Phaser Texture Packer [2021] Direct
This is the industry standard. It has dedicated support for Phaser 3, including specialized settings for JSON (Hash/Array) and even automatic compressed texture support.
Don't just pack your characters. Pack your buttons, health bars, and cursors into the same atlas. Phaser draws textures fastest when they all come from the same base image. phaser texture packer
// Loading 50 individual files. Painful. preload() { for (let i = 1; i <= 50; i++) { this.load.image(`knight${i}`, `assets/knight${i}.png`); } } This is the industry standard