Pixen for sketches

[brandosaurusrex]

I know there are a lot of programs out there that are useful for pixel art, but if you haven't taken a look at Pixen yet, go for it. Last time I checked, it was free and though it's not as offering for advanced features as photoshop might be, it's great for sketchy out ideas and animations.

 

[Shaz]

I've moved this thread to Program and Utility Discussion. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.


I was just watching something today and heard about this. Never knew about it before. They were using it on Mac though - is there a Windows version as well?

 

[meowchelle]

I think Pixen is OSX only? 

I actually fell in love with Aseprite in the last month or so. It's only $10 and it has so many neat features. 
I don't even open or use Photoshop anymore for spriting. 

 

[Natural]

@meowchelle Is it really that much better than PS? 

 

[Valkyriet]

I've become too used to GraphicsGale to try out a new pixel editing software, but Pixen looks neat, even though it seems to be only for Mac right now.

 

[Natural]

@Valkyriet Did you buy GraphicsGale or are you using the free trial? I'm looking for a better program to use to draw sprites. Seems like people prefer GraphicsGale slightly more than Aesprite but GraphicsGale is Windows only. 

 

[meowchelle]

@meowchelle Is it really that much better than PS? 

Well you can't really compare the two programs since Photoshop is photo editing and Aseprite is used for drawing sprites. 

Aseprite is great because it's lightweight while still it having quite a few features and it's pretty good if you need to do simple edits to RTP/etc tilesets. However, if I were to do heavy parallaxing, edits to lighting and recoloring Photoshop would be my goto. BUT tbh I hardly ever open PS these days.

edit: I'm not really into GraphicsGale. I don't know why. I tried it very briefly, but I think the UI was overwhelming and I felt I didn't need to use it since I already had Photoshop. It really comes down to personal preference.  

 

[Natural]

Yeah I don't know much about these things lol..

I was checking out some kind of Program called Spriter Pro, looks really cool but it might be difficult to use for RPG Maker. I seen a post from July about it. Damn I even missed the $12 bundle in July it's like a $60 program. It sounds like there isn't too much information on it though. 

Andar - "Spriter Pro can be used to create animation sheets, but as far as I know it doesn't have an automated export - you might need to copy paste the different sprites into a sheet manually."

 

[Valkyriet]

@Natural

I'm using the free version (it's not a trial really). I think the paid version has a few extra features, and costs about 11 pounds. According to the site, the paid version allows you to save and load GIFs and a few other file types (.ico, .cur, .ani). The paid version has a 30-day trial. Their FAQs state that you can use the free version commercially as well, so it's not really necessary to pay for it.

I have spriter pro as well from the Humble Bundle sale but I haven't really figured out how to use it yet. For now, I'm more comfortable with just GraphicsGale.

 

[Natural]

Thanks for the input @meowchelle, and @Valkyriet I'll check out GraphicsGale and Aesprite. 

 

[brandosaurusrex]

Apologies, I should have mentioned it was an OSX program.....which is why I wanted to mention it in the first place. Us mac users were extremely lonely before MV.. I just like the simplistic setup for jotting down ideas without having to worry about too many menus. 

Aseprite is a new one for me...I'll be diving into this one over the holiday @meowchelle. It looks like it's worth the $10.