# 2D

The PlayCanvas Engine is designed to make creating 3D games and applications fast and simple. However, we also support a number of great features for creating 2D games. With PlayCanvas' 2D features you get all the benefits of a powerful 3D engine but for 2D games.

## Basic Features

### Sprites

[Image: Sprite]

2D graphics are often known as **Sprites**. In PlayCanvas you can create [Sprite Assets](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/editor/assets/inspectors/sprite.md) and [Sprite Components](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/editor/scenes/components/sprite.md). The Sprite Component is attached to Entities in order to display 2D graphics in your scene. Sprite Assets in PlayCanvas store multiple image frames from a Texture Atlas in sequence. So you can use a Sprite Asset to create flip-book style animated graphics in your games.

### Texture Atlases

[Image: Texture Atlas]

A [Texture Atlas](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/editor/assets/inspectors/texture-atlas.md) is an enhanced version of the standard [Texture](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/editor/assets/inspectors/texture.md) asset. In addition to the regular texture features, a Texture Atlas includes the definitions of a set of "Frames". Each frame is a region of the texture which can be referenced in a Sprite Asset.

### Sprite Editor

[Image: Sprite Editor]

The [Sprite Editor](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/2D/sprite-editor.md) is the tool used to generate Texture Atlas frames and Sprite Assets. You can open the Sprite Editor by double-clicking on any Texture Atlas or Sprite Asset. [Read More](https://developer.playcanvas.com/user-manual/2D/sprite-editor.md).

*Artwork created by [PixelBoy](https://twitter.com/2pblog1)*