Pixelation
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: hapiel on February 25, 2017, 10:14:02 am
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Hey all,
I've always used a combination of GraphicsGale and Grafx2 for my pixels. I don't like either of them, but they do most of their job quite fine. Drawing in Grafx2 and animating in GG.
Now I'd love to have some software that has it all in one. Which works in a way that I like.
This summer I was on Ubuntu so I bought Aseprite, which looks nice, but I still haven't figured out how to properly manage the palette. Linking frames is a nice feature, but too often I switch things around in the frame/layer window by accident, and when I want to do it on purpose it's hard.
I realized I also had a copy of ProMotion 6.5 which I bought in a bundle. I'm trying it out since today, and it looks like it can do most things I want it to do, except frame management is terrible! I've noticed in the new ProMotion NG displays frames better in the bottom scrollbar, but I can't test all it's features without buying it. For those experienced users:
Can you drag and drop frames in PM? Select multiple and copy & paste?
How do you enjoy animating in PM?
Perhaps I'll have to go back to GG again. I don't understand it's palette well and I dislike the single color single sized drawing tool, but it's the only software with proper frame control & preview.. right? :/
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I can't give any advice on promotion, it confused me every time I've used it :crazy: Though I have heard animating in it is not ideal.
But for graphicsgale the pencil tool is totally customisable with patterns and brush shapes (can't do it on the fly like in promotion though) so depending on what you want to do there you can probably figure out how to do it. As for the palette I'm not sure what your issue is, seems pretty straight forward to me.
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I had a go at dragging frames with every modifier but couldn't find any way to move frames at all with out grabbing frame contents, creating new frame, placing brush and deleting old frame. But then I've never really used PMs animation function so I may be missing something.
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Mind you, I currently havn't used GG since at least half a year, but:
No brush control on the fly. Can't enlarge the single pixel brush with a shortkey, I'd have to prepare a file with custom brush sizes to begin with and I've always been too lazy to do that for brushes which remain uncomfortable to use.
Palette: Frustratingly large window, I don't need 256 colors just 32 max? Second color, is it's only function for quick swapping?
What is the greyscale bar for above the color sliders? The extra background color hidden in the object properties has often caught me offguard when trying to change backgrounds/export transparant/things, can't remember exactly what but for some reason you need to set that right.
TBH, I had some more questions, but realizing what they were specificly made me look them up in the help file, for the first time. Thanks for that :)
@Surt
Thanks for the info :)
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Palette: Frustratingly large window, I don't need 256 colors just 32 max?
Same problem with Pro Motion unfortunately.
What is the greyscale bar for above the color sliders?
That's for alpha value selection.
I haven't really used Aseprite's anim features yet as I hate animating with a vengeance, but I would have thought they'd be superior to GGale in every way now.
PM has stylus pressure support in beta now. GGale now claims to have stylus support but I can't for the life of me figure out what it does.
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I haven't really used Aseprite's anim features yet as I hate animating with a vengeance, but I would have thought they'd be superior to GGale in every way now.
I had hoped so. Their layer support in animations is much better, layers in GG aren't linked and it's a pain to add them later on.
However, frame management is not very intuitive or extended, previewing and naming frames & layers is not possible, and moving multiple frames at once seems to be not possible.
Also, I find GG's palette a bit confusing, but Aseprite's one even much more! I don't know if I can merge/copy colors, there is a color picker always on screen but if you want to adjust a color you actually have to open the palette editor. It's nice though that they have a lot of common palettes included for easy access.
Oh, I wish I could design my own Grafx2/Aseprite/Graphicsgale/Photoshop hybrid... ::)
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...naming frames & layers is not possible...
Name layers in layer properties. You can tag frame ranges (add a label above them) by selecting a range, right-clicking on the frame numbers and selecting New Tag (much nicer than individual frame naming).
...moving multiple frames at once seems to be not possible.
Select a range of frames, then drag the frame around them (that's the non-obvious bit), same with colours in the palette.
I don't know if I can merge/copy colors...
As above select and drag frame and hold control when releasing to copy colour. Don't know about merging.
