PixelArt editor - Another question :)

[SpacePaw]

I'll probably make a special toolbox with isometric tools no worries. it's one of easier things

[DoorKnobHandle]

Maybe this thread could help you.

Somebody suggested SDL/Allegro but I have to say that I'd be all for a real windows application (multi-platform or not). Personally, I'd use Windows Forms and the .Net framework that comes with the free MS Visual C++ 9.0 (sometimes called 2008 express edition). I have used it and it works great.

[SpacePaw]

Maybe this thread could help you.

Somebody suggested SDL/Allegro but I have to say that I'd be all for a real windows application (multi-platform or not). Personally, I'd use Windows Forms and the .Net framework that comes with the free MS Visual C++ 9.0 (sometimes called 2008 express edition). I have used it and it works great.

That's the thing I use everyday That's why I'll probably stick to it. The thing is I dont know how many of you guys work on linux/mac/other
(as everything made in .NET technology needs to have .NET framework installed on your PC. I know there's Mono for linux but I'm not sure how good it is)

[SpacePaw]

By the way. I just had an interesting idea. Can you tell me what do you think of it?

It's about the number of colors you operate with. Usualy you have 2 colors (left/right mouse button). What if you could make a queue of colors and switch them with the secondary color using for example the middle mouse button? I think it would make the shading much easier

EDIT: Probably everyone would just use the drop eye tool to take colors from elsewhere anyway..

[Haddas]

1. Assignable shortcuts.
2. I like the idea about the colors. how about this. hold right mouse button and scroll to swap colors. enable/disable that feature by clicking middle mouse button, and if disabled, returns to the 2 color mode. The buttons should also be assignable though.

Middle button could also open up the color picker, if you choose that.


The ability to customize the controls and shortcuts is important for any tool

[Ubel]

I agree with Haddas. Far too many programs are lacking in shortcut support because the developers don't think it's really that important. You should be able to assign a shortcut key for every single action and customize them the way you feel comfortable.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Many of the suggestions here already exist in the delicious Pro Motion, whether or not you are aware of them.

Proper support for 8bit palettes. [not just blocking out anti-aliasing and effects once you go 8bit. If it's for backgrounds too, I'd like to be able to paint in it ]

What do you mean?  Pro Motion fully supports 8-bit palettes.

- Simple onion skinning. Pro Motion's method is so aggravatingly arcane.

It's as simple as clicking on the layers icon...Or are you not using the latest version?  Even in version 5 it was easy to use, though.

- Tile view option (to make sure everything lines up - rendering tiles in a 9x9 grid of the same tile while you work on them)

I'm fairly certain the new Pro Motion does this.  Extensive improvements were made to the tile drawing interface for version 6.

- Layers.

Pro Motion 6 has these.

And my favourite:

- Support for removing and adding in shortcuts to customise our interface to what we need it for (I might not need the Isometric functions so much, but will need the Tile View. Others might need the Iso functions to be right there.)

Pro Motion has always supported the adding of shortcuts for every function.


I've used the program steadily since its' debut so there's probably no one more savvy with its workings except Jan Zimmerman himself.


As far as art programs go, I don't see much point in re-inventing the wheel.  With Pro Motion around, and to a lesser extent Graphics Gale since it is free (or DPaint IV if you can get and use it), there's really no need for yet another pixel art program.  Something like InCreator's idea for an isometric-specific art utility would be fresh and very useful for a lot of people, so trying something new is something to consider.

[Trent R]

As for the libraries I have no idea yet to be honest. I was searching for some books concerning programing 2d graphics but I didnt find much. I'm not sure if GDI+ will be enough for that

Maybe I'm an idiot and I'm hearing you wrong, but XNA has a graphics content pipeline....

A suggestion about shortcuts: Adobe Premiere had fully customizable shortcuts, for every function. But they also had shortcut templates (or called something like that) so if would automatically set up shortcuts to copy Premiere CS3, Final Cut, and other video editing programs. And of course, you could export your own preferences.

Although many graphics programs have fairly identical shortcuts, this wouldn't hurt to add in later in your development. And, this forum is the perfect source to ask "Hey, what are the shortcuts for Graphics Gale?" or such.


~Trent

[LGM]

Progz, from what I can see, the idea is to create a program as good as Pro Motion but for free.

My personal advice? See if there is an open-source pixel program or similar out there written in code you are comfortable in, and then shape it into your own, adding the features suggested here and improving others existing.

[Ubel]

My personal advice? See if there is an open-source pixel program or similar out there written in code you are comfortable in, and then shape it into your own, adding the features suggested here and improving others existing.

I doubt this would work since plagiarizing is very much frowned upon in academia. In fact, it can get you suspended, at least around here.

[SpacePaw]

I doubt this would work since plagiarizing is very much frowned upon in academia. In fact, it can get you suspended, at least around here.

Yeah that's true. Besides, most of the better free graphic programs have no source code released for public use anyway.

Progz - I thought that GraphicsGale was shareware? Besides, I dont want to make just another copy of it. I want to make free tool as good as it and full of new interesting tools, options and ideas Isometric toolbox is one of the things I'm sure I will include. How about the ability to make your own 1-3 tone brushes? Painting stripes in 2 different shades, or colorful dot patterns etc would be easier then. That's a sure thing to be there too. And auto outline brush? where the shape you draw has a 1 pixel (or more if user wishes to) outline of specified color? There are things that arent too hard to program but can be really useful. I'm looking for ideas like that for you to speed up the process of creation

[Makeout Patrol]

I'll chime in and say that the chances that I would use this program would decline severely if there isn't a Mac version. If you had a Mac version I have no doubt that it would become a hell of a lot more popular since the only decent free pixel-art program available for OS X is Pixen, which appears not to be in development anymore and is alarmingly buggy.

