AuthorTopic: Best Pixeling Software  (Read 7203 times)

Offline HappyFuntime

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Best Pixeling Software

on: November 16, 2010, 03:00:35 am
Hi Pixelation,

I'm new to pixelling, and wanted to get the community's feedback on what tools I should be using. What do you guys (and gals) think is currently the best software for making pixel art? I want to make animations so animation support is a must, preferably with onion skins. Sorry if this topic was already discussed elsewhere, but I'm interested in hearing people's current favorites, hopefully you can point me in the right direction.

(I was using Graphics Gale for the trial period, but its lack of support for copy/pasting color hex codes kind of put me off.)
Thanks

Offline Ai

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Re: Best Pixeling Software

Reply #1 on: November 16, 2010, 04:20:00 am
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=3467.0

Your requirements point at ProMotion.
For animation thumbnailing etc there are other things like KToon and Synfig-Studio,
and I personally like MyPaint to draw individual frames/using layers to get a sorta-onionskin effect (there are pixel brushes in the Experimental category of brushes).

Grafx2 supports color-cycling, if you need it; (but not animation).
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Offline Elk

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Re: Best Pixeling Software

Reply #2 on: November 16, 2010, 07:02:10 am
I think Photoshop is pretty up to par aswell :) I love it's hotkeys and everything...but since I do alot more than just PJ like CG and other stuff, it comes handy in total.
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Offline 9_6

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Re: Best Pixeling Software

Reply #3 on: November 16, 2010, 12:42:24 pm
If you wanna animate, you'll probably have a hard time finding something better than graphics gale.
At least for pixel art.
Does scaling an image blur it?
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Offline HappyFuntime

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Re: Best Pixeling Software

Reply #4 on: November 16, 2010, 03:24:07 pm
Cool, thanks guys.

@Ai: The link is much appreciated! That's exactly what I was looking for  ;D

Offline ptoing

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Re: Best Pixeling Software

Reply #5 on: November 16, 2010, 04:05:41 pm
ProMotion is very good for animation as well. And pixelart in general.
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Offline itoikenza

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Re: Best Pixeling Software

Reply #6 on: December 20, 2010, 03:46:52 pm
i'll check promotion out hope it's free...

Offline moket

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Re: Best Pixeling Software

Reply #7 on: December 20, 2010, 06:16:48 pm
Well ProMotion is not free but the price tag of  78.00$ is really worth the investment.
It speeds up tremendously the workflow.
I can't possibly imagine to work without it now, especially with all the export options and the tilemap completion feature (and so much more).
It's one of the best software I've ever used, the dev is clearly listening to the users and is answering quickly to e-mails.  8)

Offline setz

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Re: Best Pixeling Software

Reply #8 on: December 23, 2010, 03:56:22 am
Pro Motion is the best piece of software I've ever bought. It took me a bit of getting used to at first, but it just makes my workflow go so much faster. Much to my delight, I started some game design recently, and with the tilemap features, I didn't even need to create a level editor, I can do it all in one place.

Now if only it had a native Linux port  :crazy:

Offline Argyle

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Re: Best Pixeling Software

Reply #9 on: December 23, 2010, 02:19:10 pm
I jumped the ship from using GraphicsGale/Photoshop as my main pixeling programs to using ProMotion [almost] exclusively. It is a very different feel from other graphic programs so it definitely is something you have to want to learn how to use, but it is well worth it, and I do a lot of pixel art animation.

You can make your onionskinning behave exactly how you want it to, whether you want to see a copy of every other frame within 10 frames in front of or behind the current frame you're working on, with half of the onion layers showing as transparent previews and the other half of them showing as specifically colored silhouettes... however you want to set it up.

The thing that took a lot of getting used to, for me, was that the layering is done differently than most programs approach layering.  You create stacks of files.  So the layer your background is on would be one file, whereas the foreground layers would each be their own files as well, and changes you make to them can be saved or discarded independently.  (though I guess you could have each layer just be a frame of the current file, never thought of that... might have to play with that workflow and see how I like it :P)

So yeah, if you're serious about wanting a bitmap/pixel art tailored program, ProMotion is really a strong contender because you can do so much with it.  But GrafX2 is really getting nice, especially for a free program that works on any platform. And it just added layering support semi-recently.  I'm sure they'll add animation to the mix sooner or later.