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There's new shortcuts in GG for scrolling through palette entries. You can also set a hotkey for switching to transparency which I find useful. Setting up brushes the first time is kind of annoying but you only ever have to do it once so it's worth it. Still no hotkey for scrolling through brushes as far as I know but you can do it using an external program like I outlined here (http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=17943.msg160215#msg160215).
Layers between frames are linked by the layer name so as long as you keep on top of those ~most~ functions are covered. Only annoying thing is adding a new layer to all frames, which I do with a new layer shortcut (or more accurately I use paste layer with a blank selection of my transparent colour) and a next frame shortcut and I just quickly alternate tapping them. Definitely not ideal but it's not too bad, generally just try to set up your layers beforehand. Layer properties can be modified across all frames in the layer dropdown menu. The hidden transparency colour is in file>properties. I have no idea what it's really for but so long as you know it's there. You also have layer and frame transparency where only frame transparency actually effects exported files.
If you need help with any other convoluted GG stuff just ask, I have a system for everything since I'm animating in it everyday :lol: It's a pain in the ass for some things but it does work if you put a bit of effort into setting it up right to begin with.
There may well be a better alternative, I've just stuck with it cause I know it haha. There have been a lot of updates lately to help with all this stuff so no doubt it will be better than last time you used it and will continue to improve.
Edit: Also for surt I imagine the pressure stuff relates to the "paint mode" tool that I've never touched, I think PPD must use it though.
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Second color is also used for dither patterns as the other color.
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Can you be more specific of what "properly manage a palette" means?
Essentially how a lot of things with regards to frames and palettes work in Aseprite. Click and drag to select, click and drag the yellow outline to move. Edit (Guess surt already said this, whoops)
previewing ... frames not possible
(http://i.imgur.com/XhrjVkp.gif)
The above is beta only. The beta is quite stable, though. If you've got Aseprite on steam, do this: https://www.aseprite.org/beta/
If not, ask for a Steam key.
naming ... layers is not possible
(http://i.imgur.com/LHqDJsz.gif)
You got me on naming frames. You can add user data to cels, but it's not helpful for what you probably use it for in GG.
moving multiple frames at once seems to be not possible.
(http://i.imgur.com/CnIunUL.gif)
It's possible if the frames are contiguous or non contiguous.
You can also link non contigous cels (but only on the same layer) which seems to slip under a lot of people's radar.
(http://i.imgur.com/i7kQyOh.gif)
Essentially in a layer in "continuous" mode, control+click and drag creates a linked cel. In a "discontinuous" layer, that will copy.
I don't know if I can merge/copy colors
(http://i.imgur.com/0hBltYn.gif)
Control+click to copy.
I don't know quite what merge means. Give a specific use case? In the very worst case, you can quickly replace a color across all layers and frames. (If you wanted to make say... index 8 use index 0.)
Edit: Hmm... actually, it probably means merge duplicate colors. Like if you have two of the same red in the palette. If that's what you mean I can think of a way to do it, but a better way should exist. Confirm that's what you want and I'll open an issue on github.
if you want to adjust a color you actually have to open the palette editor.
You can freely add colors to the current Aseprite palette with one click. How does a program that handles "adjust a color" do it better, though? Because the Aseprite dev is pretty open to suggestions, you could probably get the behavior you want.
This may sound a bit snarky, but looking for a new program (Pro Motion), and then looking through the help of that new program without looking through the help of the first program (Aseprite) is puzzling to me. There are some things about Aseprite that aren't the most intuitive, but Pro Motion is really not the route to go for intuitive.
If you give more specific GG actions you want to do, I can probably tell you how to do them in Aseprite. Just... be specific, because I don't use much Gale. Know Aseprite is a lot more powerful than people seem to think!
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How does a program that handles "adjust a color" do it better, though?
GGale has the colour adjustment sliders always visible so there is minimal burden to tweak colour values. Aseprite allows you to leave the palette editor open while you work, but you have to reopen it every time you launch the program and in a (usually somewhat broken) floating window too. Also no HSL.
Is there any way to swap/replaces colour in the palette with a single drag+modifier like in GGale?
For merging colours multiselect then merge-as-average or merge-as-first/last would be a nice feature that is lacking in all pixel editors AFAIK.
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Can you be more specific of what "properly manage a palette" means?
