I made my own Sprite Editor in Godot

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Like I’m not busy enough already… Making a game (more details coming soon!), working hard to open a game development studio, Orama Interactive, and become a full time indie developer, studying for uni… you name it! But of course I wouldn’t stop playing with new ideas and projects, even though I have other things to do. But I digress. This time I created my own sprite editor named Pixelorama entirely within Godot, using GDScript.

My goal is to make a free & open-source sprite editor, for all things pixel art. It started entirely as an experiment, to see if I can provide my dearly beloved artist teammates with a pixel art tool that would suit our team’s needs. I used Godot to do it, because, why not? To mine and everyone’s surprise, the tool started turning out better than I expected. So I thought, what the hell, why don’t I release it for everyone, for free?

So today, I am releasing Pixelorama v0.1 source code for everyone, on Github! Pixelorama supports:

  • Choosing between 3 tools – pencil, eraser and fill bucket – and mapping them to both of your left and right mouse buttons. That’s, pretty wild, huh?
  • Different colors for each of the mouse buttons.
  • Creating a new canvas with a size of your choosing.
  • Importing PNG and JPEG images, and edit them inside Pixelorama.
  • Export your gorgeous art as PNG files.
  • Create straight lines for pencil and eraser by holding down Shift while you draw.
  • The middle mouse wheel isn’t forgotten, you can use it to pan around the canvas and by scrolling up and down, you can zoom in and out!
  • Keyboard shortcuts! I’m pretty sure this is a lifesaver for most of you.
  • Just like onions, Pixelorama has a multiple layer system! You can add, remove, move up and down, clone and merge as many layers as you like!
  • It’s freeeeeee! And open source!

Mesmerizing (?) pixel art in action

And that’s not all, folks! Future versions (may) include:

  • It’s aliiiiiive! Animation system with its own timeline to bring your art to life.
  • Onion skinning for your animation needs.
  • More tools! But I’m not saying what they will be. I’d hate to kill the suspense.
  • More options for the tools, like changing the size of the brush. And maybe even changing the brush itself, we’ll see!
  • An undo/redo system. This was supposed to be included in v0.1, but it made my life even harder that it already is, so, I decided to skip it for now. For now.
  • Although intended as a standalone tool, I am also considering to make Pixelorama a plugin for Godot’s editor. There is a lot of demand for it to become a plugin, apparently.
  • Your ideas! Give me your feedback on Pixelorama and I will do my best to make it the best it can be, for you! And don’t forget, it’s freeeeeeee and open source! You are free to modify Pixelorama in whatever way you like! Just don’t take full credits for yourself, though. That’s a jerky thing to do.

Now, I really should get back to developing my game. A polished demo must be ready soon, if we want to attend a certain event. But that’s a story for another blog post! If you’re interested in keeping up to date with me and my team, Orama Interactive, make sure to follow this blog and our social media, which can be found in our website.

As you can see, I’m currently very busy with a lot of stuff, so I won’t have the time to work on Pixelorama as much as I should. If you believe in our vision and you’d like to help me, consider donating on PayPal and supporting me on Ko-Fi! Any contribution would help tremendously! Thanks in advance, and see you in our next blog post adventure!

Github repository for Pixelorama: https://github.com/Orama-Interactive/Pixelorama

Stand-alone version of Pixelorama: https://orama-interactive.itch.io/pixelorama