Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

A place for your artistic side. Discuss techniques and tools for pixel art on the NES, GBC, or similar platforms.

Moderator: Moderators

Sik
Posts: 1589
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:43 am

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by Sik »

Graphics Gale here.
Shiru wrote:Has minor problems, though, like, can't open a BMP file saved with latest GIMP versions when extra info, color space or something, is added into the file (GIMP does it by default).
I don't think BMP has support for metadata like that at all... *sigh*

In any case I prefer PNG. It's better than BMP even when interacting with other tools: if you need you just take libpng and problem solved, with BMP there isn't any "defacto" library (unless you count the Windows API), and most of the libraries you can find will always convert BMPs to true color no matter what (if you're working with pixelart you probably want to preserve the palette, especially if you're making tools for homebrew on old systems - easier to not have to redo the palette from scratch in the tool!).
User avatar
TmEE
Posts: 960
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:10 am
Location: Norway (50 and 60Hz compatible :P)
Contact:

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by TmEE »

I think Asesprite will become my primary use paint tool. I cannot live without opposite click undo that Paint has. I'll spend some more time with and probably post my impressions here :)

EDIT:
Panning around the image and selections are really counter intuitive, for latter I need to go menu hunting to deselect stuff...
SHIFT or CTRL+something combinations do not seem to work at all for some reason... it seems SHIFT or CTRL are not being registered, only single buttons are...
No context menu stuff, I have to go menu hunting for Copy/Paste/Cut. No love for SHIFT+INS/DEL and CTRL+INS when I read the documentation.
I'll skip the program now.
User avatar
Kasumi
Posts: 1293
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:09 pm

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by Kasumi »

Panning around the image and selections are really counter intuitive, for latter I need to go menu hunting to deselect stuff...
Hold space bar and click and drag to pan. I understand the feeling about selections, though. I just got used to using ctrl+D often. Both of these are more like modern painting software. Odd about modifier hotkeys not working, though. That would make everything rather annoying. Ah well.

Edit: Just tried shift+insert/shift+delete/ctrl+insert. They do work, even if they're not in the docs. (Same way it says ctrl+r is redo, but ctrl+y also works). But yeah, none of that helps with modifier keys not working. :( If you have a little time, perhaps start an issue with your keyboard layout/OS info?
User avatar
tokumaru
Posts: 12427
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2005 9:43 pm
Location: Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by tokumaru »

Kasumi wrote:Hold space bar and click and drag to pan.
Didn't work for me, for whatever reason... When I hold space, the hand cursor appears, but clicking and dragging does nothing. I can only pan if I change to the hand tool.
I understand the feeling about selections, though.
Yeah, same here. Also, layering seems kinda pointless if you can't disable/enable individual layers, or get any hints on what's in each layer. Other than that, this program is fairly usable. The animation features are decent, but converting from the program's format to a tiled image that can be converted to the NES format might need some tedious work (exporting all the frames to different files, copying them all to the same file, etc.). I'll probably try to do some actual work with it and see if it can get a permanent spot in my toolbox. Thanks for the recommendation.
tepples
Posts: 22708
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Depends on your mouse hand

Post by tepples »

TmEE wrote:No context menu stuff, I have to go menu hunting for Copy/Paste/Cut. No love for SHIFT+INS/DEL and CTRL+INS when I read the documentation.
I find Accel+X, Accel+C, and Accel+V easier to reach when my right hand is on a mouse. The left pinky presses Ctrl on Windows or Linux, or the left thumb presses ⌘ on a Mac. But I can understand why someone who uses a mouse with the left hand might prefer the Common User Access shortcuts that use the right thumb for the modifier and middle finger for Insert or Delete.
User avatar
TmEE
Posts: 960
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:10 am
Location: Norway (50 and 60Hz compatible :P)
Contact:

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by TmEE »

