Sprite (computer graphics)

High school (ages 12+)
Science & Technology

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/sprite-computer-graphics

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is a sprite in video games?A sprite is a small, 2‑D picture that can move around on the screen. It is overlaid on a background so the game can show characters or objects without redrawing the whole picture.
2. Why did early video game makers use special sprite hardware?Early computers were slow, so drawing the whole screen for each frame was hard. Special sprite hardware let the machine add pre‑made pictures on top of the background with little CPU work.

Raster Scan: The process of drawing an image on a display screen line by line, from top to bottom.
Bitmap: A digital image representation where each pixel's color is stored individually.
GPU: Graphics Processing Unit, a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images.
Sprite Multiplexing: A technique to overcome sprite-per-scan-line limits by rapidly switching sprites on and off.