When I started making games, I was using Microsoft Paint and trying to build my sprite sheets. It was painful, tedious, and at times extremely frustrating. Today we check out Aseprite and how that has changed my workflow. I hope it can improve your workflow if you are still in the dark ages of pixel design.
Aseprite is an approachable editor that does not require hours of tutorials just to get started. Many of the controls and menus are all intuitive. With built-in support for transparency, pixel-perfect placement, and pressure-sensitive for your tablet workflow, it has been a game-changer in developing my pixel-based assets. No longer do you have to handcraft your sprite sheets. Or find some tool to combine exported frames to build them. Aseprite will generate the sprite sheet for you, and you can customize how to output the sprite sheet, including a metadata file if you want to consume in your game or give it to your developer, so they know how to import the asset into the game. The animation workflow is straightforward and easy to set your keyframes and have a quick scene sketched out in just a few minutes. Make it even more complicated by adding additional layers to your sprite sheets and animations, giving you a chance to create dynamic scenes. Add various weapons to your characters or swap out sections of your sprite sheet and import into your favorite engine and quickly have upgrade assets with little to no extra effort.
There are many more features and workflows that can be customized based on your needs. This tool is extremely flexible. If you rely on any pixel-based workflows, add Aseprite to yours and see if you can create shortcuts and templates that allow you to speed up your time to market. In this age of technology and competition to make your game look its best, this tool can help bring the indie community one step closer without having to put your company into debt.
The Editor
The editor itself is approachable. One of the best things about the program is how it is not trying to be the next Photoshop. Instead, the color palette and menus are streamlined to get you in to build your assets. I was able to get in and create a straightforward asset pretty quickly. It did not take a lot to figure out how layers and the different features in the application work. It has support for varying color modes and transparency, which is great for when you need to set up your assets a particular way for your game. There is support for pixel-perfect placement, and if you use a drawing tablet, pressure sensitivity is also included.
This tool is more than a glorified pixel placer application. By default, you do add pixels to a canvas block by block. But you can change the size and style of pixels. You can create customizable brushes quickly or use the circle, square, or line brush by default. You could create a character body brush that you use as a template to start a workflow. Or items such as different hairstyles. Things can be expanded on and changed for your needs, and as you explore more and find what works for you, you will find ways to speed up your workflow continually.
Creating Assets
I am in no means a talented artist. But I was able to create something I felt like I could use in a game and not cringe about its appearance. This tooling is by far the best way to create sprite assets that I have used. I have used Microsoft Paint, Photoshop, and even Affinity Designer. Aseprite has a lot of excellent tooling and shortcuts associated with it to streamline the development experience.
There are a lot of YouTube and tutorial sites on pixel art, and specifically, Aseprite has a community forum where you can ask questions, help or even review work you have done. The community is excellent and very active. If you have a specific workflow or something you are trying to accomplish, check to see if someone has already made a tutorial or post about it. If not, make a post, and you will have many people giving feedback.
Animating
The animating system is pretty straight forward and was surprised how quickly I was able to get something working. I generally struggle with keyframing and getting the next frame set up correctly. But Aseprite’s workflow was super easy. You can copy and paste your selection to each frame and modify it slightly for your needs. Quickly adding and removing the frames you need and then playing the animation sequence to see if the effect you were looking for was reached. This quick way to test your animation has been extremely clean.
You can additionally set the sprite transparency if you decide to change later how you are importing them. Whether it is the standard transparency with PNGs or if you use an opaque color like the traditional pink. You can then export as a sprite sheet, and it will create the animation offsets that you can then define when you import into your engine. This animation workflow can extend beyond game assets as well. You can create entire animation films with this tool.
Integrating with your favorite Game Engine
Instead of locking you into a single workflow when it comes to asset-building Aseprite lets, you work with what is expected for your game Engine. For instance, you can use Unity3D’s engine to import a sprite sheet and use the transparency on the PNG within Unity.
If you are reliant on color-based transparency and using a format like JPG while using MonoGame or another similar based engine, you can do that and choose an opaque color to use for transparency. There are other options that you can use to load into your engine, such as the export JSON along with your sprite sheet that gives you specific metadata and frame info for the sprite sheet. This can be helpful if you are streaming assets and want to load new images to a game, and you want to expand it to include new assets. Building out a system to read this data can speed up your workflow, so you don’t have to manually edit everything just because you want to use a new asset in your game.
Thank You
Check out Aseprite on Steam or directly from aseprite.org and get this tool for only $20. Considering I have over 240 hours spent in this tool, I feel I have gotten my money’s worth. And I believe you will too.
If you are looking for tutorials and a community to help you out, then check out the below resources!
- Aseprite Documentation
- Aseprite Community Forum
- Mort Mort’s Beginner’s Guide to Aseprite On YouTube
- There is many many more, feel free to search for your exact needs
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this article. I hope this has helped you get through a block or find a new tool without breaking the bank. This is a starting point for many new aspiring indie artists, and I hope this can help make those dreams more attainable.
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