I'm on Dvorak layout. C, X and V are in rather awkward positions.
User avatar
tokumaru
Posts: 12427
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2005 9:43 pm
Location: Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by tokumaru »

tokumaru wrote:Also, layering seems kinda pointless if you can't disable/enable individual layers, or get any hints on what's in each layer.
Now I see that there's some layer control in the animation editor. You can show/hide layers (not in place though), and also lock/unlock them. It's kind of weird to have these options in the animation editor, but at least they're there.
converting from the program's format to a tiled image that can be converted to the NES format might need some tedious work (exporting all the frames to different files, copying them all to the same file, etc.).
I now also noticed that there's an option for exporting sprite sheets, which should make this conversion easier.
User avatar
Kasumi
Posts: 1293
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:09 pm

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by Kasumi »

I now also noticed that there's an option for exporting sprite sheets, which should make this conversion easier.
Yep. You can export to spritesheet, or import the current project as a spritesheet to get each tile as a frame, and export those as individual files. You can load numbered files (tile00.png, tile01.png, etc) as an animation just by loading the first, and selecting agree to get the rest. (I use this feature to make animated gifs out of video frames.)Then you can make a sheet in any dimensions out of that, etc. etc.

If you are dragging a selection, holding ALT will keep it aligned to your grid settings which makes rearranging tiles easy. holding shift will keep it locked to a straight vertical or horizonal axis. (The two don't work together, though.) There's quite a lot of "hidden" things like that, much like MS Paint.

Ah, and to deselect, you can also right click and drag over your selection. This also allows you to erase only certain parts of the selection (whatever you right click over). This is not as good as the hotkey, though.

</hypeman for ASEPRITE>

RE: Layers in animation editor: Yes, that's bad. That whole system is currently being reworked.

Hopefully certain keys not working for you guys will be fixed soon. Hearing that makes me sad.
User avatar
mikejmoffitt
Posts: 1353
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 8:43 pm

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by mikejmoffitt »

My main reason for still using the MMF2 pixel editor is that I have grown to love the "right-click-to-select-color" feature, and erasing is done via painting the transparent color (or on the alpha layer). For drawing a sprite, where likely the colors I am drawing with are already on my sprite image in some form, picking the color becomes very simple as I can just right click a character's hair and suddenly I am able to draw with hair color, then click the character's skin and work with that color very quickly.
tepples
Posts: 22708
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by tepples »

To do the same thing in GIMP 2.6 (haven't tried 2.8):
N to draw, E to erase (make sure "Hard edge" is turned on in Tool Options), Ctrl+click while in drawing mode to pick up color under cursor.
User avatar
Kasumi
Posts: 1293
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:09 pm

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by Kasumi »

My main reason for still using the MMF2 pixel editor is that I have grown to love the "right-click-to-select-color" feature
Graphics Gale does that. I'm not sure about the transparent part, though.
Sik
Posts: 1589
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:43 am

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by Sik »

Graphics Gale has no notion of transparent pixels (though each layer can have a transparent color).

Note that it's possible to have fully transparent pixels (at least with PNG) and Graphics Gale will recognize them, even in paletted images. Getting a transparent pixel isn't exactly trivial though, so when I ended up getting it by pure luck I decided I'd just copy the PNG instead of making new ones from scratch, just so that the transparent color stays. (also Graphics Gale can't cope with partially transparent pixels, so that one is going to be troublesome to work with)
User avatar
mikejmoffitt
Posts: 1353
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 8:43 pm

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by mikejmoffitt »

tepples wrote:To do the same thing in GIMP 2.6 (haven't tried 2.8):
N to draw, E to erase (make sure "Hard edge" is turned on in Tool Options), Ctrl+click while in drawing mode to pick up color under cursor.
This kind of input seems present on a lot of editors. What I specifically like is not having to do things like control click, etc.

One of these days I'll make my own pixel editor... too bad probably nobody else will want to use it :?
User avatar
loopy
Posts: 405
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:52 pm
Location: UT

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by loopy »

I'll put my vote in for Pro Motion since nobody's mentioned it yet. It's my pixel editor of choice.
User avatar
qbradq
Posts: 972
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:50 am

Re: Pixel art (raster) drawing softwares for Windows

Post by qbradq »

Loopy, can you give us an idea of what the restrictions are for the free version?
Post Reply