Thank you for your info, that was very useful!
I was able to activate my steam key. I don't like starting software through steam, but I guess it will just be a matter of time before I can access the new version somewhere else :). The frame previewing function is super useful! I do have a couple of comments on it:
Could it work that you have a complete frame overview somewhere? Like if I have 7 layers, I migth not want to view them separately but still want a quick frame overview from all layers together.
Could I set myself what kind of bg I want for transparant? Small objects are hard to read on the checkerboard background, I would set this to white myself.
Why is the checkerboard surface larger than the actual image? If I set the zoom even higher the checkerboard space grows yet the image doesn't!
Now onwards to palette control:
I had never realized I could drag and drop colors. Dragging and dropping from the edges is not very intuitive to me, it took me a while to figure how to copy colors even after watching your demonstration! I would have found it sooner if I could move holding shift and copy holding control, but could just select in the middle of any selected color. I have this same issue with moving frames/layers.
My ideal palette functions would look a bit like Grafx2's. I am missing (or havn't found yet):
Move indexes around. If I want to reorganize my palette, I would need to move the position of the indexes in the palette. This would be useful for creating new ramps with the gradient function too.
Merge colors, I actually meant merge indexes. For example I might have 2 sprites from different sources in my canvas and I want them both to use the same palette. I'd like to drag the new colors onto the old colors (which is already possible with the copy function) and then remove the old ones, which is essentially merging indexes. Of course I can remove all duplicate colors at once through "create palette from current sprite", which is a good start.
Removing indexes... the only way to remove colors now is to first move them to move them to the end and then slide them away? But again, this doesn't work with indexes. if your drawing is already finished, its wonky.
As for color picking, I'd love to have the "palette editor" on screen all the time. It could replace the color picker at the left bottom, which confuses me anyway. The palette editor remains nice for adjusting relative color on multiple colors at once.
Really nifty in GraphicsGale is its load palette function. In their interface you can manually remap your sprite, or copy only specific colors, or leave specific old colors intact, when you import another color.
(http://i.imgur.com/t0PUXpq.png)
In grafx2 I use some tricks to get a similar effect, mostly moving the palette to a different spot in the image and then copying a selection of colors, or making a custom brush and then importing the brush colors. The easiest way in asesprite to do this is to switch to full color mode, then paste an external image in the canvas you're working on, and then switch back to index mode. I guess that works, but doesn't give you full control.
Lastly, not mentioned earlier yet: Hold shift in draw mode to create a straight line would make my life easier.
Thanks so much for developing this tool, now that I know of frame preview, I'll give it another shot. It does have a lot of fancy features indeed..
EDIT:
Another thing that has bothered me a lot in Aseprite when editing tilesets, is that I can't snap selections to a grid! I can make perfect 32x32 selections, but then moving my tile over the canvas I have to place it perfectly manually.. :/
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GGale has the colour adjustment sliders always visible so there is minimal burden to tweak colour values. Aseprite allows you to leave the palette editor open while you work, but you have to reopen it every time you launch the program and in a (usually somewhat broken) floating window too. Also no HSL.
(http://i.imgur.com/n0AXhpC.gif)
You can also leave the foreground color open (have to click and drag a bit to set it to a pinned state). This allows you to adjust the color without changing the palette color itself. But yes, most of the same caveats.
Is there any way to swap/replaces colour in the palette with a single drag+modifier like in GGale?
You can replace with the copy, paste hotkey in place of the drag. So you can unhide the things in ptoing's robot picture. (http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/40044.htm)
(http://i.imgur.com/Zm7AQqB.gif)
And... hah. While I just figured out a cute way to swap single colors, it's not as good as GG's for sure.
(http://i.imgur.com/iiOIYqA.gif)
It'd be alright if you could set reverse colors to a hotkey, but you can't right now. :'(
So short answer, no, longer: I think replace is comparable as far as speed, "swap" is not.
For merging colours multiselect then merge-as-average or merge-as-first/last would be a nice feature that is lacking in all pixel editors AFAIK.
Ah. Yeah, that's a good idea. There's a thing like that for gradients in a lot of stuff, so this type of merge doesn't seem too out of the question.
