How can I update a sprite sheet without affecting the sprites already being used?

Question

Every time I overwrite my sprite sheet with additional or updated sprites, I have to reattach the textures to all of my Animations and Sprite Renderers. How can I update a sprite sheet without affecting the sprites on that sheet which are already being used?

During the development of even a small game, hundreds of textures are being used. And new textures are being added and updated every day. This results in many hours spent reattaching textures which could otherwise be used being productive. What strategy can I use to prevent this?

This is an example of what I mean:

I have a sprite sheet with 40 textures. All of its sprites are attached to their relative GameObjects. I decide I want to change the color of one of my sprites' hat. I go into gimp and load the sprite sheet. I change the color of the hat. I overwrite the old sprite sheet.

Back in Unity, all of the textures are no longer attached to their respective GameObjects. I go in and splice the sprite sheet again and manually reattach all of the textures. Then I decide I like the old hat better. I go back into gimp, change the sprite sheet, and am then forced to reattach all of the textures...again. There has to be a better way! (Also would like to be capable off adding new sprites in addition to editing old ones.)

Answer 1

Be sure you open the Sprite sheet from the path of the asset. You can achieve this either opening the sheet within the project window or going thru your documents to the asset folder of the project location.

You can open it with your editor of choice and can then update and apply the changes to the project file "your sprite sheet"

doing this will update it rather than overwrite it with a whole new file.