Good spriter

[bigsofty]

Can anyone recommend a good piece of 'cheap' software for 2D spriting? Not essential but onion skinned animation and sprite sheet support would be a big bonus too.

[Kuron]

Pro Motion is the best.  GraphicsGale is the second best.

[bigsofty]

OK, thanks Kuron, I think I will go with GraphicsGale as the free-ware version seems to cover all my needs, actually the full priced version has, strangely, very little features over the free-ware version. Nice find! 

[erico]

try grafx2 here:
http://code.google.com/p/grafx2/

you should also look into pd pro here:
http://www.thebest3d.com/pdpro/index.html

grafx2 is free, pd pro has a free version too, go check, they both are similar to dpaint in a way and
are really cool, maybe we should list cool free apps in a thread to help everybody out?

have fun

[doimus]

GraphicsGale is great for simple pixel-pushing and animation with onion skinning. For simple pixel art it's blazing fast.

But if you want more complex sprite editing, like arranging animations into spritesheets, or sorting colours by value, or doing some retro graphics with fancy gradients and dithering, or having various brushes readily available, then ProMotion is really the only option. Gradient and palette editors in PM are fantastic!

But there are some areas where GGale is actually better than ProMotion: GG can read true-color images and convert it into whatever bit-depth you need. That's fantastic if you're doing 16bpp or 15bpp graphics. PMotion works with 256 color indexed graphics exclusively.
Also, GG's interface seems snappier to me at least.

GRAFX2 is also nice, if you can stand the MS-DOS user interface. It's basically an open source clone of Deluxe Paint, stuck in 1994. Pro Motion is like Deluxe Paint from... the FUTURE! 


I'm a huge fan of pixel art software. Although I've got license for ProMotion, both Graphics Gale and Grafx2 have shortcuts on my desktop. I even occasionally fire up Deluxe Paint in DOS/Amiga emulator.

[Kuron]

My problem is I have the software, but lack the artistic talent.  And trying to find a 2D artist who is willing to work on freeware games is impossible.

[Wampus]

I LOVE GraFX2 when it comes to supporting old image file formats and/or upgrading Amiga, Atari or Spectrum sprites that I've ripped.

GraphicsGale is what I use for careful 2D sprite editing, although I have limited experience of it.

When it comes to commercial editors Pro Motion seems OK but I already have a copy of Photoshop so won't buy anything else unless I really needed it. I can do pretty much anything with PS that I might want - I have a lot of control and power.

My problem is I have the software, but lack the artistic talent.  And trying to find a 2D artist who is willing to work on freeware games is impossible.

Must be hard! I'm betting that if you can show off some good game mechanics the chances of getting help from a 2D artist are greater.

[bigsofty]

All good suggestions, I will probably be adding them all to my arsenal as you can't have too much variety when it comes to these type of utils. 

[Kitty Hello]

I tired many of these, but I have no success in using transparent PNG images.
I "just" want to have an option to draw to the alpha channel instead of RGB, and an option to visualize the transparent pixels. Either I'm too stupid or it just doesn't work.
I started doing all my graphics with Corel Draw (vector), using a grid and drawing rectangles instead of pixels. Yes, I know...

[quangdx]

+1 for Graphics Gale Free for me,
it's been my favourite pixel pusher for many years now.

[erico]

posted this somewhere else but better put it here too:

http://fenixblade.allegronetwork.com/nav_mo.htm

moai is like autodesk animator, seems to handle pixels, animation and pallete quite nice.

[bigsofty]

Thanks Erico, you ca t have enough of these old school sprite utils in your arsenal! 

[spicypixel]

I tired many of these, but I have no success in using transparent PNG images.
I "just" want to have an option to draw to the alpha channel instead of RGB, and an option to visualize the transparent pixels. Either I'm too stupid or it just doesn't work.
I started doing all my graphics with Corel Draw (vector), using a grid and drawing rectangles instead of pixels. Yes, I know...

ProMotion allows you to draw to the Alpha channel

[erico]

ProMotion allows you to draw to the Alpha channel

yep, so does gimp, I find good solution to use pixel programs but I get everything closed down on photoshop/gimp, just like post processing work on other areas, it is really hard for me to escape such pipelines on gfx.

You can do wonders without it, and some people don´t even need it, but I can´t without such.

[Ruidesco]

I use GIMP, which might be overkill for just pixeling and its interface makes people turn away, but I grew accustomed to using layers and layer effects to be using anything else now.