Aseprite - a very good multiplatform sprite editor

Foxley · Post by **Foxley** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 6:06 pm

http://www.aseprite.org/

Just discovered this recently, and bought it so I can have something that I can work on sprite sets seamlessly between my desktop or laptop. I find it's well worth the asking price as it has a lot of dandy features, like a sprite rotation algorithm that's actually good, and the ability to make clone stamp/dithering brush patterns on the fly. There's even a freehand drawing option that trains pixels on a line to have neatly graduated non-zigzaggy curves, which can save a lot of time spent manually tweaking ugly looking curved lines pixel-by-pixel. Currently $15, but you might be able to get it on a Steam sale before long.

The software mouse cursor behaves a little weird in Linux, it displays both the native mouse cursor and the software cursor at the same time. Still functional though.

kylekrack · Post by **kylekrack** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 10:06 pm

Dang, this looks snazzy and more legitimate than a lot of free or open source software. That rotation tool looks especially attractive. I don't know if I want to drop money on it; $15 is a relatively large investment for a sprite editor. I'll watch out for it on Steam, though. Thanks for the recommendation.

Post by **TMC** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 11:06 am

Wow, that does look great; it has it all. I particularly like that it has a good GUI instead of the generally awful ones I've seen in many graphics programs, where a misclick will shuffle your toolbars.

The rotation tool is RotSprite. I wanted to use the same or similar algorithm in the OHR. Actually, I tried it and thought about how it could be improved, but I'm not sure I want to spend weeks attempting it.

If you want a Free Software alternative, I think GrafX2 is similar in terms of feel and features, but has a less friendly (I might admit, difficult) GUI and doesn't have that nice animation support.

Nathan Karr · Post by **Nathan Karr** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 1:17 am

I've been using Asperite and having great experiences with it so far.

0ion9 · Post by **0ion9** » Fri May 20, 2016 3:35 am

If you can compile it from source yourself, you can get it for free.

@TMC:
It's funny that you think Grafx2 has difficult UI compared to Aseprite; I was going to recommend Grafx2 as -much- easier to use.The lack of customizable keyboard/mouse controls is a killer in Aseprite
-- for example, how do you quickly zoom in/out if you don't have a scrollwheel?

@ Foxley: That dual-cursor display isn't something that happens to me (Arch Linux x86_64, QTile window manager) -- I just get Aseprite's cursor. It's possible that it's something that your particular WM or compositor is doing.

Post by **TMC** » Fri May 20, 2016 12:41 pm

Yes, I found out later that I was completely wrong. Aseprite is licensed under the GPL, exactly the same as Grafx2. However, on Linux there is a horrible bug when moving windows and it runs at a very low framerate (even worse than the OHR) making the mouse unpleasant to use, and I couldn't even get it to compile for Windows (turns out you have to use mingw64, not mingw). So I immediately gave up on using it.

Is it not possible to move the cursor with the arrow keys in aseprite? If so, that would be a pretty big failing.

guo · Post by **guo** » Fri May 20, 2016 2:24 pm

I tossed up for ages between Asesprite and Pyxeledit, and went Pyxeledit in the end. It's quite nice, but the updates are few and far between. I believe Asesprite is further along in development and more feature rich, but I still really like Pyxeledit for what it is. Having said that, I'll probably pick up Asesprite sometime in the future aswell.
Grafx2 is another favourite, and familiar to me as I've been using it since ~2000.

0ion9 · Post by **0ion9** » Sat May 21, 2016 10:27 am

TMC wrote:Yes, I found out later that I was completely wrong. Aseprite is licensed under the GPL, exactly the same as Grafx2. However, on Linux there is a horrible bug when moving windows and it runs at a very low framerate (even worse than the OHR) making the mouse unpleasant to use

Interesting. I don't have that problem either, it has a perfectly normal framerate and is pretty fluid really.
Window momentarily (100-250ms) blanks while resizing, but that's pretty normal for all windows in my experience. Your compositor would be my first guess at the source of that kind of bug.

Is it not possible to move the cursor with the arrow keys in aseprite? If so, that would be a pretty big failing.

Can't tell if serious (keyboard manipulation of pixels is really clunky/awkward from my POV). But anyway, no, not as far as I know.

Another thing I -do- like about aseprite: selection tools (this came up because what the arrows do do, is move the selected pixels around. Alt+arrows move the selection itself around). The way you select and transform stuff is really natural (make a selection, immediately get handles to move or resize the content you selected). You do have to keep in mind not to click inside the selection if you DON'T want to move it, though (eg. if you want to replace or add to the selection)

QShade is something I use a lot in GrafX2 which doesn't seem to be in Aseprite (only lowered opacity)

Post by **TMC** » Mon May 23, 2016 6:55 am

A lot of people here like the keyboard controls in the OHR's sprite editor. When I started using grafx2 I had to get used to using the mouse, because keyboard controls weren't a total replacement (although the only real problem is only having keys to move through the palette as a 1D rather than 2D array). I'm happy using the mouse now since you can zoom in Grafx2 for better control, can't yet do that in the OHR. And incidentally, I am expecting to partially rewrite the GUI code for the graphics editors and make some changes to the GUI, but I would leave the keyboard controls untouched. What you said many years ago about effort spent on the OHR's graphics editors being wasted when we can't compete with dedicated editors still sticks in my mind. I don't want to do much more than the basics, but it is necessary to do some major work to support new engine features. Honestly if it were feasible to embed something else and change all the controls to match the existing editors I would look into it.

The sub-window-dragging bug is on the aseprite issue tracker, and the solution is to compile with the Skia rendering backend (not implemented on linux). So I hope that also fixes the terrible framerate. Not a WM problem; the slowdown depends on how many UI elements are onscreen.

Nathan Karr · Post by **Nathan Karr** » Fri May 27, 2016 1:04 pm

I use Asperite

Still get a lot more use out of MSPaint, but Asperite is a good one to have

Post by **TMC** » Fri May 27, 2016 7:41 pm

Wow, even Nathan sometimes prefers it over Paint; that's quite an endorsement!