
Workflow
- Read the active DESIGN.md (injected above). Pick the loudest serif token for the year, a sturdy sans for headlines, and a mono token for timeline / index labels.
- Pick the topic from the brief (e.g. "Nintendo · 1889 — Hanafuda"). You always need: a year, a one-line headline, an animated subject (a pixel sprite — character, object, or icon), and a short caption.
- Stage — full-bleed cream / off-white background (
#f5efe2) with a subtle paper grain. Keep margins generous; this is one beat of a video. - Top bar — small mono row:
- Left: title slug ("名次の/番組" or "EP. 01 / NINTENDO")
- Right: progress dots ("01 / 12") and a "REC" stamp
- Subject animations — at least three independent looping animations
on the page:
- Big year: the headline year (e.g. "1889年") fills the lower-left, in a serif display weight. It has a subtle vertical glitch / scanline animation (clip-path keyframes), and a 1-frame "pop" every loop.
- Pixel sprite card: a 96×128 pixel-art card or character (use an
inline SVG with crisp
shape-rendering: crispEdgesrectangles, or abox-shadowpixel grid). Subtle bobbing animation (±4px, 1.6s). - Kinetic kana: 1–2 Japanese / kanji characters that fade-and-slide in sync with the bob (e.g. "花" — hana — flower).
- Tick ribbon: bottom of the stage, a tape/ribbon with year ticks (1889 · 1907 · 1949 · 1977 · 1985 · 2006 · 2017) sliding left at a slow constant speed.
- Caption block — small mono caption explaining the trivia: "Nintendo started as a Hanafuda playing-card maker in Kyoto, 1889. Mario didn't show up for another ninety-six years."
- Write a single HTML document:
<!doctype html>through</html>, CSS inline, no external JS.- All animations use
@keyframes+animation: ... infinite. - Stage uses a fixed canvas ratio (e.g. 16:9 letterboxed) so the loop reads as a single frame from a video.
data-od-idon stage, year, sprite, caption, and tick ribbon.
- Self-check:
- The page is one cohesive scene, not a collage. The eye lands on the year first, then the sprite, then the caption.
- At least 3 independent looping animations are visible.
- The color palette is restrained (cream + a single accent red + ink).
- No external assets — all sprites are inline SVG or CSS.
Output contract
Emit between <artifact> tags:
<artifact identifier="sprite-anim-slug" type="text/html" title="Sprite animation — Title">
<!doctype html>
<html>...</html>
</artifact>
One sentence before the artifact, nothing after.
Frequently asked questions about Sprite Animation
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