# Sprite

A Sprite is a 2D graphic that can be rendered into a scene. A Sprite asset is a reference to a [Texture Atlas](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/editor/assets/inspectors/texture-atlas.md) and a sequence of frames from that atlas. In this way a sprite can either represent a single image (taken out of the atlas) or a flip-book style animation (multiple frames from the atlas).

## Inspector

[Image: Sprite Asset Inspector]

## Properties

| Property | Description |
|----------|-------------|
| Pixels Per Unit | The number of pixels in the sprite image that maps to 1 Unit in the PlayCanvas scene. For example, if `pixelsPerUnit` is 1 and the sprite is 32x32, it will be 32 units across and high when rendered in the scene. By default, a sprite with *Simple* render mode has `pixelsPerUnit` set to 100, meaning a 100x100 sprite will be 1 unit wide/high. *Sliced* sprites default to 1 because they are typically used for UI where 1 sprite pixel should map to 1 screen pixel. |
| Render Mode | Controls how the sprite is rendered: **Simple** - the sprite does not use border values; **Sliced** - uses border values to perform [9-sliced](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/2D/slicing.md) rendering by stretching; **Tiled** - uses border values to perform [9-sliced](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/2D/slicing.md) rendering by tiling. |
| Texture Atlas | The Texture Atlas asset that the sprite references. |

:::tip
To use this asset in scripts, see [Asset Attributes](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/scripting/script-attributes/esm.md#asset-attribute).
:::