Flipbook
A sequence of images played in order to create motion — in games usually a grid of sub-images packed into a single texture.
The oldest form of animation (the kineograph was patented in 1868) translated to real-time graphics: many sub-images are packed into a grid in one texture and played back by stepping the UV coordinates across the grid every frame. Because it all lives in one texture, it is a single draw call.
Most common for particles and VFX — explosions, smoke, fire — where a pre-rendered flipbook is far cheaper than simulating the same thing in real time. The downsides are the expected ones: memory grows with frame count and resolution, and the motion is baked once and for all, never dynamic.