[LUniqueDan]

One word : Edges.

The possibility to set quickly (and save it) a zone where nothing (brushes, pasted items, lavers)  can move in on a given canevas size. 

Good idea of project, btw. 

[Layabout]

Makeout Patrol, why don't you just do what every other mac user does when they need to run a decent program and run windows on your Mac. It's one of the major selling points of the Macs nowadays.

Anyway, enough mac badmouthing.

I like the sound of this project. I have tried out pro motion, but none of the features have really made me think to myself, ooh! I need to fork out my cash to buy that. A pixel targeted graphics program is a good idea, after all, I did my first bit of pixelart in dPaint.

[Ghost]

How about the ability to make your own 1-3 tone brushes? Painting stripes in 2 different shades, or colorful dot patterns etc would be easier then. That's a sure thing to be there too. And auto outline brush? where the shape you draw has a 1 pixel (or more if user wishes to) outline of specified color?

I am falling in love with that project. Sounds all really good- luck on yer!

[cat]

Tools for manual dithering, maybe something like predefined masks where you just paint over.

[InCreator]

Tools for manual dithering, maybe something like predefined masks where you just paint over.

I second this. Or rather - ability to make that dithered gradient DeluxePaint and old LucasArts games have.

[SpacePaw]

Tools for manual dithering, maybe something like predefined masks where you just paint over.

Maybe something like greyscale mask where ligter/darker areas define amount of dithering?

[DutchMarco]

If I may add my 2 cents: I must say that C# Looks good on paper, but in my experience, the real thing (at least talking about the visual studio express version) the paper seems to promise more than the real thing can deliver (talking about the .NET-bit). Also, I created a tiny program (a Gregoriancalendar-tool)  and in spte of it being so small, it does take very long to start up. I guess next time I'll try it in C++.

[RickJ]

Spacepaw, cudows for taking on such a challenge.  Is it your goal to make a paint program designed for the creation of game resources?   Since you are posting here I'll assume this is your idea and if it isn't may I suggest that perhaps such a goal would differentiate your project from all the other paint programs  and that it would be worth considering.       

Development Platform
If your project is going to be open source and you wish it to work on multiple platforms then I would suggest that you consider Qt.  Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX are supported.  Their development tools are also multi-platform and the resulting applications are fast, self-contained and not dependent on bloated runtime package.  It was recently acquired by Nokia who appear to have big plans and a commitgment to open source with regard to QT.

Animation Frames
Please make a convenient, automatic method of exporting animation frames to individual png files.  I really like how graphics gale does this and have found this to be the most accurate, reliable, and efficient means of importing sprites into AGS. 

Grids
Make your grid system automatically adjust to the zoom level.  Visio does this and now I can't live without it.   Having an iso-metric and other grid options would also be pretty  cool.

Guides
The paint programs I am familiar with have very limited or no support for creating guidelines.   Consequently I will use Visio ot sketch out a background, export the drawing to a PNG and then use Photoshop or whatever to paint in the details. 

I would like to suggest several different types of guides that would be useful. The first type is the normal horizontal and vertical guidelines that many programs allow you to drag on to the screen from screen rulers.   They are not part of the drawing and have behavior similar to the grid.  It possible to snap to a guide line the same as  snapping to a grid line.   It should be possible to reposition a guideline just by dragging it,

The second type of guide lines would be used for perspective.  It would be cool if you could create one or more points of perspective and drag lines from those points to the edge of the screen or to some location in the drawing.   These lines would be connected to the perspective points so if the such a point were moved (by dragging it) to another screen location  then all of  it's line would remain connected in the new location.   I suppose it would also be useful to create a non-connected perspective lines so that a photo or other image could be imported as a model and perspective lines drawn between or along references in the image. 

Both kinds of guidelines behave similar to the grid and can be setuo for snap-tooperation.  It would probably be a good idea to differentiate them from the grid  and each other by using different (configurable) colors. 

Vector Graphics
The third kind of guide I use is a vetor graphic sketch.  As I said before I use Visio to create a vector sketch of a background, export it to a png file, and then import it into a layer in Photoshop or other paint program.  From there I can place individual objects on specific layers by duping the vector layer and erasing the unwanted objects.   Detail can then be painted into the new layer using pixel art  techniques.   The process is repeated until the image detail is complete.

It would be cool if simple vector graphic elements (shapes) could be created and then later converted to pixels, perhaps via a context menu.  Another intriguing alternative  would be to maintain the individual vector objects as drawing surfaces.  So then you would sketch the background using vector elements (simple geometric shapes or collections/groups there of ).   Details would then be painted onto the object using pixel painting tools.    The objects could then be moved around, scaled/skewed to fit perspective, etc.   Each object could even have it's own set of layers.  It would be pretty  cool 

Shared/Community Resources
A while back one of our members, Mari, came up with an interesting way of quickly creating backgrounds.  It was discussed in this thread.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=33765.0

Basically there  would be one or more models for a background.  The model would dictate such things as scale,perspective, etc.   There would be a library of layers that could be selectively applied to the model to create a background image.

This is similar to the way Charas works to create character sprites for RPG games.   You can checkout Charas at their website here:

http://charas-project.net/charas2/index.php

Anyway I was thinking that it would be pretty cool if your editor was web/ftp enabled and was able to assign a file to a layer so that,  in addition to pixels and/or vectors,  a drawing could also consist of links to external files.   For example and object or layer would contain a file name instead pixels and vectors.   

If this sounds interesting we could certainly discuss  it in more detail.  Obviously the above explanation is not detailed enough to implement code.

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I have some other  ideas and can expand upon some of the above if you are interested.  I hope my comments are in some way helpful or inspirational.