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FolioTier 2

@sprite-bounce

Squash-and-stretch a sprite once and settle back to base - the show-time bounce entrance as a mid-scene beat.

@sprite-bounce lands a single squash-and-stretch hit on a sprite and lets it settle back to its resting position. Reach for it when a character needs a physical exclamation point - a reaction to surprising news, a triumphant entrance into frame, or a comedic beat that should feel alive without sustaining motion.

The effect is intentionally self-contained: one bounce, then done. That makes it safe to drop anywhere in a scene without worrying about cleanup or leftover state on the sprite.

Set wait to false when you want the bounce to play while dialogue or another effect is already running - the sprite pops as a line lands rather than after it finishes. Set wait to true when the bounce itself is the moment and nothing else should compete for attention.

Keep duration on the shorter end for snappy comedy and punchy reactions; longer values read as a slow, deliberate swell that suits warmer or more dramatic beats. At the default of 0.32 the motion reads as brisk but not frantic, which covers most mid-scene uses.

Parameters

ParameterKindRequiredDefaultNotes
targetstringyes""Sprite tag to target.
durationnumberno0.320.05-2 seconds. Default 0.32.
waitbooleannotrueBlock for the effect's duration when true; false fires and continues so effects can overlap.

Canonical example

sprite show ada
say "Ada": "Gotcha!"
@sprite-bounce(0.32, target=ada)

@sprite-bounce gives a sprite a single squash-and-stretch: it snaps the sprite wide-and-short off its resting scale, then settles back with a slight overshoot over duration. The sprite ends at the scale it started the beat at, so a bounce on an already-placed sprite is a mid-scene emphasis, not a permanent resize.

Entrance vs. mid-scene

This is the exact animation the bounce entrance plays when a sprite first appears - to bounce a sprite in as it mounts, set the entrance on the sprite show instead (Sprite Manager → new-sprite defaults, or the SPRITE: SHOW inspector's ENTRANCE row). Reach for the standalone @sprite-bounce when the sprite is already on stage and you want to bounce it again for emphasis.

Notes

@sprite-bounce is a Pixi-renderer effect that rides the sprite's outer scale (like @sprite-pop and @sprite-grow), so the idle-motion pass yields to it while it runs. Under prefers-reduced-motion the bounce is skipped - the sprite simply stays at rest.

See also