SEDS : Pixels in your Pocket

[PypeBros]

Hello there.

My pixel art editor for the Nintendo DS system is finally mature enough to deserve an announcement here. So if you have a homebrew-ready nintendo DS and feel like drawing at the busstop, in the subway, during latin courses (not math courses, right, you'll need them later to become a video game designer , wherever, Sprite Editor for DS is exactly what you'll need.

SEDS is a typical sprite-editor-in-a-grid featuring two grid sizes (16x16 and 32x32) tuned for stylus-powered edition. The figure above show you SEDS control in the regular "edition mode". The L button is like the "apple" button on an Macintosh computer: it lets you trigger 'alternate' functions on the objects. For instance, touching the grid with your stylus paint in the current color while holding L and clicking the grid will change the current color to the color you've clicked. Similarily, clicking a sprite in the "spritesheet" (on the right of the screen) loads it in the grid and L-clicking the spritesheet saves back the content of the grid.

Getting Started

    * draw simply by touching the grid, select a new color by touching it in the palette on the left
    * A = pencil tool, L+B = "horizontal flood fill"
    * X/Y : automated "darken/lighten" brushes
    * B = block tool (clik the two corners separately to fill it)
    * L+R held together : show some more help

Saving/resuming your work

SEDS manages 4 sprite sets, stored at the root of your media card, named SPRITEA.SPR, SPRITEB.SPR, SPRITEX.SPR and SPRITEY.SPR, which lets you quickly save your work by pressing START-R-(ABXY) and load it back with START-L-(ABXY). An additional backup level let you "archive" a spriteset in the /data/seds directory when you overwrite it with some new data.

You can escape the 32x32 (or 16x16) limitation through the "cursor" that appears when you press R. you can then move to any square region of your spritesheet and load/store the content of the grid from that position.

A small "tutorial mode" is built-in and available by pressing L and R buttons simulatenously (though only ~50% of the most frequent actions are covered so far). There is also a built-in palette editor (press SELECT), a drafty animation test mode (press L-SELECT) and the ability to convert .spr files into .png either using a shipped script or via this online conversion tool

Let me know whether you find it useful, handy or ugly to use. I'm also eager to know what additional feature you think that should be added, etc.

Have a nice pixel ^_^

PS: SEDS art can be directly reused by sidekick projects "Level editor on DS" and "Anim Editor on DS" ... and the open-source game engine used for Apple Assault. More detail on my blog

[PypeBros]

it is currently written in C++, mostly because i wanted to take it as an excuse to learn C++ and practice OO programming.
I thought about using something like libpng for storing images, but importing libraries for a new programming environment is not exactly my teacup. Moreover, i plan to use this as a first brick for a "game maker on DS" application suite, so having my own file format allow me to store more information about pixels (such as collision areas) and let room for "sharing tiles" between logical "meta-tile" (e.g. a 16x16 block that you'll use to fill your map).

Btw, the color editor is present, even though it still lacks the most elementary hints for the end-user. I will work on a sort of "rasters database" where colors could be stored and reused across different pieces. So far, all that exists for that purpose is a Perl script that beams the color of an image over WiFi so that you can add them to your palette (yeah, i tend to overuse WiFi for such a simple program).

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions. If you have comments on usability after giving it a test, you're *very* welcome, since i really lack beta-testing artists (not just homebrew developers). I truly hope you'll find it handy.

[PypeBros]

Thanks for your feedback. I'll see what can be done. Customizing what is on the "handling hand" would indeed be a good start ... so far it is tuned on how *i* pixel, i admit ... meaning e.g. that arrows are used to navigate within a raster because i'm somehow a "many-shades" guy.

Following your advice might not necessarily mean "redo from scratch", but it will certainly require a fork ... which might not be a bad thing either.

Plenty of time this (offline) week-end to think about it.

[Xion]

but where is the color palette?

[lithander]

this sounds really interesting, but could anyone tell me what I need to do to make my DSi "homebrew-ready"? In ohter words: what do I do with *.nds file after downloading it?

[Kasumi]

Buy a DSi compatible flash card and put it on a microSD card that goes into the flash card.

Something like supercard DSTwo.

Though I don't own a DSi, so I don't know the best thing on the market for it. DS Lite is easier to shop for, as Nintendo doesn't update them to block this sort of product.

[lithander]

Thanks! I'll ordered one of the cards you mentioned as the reviews I found sounded good as far as I understood what they were talking about! Really curious how hard it is to develop for the handhelds. Being able to code in C++ sounds promising.

[PypeBros]

Really curious how hard it is to develop for the handhelds.

There are some odds, of course, esp. as you turn to 3D (afaik) or due to the asymmetry of the ARM7/ARM9 duo, but for everything else, having memory-mapped registers for the palette, sprites positions and input devices is  ... yummy.

[CrazyMLC]

This is really cool! Just more inspiration to get a DSi.

But, judging from the control picture, it doesn't look very user friendly...

[PypeBros]

But, judging from the control picture, it doesn't look very user friendly... Sad

It is crude, non-appealing, I have to admit that, and certainly have a boring learning curve due to the lack of on-screen options. I'm unlikely to be a good judge of this, since I know the feature before it even gets implemented
I gave "pop-up controls" a try in a sibling project (the level editor), but they aren't really convincing (they feel disturbing, imho). And screen flipping is pretty annoying as well.

By the way, it now has a palette editor feature embedded.

If you had to name two features that are missing and are must-have, what would it be ?

My most complete "user guide" is available here