SuperSprite - Draw and Animate Pixel-Styled Sprites
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 1:06 am
Hello, this is my first post on this forum however some of you may recognize me and/or this project as I'm aware quite a few Facepunchers browse here.
I started this application a while ago - it's fully wrote in Lua with Love2d and I built it for 2 reasons:
1. I was messing around and testing things, because I was (and still am) very new to programming stuff like this.
2. I absolutely love games that have a "large pixel" art style.
But alright, what is it?
Well, it's an application that simply gives you a canvas of 16x16 or below pixels, and a simple pixel plotting tool for you to draw and create small images. Then optionally the program will take your image and enlarge it while exporting it to a PNG file. This'll give you a nice large pixel styled image which is used in many small 2d games nowadays because it's quick to make, and you don't need much skill to make them look nice (great for programmers). This isn't all though! You can also create animations in this which will be exported into a sprite sheet. When this project got semi-serious I set the goal to keep the program as sexy looking as possible, while keeping its usability.
Sexy looking, you say? Screenshots!
The bad news? I'm lazy and it's not finished.
Yeah. This isn't finished. It's definitely in working order and I'm sure some people could use this as it is. I love programming, but for some reason I don't find it easy to pick up, so this has been sitting on my computer for ages untouched while people have been asking for a release on YouTube. I'm releasing it anyway, in hope of one of two things happening: Someone else picks it up and rounds off what I left unfinished, or I get inspired by whatever is said here and start on it again.
So what's unfinished? Bugs?
I might forget something here, but here's what I remember isn't done (or I tried to do at some point but wouldn't work for me):
- Importing only works if each frame in the sprite sheet is 16x16, and if they are not enlarged.
- Onion Skinning works fine, but the only thing it will show is the previous frame.
- I believe there was a very minor visual bug related to the frame browser, and duplicating images.
- Limited to 16x16 canvas or smaller. This should be fairy simple to increase because it does support larger, it's just I could never make it work around the window size.
- When exporting sprite sheets it will be 1 long horizontal image. I tried turning it into a square but gave up with no success.
There was also a problem when I gave my friend the files to test, he couldn't find the exported image. I'm not sure if it was his stupidity or if there's a bug here that makes it work on my computer only. I'll find out if someone here tests it.
Notes and Shortcuts
- Files will be saved into %appdata%/LOVE/SuperSprite/export
- Files you want imported need to be of PNG format, and only 16x16 frames is supported at the minute. Place these in %appdata%/LOVE/SuperSprite/import and they'll show up in the program.
- There is additional options available under the animation menu. Hold CTRL to see them.
- Holding CTRL and left or right clicking a pixel will set the color of that pixel to the active drawing color.
- Holding ALT and left clicking on a pixel will delete it (turn it transparent).
- To find the other menus, such as animation and import move your mouse left or right of the buttons in the panel. Like this: http://puu.sh/E2au
- The code for this program will more than likely cause you to have a heart attack, or burn your eyes out. I'm not responsible for any fatal damages, you have been warned.
Downloads
Source Code: http://minus.com/lbu1Xa8PgIlDto
.Love file: http://minus.com/lbgbJF5TIcqCoF
.exe file: http://minus.com/lJDmYs11R9sdd
Github: https://github.com/Spyder638/SuperSprite (RECOMMENDED - Updated more often)
Requires Love2d 0.8
Credit to Taehl for his HSL to RGB code on the Love2d wiki - this probably wouldn't have been made if it wasn't for you!
Please, if you do continue my work, let me know and give me some credit.
I started this application a while ago - it's fully wrote in Lua with Love2d and I built it for 2 reasons:
1. I was messing around and testing things, because I was (and still am) very new to programming stuff like this.
2. I absolutely love games that have a "large pixel" art style.
But alright, what is it?
Well, it's an application that simply gives you a canvas of 16x16 or below pixels, and a simple pixel plotting tool for you to draw and create small images. Then optionally the program will take your image and enlarge it while exporting it to a PNG file. This'll give you a nice large pixel styled image which is used in many small 2d games nowadays because it's quick to make, and you don't need much skill to make them look nice (great for programmers). This isn't all though! You can also create animations in this which will be exported into a sprite sheet. When this project got semi-serious I set the goal to keep the program as sexy looking as possible, while keeping its usability.
Sexy looking, you say? Screenshots!
- sTLeV.png (421.59 KiB) Viewed 857 times
- hkdbG.png (317.38 KiB) Viewed 857 times
Yeah. This isn't finished. It's definitely in working order and I'm sure some people could use this as it is. I love programming, but for some reason I don't find it easy to pick up, so this has been sitting on my computer for ages untouched while people have been asking for a release on YouTube. I'm releasing it anyway, in hope of one of two things happening: Someone else picks it up and rounds off what I left unfinished, or I get inspired by whatever is said here and start on it again.
So what's unfinished? Bugs?
I might forget something here, but here's what I remember isn't done (or I tried to do at some point but wouldn't work for me):
- Importing only works if each frame in the sprite sheet is 16x16, and if they are not enlarged.
- Onion Skinning works fine, but the only thing it will show is the previous frame.
- I believe there was a very minor visual bug related to the frame browser, and duplicating images.
- Limited to 16x16 canvas or smaller. This should be fairy simple to increase because it does support larger, it's just I could never make it work around the window size.
- When exporting sprite sheets it will be 1 long horizontal image. I tried turning it into a square but gave up with no success.
There was also a problem when I gave my friend the files to test, he couldn't find the exported image. I'm not sure if it was his stupidity or if there's a bug here that makes it work on my computer only. I'll find out if someone here tests it.
Notes and Shortcuts
- Files will be saved into %appdata%/LOVE/SuperSprite/export
- Files you want imported need to be of PNG format, and only 16x16 frames is supported at the minute. Place these in %appdata%/LOVE/SuperSprite/import and they'll show up in the program.
- There is additional options available under the animation menu. Hold CTRL to see them.
- Holding CTRL and left or right clicking a pixel will set the color of that pixel to the active drawing color.
- Holding ALT and left clicking on a pixel will delete it (turn it transparent).
- To find the other menus, such as animation and import move your mouse left or right of the buttons in the panel. Like this: http://puu.sh/E2au
- The code for this program will more than likely cause you to have a heart attack, or burn your eyes out. I'm not responsible for any fatal damages, you have been warned.
Downloads
Source Code: http://minus.com/lbu1Xa8PgIlDto
.Love file: http://minus.com/lbgbJF5TIcqCoF
.exe file: http://minus.com/lJDmYs11R9sdd
Github: https://github.com/Spyder638/SuperSprite (RECOMMENDED - Updated more often)
Requires Love2d 0.8
Credit to Taehl for his HSL to RGB code on the Love2d wiki - this probably wouldn't have been made if it wasn't for you!
Please, if you do continue my work, let me know and give me some credit.
