What is "spriting"

n. 1 (context nonstandard English) The development of sprites (computer graphics), especially humanoid characters. 2 (context Internet English) The technique of storing multiple images in a single larger image so that they load more quickly into a webpage.

Spriting is usually defined as the act of creating partially transparent 2D raster graphics for use in video games, commonly referred to as sprites; by extension, it is also used to refer to the act of creating pixel art, though not all sprites are necessarily done in this style. Pixel art comprises a large part of "sprite art" as a whole; though technological advances since the mid-nineties allowed pre-rendered raytraced imagery, or essentially any 2-dimensional image style to be used as a sprite. In some communities, "pixel art" is considered a synonym of "sprite art", and classification of artwork as "sprite art" is held to the same standards, though pixel art itself is not limited to the creation of sprites.

Though sprites have been a major component of many early video games, the modern, "mainstream" activity called "Spriting" arose with the advent of widely available computer graphics programs capable of editing and saving raster images. Such programs include MacPaint, and the later Microsoft Paint. The distinctive style of imagery used in many early computer and arcade games inspired people to create similar works of their own. Having the tools available to do this allowed many people to experiment with what was previously a prohibitively difficult-to-enter craft. With the advent of the internet, practitioners of spriting were able to collaborate and share their creations, which established spriting as a proper hobby, and also exposed these artists to prospective employers, and vice versa.

Spriting is primarily done for the direct purpose of creating video game artwork, especially by professional artists. By hobbyists, though, it is often done to create stand-alone artwork, or as part of a larger piece of art, such as a web comic. The use of sprites as cookie-cutter elements of comic strips has led to a genre called sprite comics.

The technique is also used at web design where sprites are created by CSS as a way to accelerate page loading. By replacing several related images with one sprite sheet and selecting the shown image with CSS properties, the number of data requests and size of files is reduced.