How to Get Results with Pixel Engine 1.1

Write Good Prompts

Good prompts are temporally dense, objective, and motion-focused. Describe the full sequence of events — what happens first, what happens next, and how it ends. Focus on physical movement, not mood or appearance.

Structure: Starting state → action with transitions ("begins by…", "then…", "as they…") → conclusion (return to rest, loop, collapse, etc.)

Wizard

Vague prompt

"the wizard casts a spell"

8 frames

Not terrible, but odd — the model has to guess what "a spell" looks like.

Detailed prompt

"from a standing position. the blue wizard raises his staff above his head. energy accumulates around the staff before a ball of yellow light fires from the staff. The wizard then lowers the staff back down to his neutral starting position"

8 frames

Boxer

Vague prompt

"punch animation"

12 frames

Two words isn't enough — the model doesn't know what kind of punch, which arm, or how the character should recover.

Detailed prompt

"Facing right in a boxing stance with purple gloves and blue trunks, the boxer begins by snapping his lead left arm forward in a rapid, straight motion to execute a quick jab. As the fist reaches full extension, a small white impact spark appears at the tip, then the boxer swiftly pulls his arm back to his face. The sequence concludes as he returns to his original defensive guard with his knees slightly bent."

12 frames

Don't want to craft the perfect prompt yourself?

Use the Enhance Prompt button (the sparkle icon next to the prompt input). It rewrites your rough idea into a model-friendly prompt automatically.

Your Starting Pose Matters

The reference image is part of your prompt. If you ask a character to run but the starting image shows them standing still, the model has to loop through that standing pose — and the result suffers. The model will generalize where it can, but a good starting pose will help in many cases.

Wolf

Prompt: The grey wolf gallops to the right, first stretching its body into a fully extended mid-air leap with legs reaching outward. Upon landing, the wolf crouches low and arches its back, gathering its white-tipped paws underneath its belly to prepare for the next stride. The creature then pushes off the ground to spring back into the air, completing the looping run cycle.

Standing pose

→

6 frames

Action pose

→

6 frames

Knight

Prompt: From the initial side-profile pose, the knight in silver armor and red tabard begins walking forward to the right. The sequence starts as they lift their lead leg while shifting the heater shield and sword in a rhythmic counter-motion. As they stride, the body bobs slightly with each step, and the sword arm swings gently for balance. The walk cycle concludes by seamlessly looping back to the original stepping motion for continuous forward movement.

Standing pose

→

6 frames

Action pose

→

6 frames

Give Your Character Space

Characters need room to move. Space around the character is a visual cue to the model that it should use that space during the animation. A cramped starting image leads to compressed, static motion. More space lets the character reach further, move forward, and fill the frame with motion.

Demon

Prompt: The red demon, starting from a neutral position facing right, lunges forward, raising both arms above his head before bringing them down, creating a massive white motion trail. He follows through the attack with his arms flailed out behind him, before recovering to his original neutral pose.

Limited space

10 frames

Character is cramped — motion is compressed and static.

Plenty of space

10 frames

More space — character reaches further, motion trail fills the frame.

Need to add space around your character? Use the Reframe tab — it’s free and instant. See the Reframe Guide for a full walkthrough.

Cactus

Prompt: the cute cactus character performs a jumping animation. It first compresses its body vertically, before rapidly extending upwards. At the peak of its ascent, it extends and begins to fall back towards the ground. It lands in a bouncy movement. returning to its original position.

Limited space

8 frames

Jumps in place — still a valid result.

More space

8 frames

Room to jump — the character leaps up into the available space.

Experiment with Frame Counts

The same prompt and starting image can look very different at different frame counts. Below is the same hero slash animation generated at 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 16 frames — For this specific animation, 10 seems to do well, while quality drops off at the extremes.

Prompt: Facing diagonally down and to the left, the hero raises his sword across his body before lunging forward, sweeping his brown sword in front of him in a slicing attack. The motion of the sword creates a massive white crescent motion blur that sweeps in front of the character. The animation concludes with the character returning to a standing position.

4 frames

4 framesWorst

6 frames

8 frames

10 frames

10 framesBest

12 frames

16 frames

16 framesWorst

Recommended frame counts by action type

Action	Frames
Attack	8–12
Idle	4–8
Run	4–8
Walk	6–8
Death	6–8

These are rough starting points — experiment to find what works best for your specific animation.

Number of Colors

The Colors input sets the maximum number of colors the animation will be quantized to — not an exact target. The model may use fewer colors than the limit depending on your character.

Too low

Colors get merged together to hit the limit. Your character can lose detail — subtle shading, outlines, and small highlights may all collapse into the same flat tone.

Too high

Each frame is quantized independently, so a high color limit allows small frame-to-frame color variations that show up as flickering or noise in the final animation.

24 colors is a good default for most pixel art characters. Go lower for a more restricted retro palette, or nudge it up if your character has fine detail that is getting lost.

More Examples

A few more animations to show what's possible. Don't be afraid to re-roll — some animations are harder than others, and it's normal to need 3-4 tries with slightly different prompts or frame counts before you get something you love.

Prompt: Facing right in a wide stance, a blue space marine fires a rifle weapon. The animation loops rapidly between a large, yellow starburst muzzle flash and an elongated horizontal jet of fire extending from the barrel. The character remains stationary and braced against the recoil while the weapon discharges.

6 frames

8 frames

Prompt: The brown deer, facing right, reacts to an impact by briefly compressing its body and lowering its head in a flinch. After this momentary crouch, it quickly rises back up to return to its initial standing pose.

4 frames