I don't like starting software through steam,
Then it's a good thing you don't need to! Aseprite is DRM free, so you can just double click the exe and steam won't launch. I have a shortcut to it.
Could it work that you have a complete frame overview somewhere?
You appear to be out of luck there, for now.
Could I set myself what kind of bg I want for transparant?
Yup.
(http://i.imgur.com/hqAb4u2.png)
Why is the checkerboard surface larger than the actual image? If I set the zoom even higher the checkerboard space grows yet the image doesn't!
If I'm understanding correctly, that's fixed with Apply Zoom?
Merge colors, I actually meant merge indexes. For example I might have 2 sprites from different sources in my canvas and I want them both to use the same palette. I'd like to drag the new colors onto the old colors (which is already possible with the copy function)
Does this gif look like it'd do what you want?
(http://i.imgur.com/Zm7AQqB.gif)
Select the new colors, press control+C (Copy), select the first old color, press control+V (Paste).
If you truly want to get rid of the old colors, you can use control+X (cut) instead of control+c(copy)
Am I understanding correctly?
As for color picking, I'd love to have the "palette editor" on screen all the time.
You are free to have it open all the time, but I know it's not as good a solution as what you really want. I think someone made an issue for this, but I looked and could not find it.
Really nifty in GraphicsGale is its load palette function. In their interface you can manually remap your sprite, or copy only specific colors, or leave specific old colors intact, when you import another color.
That is indeed a really nifty interface. There's nothing comparable in Aseprite that I'm aware of. You can copy and paste palette colors from different tabs a bit like described above, but that doesn't even let you see both palettes at once.
Thanks so much for developing this tool,
I uh... didn't! I'm just a groupie. I have read most of the commits from the past few years which is why I know so many silly obscure things. But nope, I'm not dacap.
Another thing that has bothered me a lot in Aseprite when editing tilesets, is that I can't snap selections to a grid! I can make perfect 32x32 selections, but then moving my tile over the canvas I have to place it perfectly manually.. :/
I recall some weirdness as far as drawing with snap to grid, to fix something someone else didn't like, heh.
But doesn't drag+alt do what you want as far as moving tiles? (Note, alt opens the color picker by default, so it really does have to be drag then alt.
(http://i.imgur.com/66SfRwI.gif)
Edit: Oh yeah, if you double click a tile with the select tool active, Aseprite will select that tile. It seems like you know this since you said you could easily make tile selection, but just in case. You can do both of the above things without snap to grid even being enabled.
It wasn't specifically asked, but that question reminded me of my favorite "hidden" Aseprite feature. Spacebar lets you move some operations before you commit them.
(http://i.imgur.com/OCilcfZ.gif)
If you start the line tool, of the rectangle tool, or the rectangle select tool etc in the wrong place, you can just hold space bar and move it. Don't need to click again to start a new operation.
Okay, probably done editing.
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You can actually do a lot of neat color stuff by changing the color modes, cel-based allows (allowed? not sure if it still works since I don't use it anymore in favor of the non-contiguous fill tool) for sprite-wide color changing.
Also, yeah, you can get copies of the software across other platforms by messaging the devs. I got my steam copy that way so I could try some of the neat beta features, like the sprite rotoscopy tool!
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Thanks again for all the detailed info, you're a great groupie :)
Alt + drag is great, that helps me a lot!
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Merge colors, I actually meant merge indexes. For example I might have 2 sprites from different sources in my canvas and I want them both to use the same palette. I'd like to drag the new colors onto the old colors (which is already possible with the copy function)
Select the new colors, press control+C (Copy), select the first old color, press control+V (Paste).
No, I'm aware that I can copy colors since your first post. I meant that you can't move & merge indexes. If you move a color, the index remains at it's original place, so moving colors automatically recolors your work
I never knew I could open (some) steam apps without steam!
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If you move a color, the index remains at it's original place, so moving colors automatically recolors your work
With or without remapping?
Aseprite lets you move colors AND recolor your work OR move colors and NOT recolor (but you have to click remap after such a move).
(http://i.imgur.com/vFjDOdZ.gif)
Here's an image with black on the left, white on the right (in both the palette AND the image). I swap black and white in the palette, and yes that switches them in the image. If that's what I wanted, I'm done. If I want it to look like the original image, just with the new palette configuration, I click remap.
