Aseprite
Aseprite lets you create 2D animations for video games. From sprites, to pixel-art, retro style graphics, and whatever you like about the 8-bit and 16-bit era. It has a color mode, which tell you how many colors the image can handle. All images in the sprite are in one specific mode, you cannot mix RGB images with Indexed images in the same sprite. It contains a set of layers. You can see them in the Timeline. The most important concept here is that there are two kind of layers: the background layer for opaque sprites, and transparent layers. A sprite can contain only one background layer, but several transparent layers. It contains animation frames. Each frame has a duration, i.e. how many milliseconds the frame must be on screen when the animation is being played. Integrate Aseprite in your assets pipeline with the command-line interface (CLI). Store several animations in one texture atlas.
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Pixen
Pixen is a professional pixel art editor designed for working with low-resolution raster art, such as those 8-bit sprites found in old-school video games. Pixen packs all the tools pixel artists need in an intuitive, native interface including support for high zoom levels, animation editing, color palettes, and a lot more.
Leverage Pixen's wide array of tools when composing pixel art: Pencil, Eraser, Brightness, Text, Eyedropper, Zoom, Rectangular Selection, Magic Wand, Lasso, Move, Fill, Line, Rectangle, and Ellipse.
Take advantage of the flexibility layers provide when working with complex pixel art. Change opacity, blending modes, and more to compose creative effects.
Use filters to adjust colors, create effects, and post-process your artwork.
With Pixen, you can add and organize commonly-used colors into palettes. Pixen can even import and export color palettes in the Adobe Color Table, Microsoft Palette, JASC Palette, and GIMP Palette formats.
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SpriteCook
SpriteCook is an AI art tool that helps game developers create artwork around their own ideas. It’s built for the ongoing process of making a game: exploring a visual direction, trying different looks, and adding new assets as the project takes shape.
You can start with a description or reference image and develop a style that suits your game. Themes and saved presets help you carry that direction into later work, so adding a new enemy or inventory item doesn’t mean starting from scratch each time. SpriteCook supports pixel art and other 2D styles, giving you room to experiment with the look of your project.
Animation is part of that workflow too. You can take generated or uploaded artwork, describe how it should move, and export the result as a sprite sheet for your game engine. This makes it useful for testing how a character looks and feels in motion alongside the mechanics you’re building.
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GraphicsGale
Supports many formats, including .ico, .gif, .avi, .cur, .ani., preview your animations in real time while editing sprites - No need to stop working to watch your animation, use multiple layers to make drawing and editing your art easier, onion skinning allows you to see both previous and next frames while your draw, Output your animation frames onto a single sprite sheet, output each frame to its own image file, or export the entire animation as a single .gif file. GraphicsGale's export options are flexible enough to be compatible with any workflow, GraphicsGale also has many pixel-art specific features to help you create your work quickly and easily, including palette control, selectively erasing colors, and tools for quickly replacing and trying new colors. Free download, and get creating!
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