Notice that after I click remap, the positions of black and white don't match like they did at the start. The copy paste I showed in the last post doesn't allow remap (which is why I use it as a "replace").
You can even load a palette with a different number of colors and remap. Even if it uses a totally different number of colors, Aseprite will figure it out.
(http://i.imgur.com/GGsvPQR.gif)
I may still be missing something, though.
Edit: Actual sprite since non abstract examples are cool:
(http://i.imgur.com/eq05Mjx.gif)
There's Elena. By not clicking remap, you can work with the new paletted image. By clicking remap, you can work with the image and the new colors.
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(http://i.imgur.com/n0AXhpC.gif)
You can also leave the foreground color open (have to click and drag a bit to set it to a pinned state). This allows you to adjust the color without changing the palette color itself. But yes, most of the same caveats.
Yep, that's just what I'm saying, except I'm talking about the palette editor, not the colour selector which is quite useless for colour-limited pixel art.
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the colour selector which is quite useless for colour-limited pixel art.
Agreed. That's what confused me so much, didn't understand why it was there! The palette editor is the only one I'd need, really...
@Kasumi
Thanks for pointing out the remap button! I had never copied or moved colors around before today, so I hadn't seen that thing either! That makes it workable, not the same as directly editing the indexes themselves but it does give a solution for all problems as far as I can imagine right now :)
EDIT:
Another question!
Can I resize a selected thing by percentage/pixels, or can I only do it with the sliders?
And yet another:
In graphicsgale I can import an animation from single frame files. Can I do this too in Aseprite without numbering my frames? Actually right now I just quickly want to merge single tiles into a tilesheet, for which this function has worked wonders. Import animation export as spritesheet :p
Aaaand another:
Can I delete the thing I have selected? Like erase it? now I have to cut it, which also removes whatever I had on my clipboard, or drag it out of the screen, which seems silly
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I guess it's worth saying: I make homebrew NES games. I work primarily with a fixed palette I have no control over. So advanced palette manipulation is not a thing I do. If you have need of a lot that, there are better programs for those needs. It's just that I often see, "Aseprite can't." And I'm like..., "But..." If you (or anyone) chooses Pro Motion or whatever over Aseprite knowing what both have, it's fine.
Here is the Aseprite issues list for feature requests and bugs: https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite/issues?q=is%3Aissue+sort%3Aupdated-desc
I will create some things there based on this topic, but anyone is free too. One of the very cool things about this program is that it gets a lot of updates, the dev is responsive to issues. It is certainly behind other programs in some aspects, but it is getting lots of features while they are not.
Agreed. That's what confused me so much, didn't understand why it was there!
The first answer: Aseprite is not an indexed only tool. RGBA can play too.
For pixel art purposes, it allows you to quickly add colors to the palette based on colors in the palette.
(http://i.imgur.com/BzQwrKR.gif)
It also allows you to paint with opacity or with whatever colors you want not in the palette. And the blended result will give you the closest color in the palette to what it would have been in RGB mode. (More or less.) This is a color not in the palette painted with 50% opacity.
(http://i.imgur.com/51cpKj6.gif)
If you don't mind a little dirty tools before your cleanup step. ;)
That makes it workable, not the same as directly editing the indexes themselves
Can you write a description or make of a gif of this in some other program? I'm afraid I haven't been able to understand. And while Aseprite surely can't, if it's an interesting thing I (or you) can request it.
Can I resize a selected thing by percentage/pixels, or can I only do it with the sliders?
Just sliders as far as I know.
Can I delete the thing I have selected? Like erase it? now I have to cut it, which also removes whatever I had on my clipboard, or drag it out of the screen, which seems silly
Are we talking about the pixels or the selection? Edit->Preferences->Editor->Keep Selection after "Edit > Clear" is a thing to maybe uncheck if it's checked.
When unchecked, delete (edit->clear) erases the pixels, and destroys the marquee.
If you want to destroy the marquee and apply pixels to the image, ctrl+D (Select->Deselect) works always.
Right clicking and dragging can also destroy parts of a selection or all off it.
In a certain mode of Aseprite (which I think is the default?) a single left click anywhere not on the selection with a select tool active will do it, which is probably closest to what you want as a GGgale user.
(http://i.imgur.com/wrwsrj2.png)
On the context bar with a selection tool updated are those buttons.
The left one means left clicking and dragging (without a modifier) will create a new selection.
Left clicking outside a selection (without a modifier, without dragging) destroys the current selection.
Right clicking (without a modifier) subtracts from the selection without destroying it.
(http://i.imgur.com/Bp4fO0W.gif)
The middle one is left clicking (without a modifier) adds to the selection.
Right Clicking (without a modifier) subtracts.
The right one, both left click (without a modifier) and right click (without a modifer) subtract from the selection. Which is more for people who like to switch than for general use.
You can add to the selection and subtract with modifiers regardless of mode as well. I like right click subtract, left click add and the hotkey for deselect.
Can I do this too in Aseprite without numbering my frames?
Nope, that's pretty cool in GGale!
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That makes it workable, not the same as directly editing the indexes themselves
Can you write a description or make of a gif of this in some other program? I'm afraid I haven't been able to understand. And while Aseprite surely can't, if it's an interesting thing I (or you) can request it.
Right now I'm editing a graphics file with 32 colors + transparency. Color 0 and 32 in the palette are both black. 0 refers to transparency and 32 refers to black on the canvas.
I want to switch the position of these two colors. but I can't assign the index 0 to all the black in the canvas, right?
In this example you see that all the colors stay in place on the canvas when I move them in the palette. The BG does change because this is the current trancparency color, which is set to index 32.
(http://i.imgur.com/46muUBh.gif)
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I can't assign the index 0 to all the black in the canvas, right?
I'm confused. Isn't that not what you have? You have a black index for that part that changes, and a different black index for all the parts that don't, right?
If you did want to make all the black in the canvas a certain index, you can ignore the index component and use a color replace. (using an RGB color for the "to replace" field and an index for the "replace with" field.)
(http://i.imgur.com/BQJP6uA.gif)
Note that the entire image reappears when the one index is edited.
As opposed to this where you don't ignore indexed:
(http://i.imgur.com/DTkarOh.gif)
Note that just one index reappears when the one index is edited. (Well, two indices, but the initially white one isn't visible on the canvas in the gif)
If you just want to swap indexes, you can do this:
(http://i.imgur.com/iiOIYqA.gif)
Which is admittedly kind of a hack, but still.
Basically x-swap is the above, swap is the above+click remap.
And if you want to change the transparent index, it's sprite, properties. You can click and drag from the current color to eyedrop or click and set it regularly.
But I might still be missing a "trick" in your image since I can't see the whole palette.
Is it that you have exactly one pink index, but you're somehow able to have only some of that pink change after the swap?
Or is it that you're using exactly one black index (in the image, not your palette obviously), but you're somehow able to have only some of that black change after the swap?
Or is it something else? In other words, I can totally set up a situation like that gif in Aseprite, but whether it actually matches your workflow I'm still not sure. Edit: It's also possible I'm dumb and you're showing what you don't want, and the edit color thing is what you were looking for. Well, let me know.
Trying Grafx2's palette editor, the things it has that Aseprite can't do seem to be merge (talked about earlier), swapping multiple palettes at once (due to the swap above being a hack), gray, neg, and the histogram.
Edit2: Actually one caveat. If you do the color replace like this, it seems to change the transparent index as well if it has the RGB value. If you don't want that, you can make it something that doesn't match the other indices. Since Aseprite can display the transparent color as checkerboard (or a solid color that doesn't match the actual RGB value of the index at all), you may as well change it. It's one color change vs. many for this use.
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Basically x-swap is the above, swap is the above+click remap.
I think it's the other way around as you say it is, but remapping after every reversal does allow me to modify indexes! Remap allows to merge too. I can make both colors which I want to merge the same, and then delete one of them and then remap.
I don't really understand what you're trying to show in the top two gifs, probably some confusion through my bad example/explanation ;)
Thanks for all of the insight, everything does seem possible with Aseprite though my workflow might not be used to it yet.
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Hapiel: In grafx2, you view/set the index of transparent color by clicking the LAYER icon in the layers/frames toolbar.