How does this compare to Pyxel Edit?

[Herr Lobster]

Wondering if anyone's tried both and has an opinion?

[kamirose]

Pyxel Edit is my main program I use for pixel art.

Coding wise, Aseprite is superior. PE is still beta, version 0.3.something, and there are some major bugs, but there haven't been any updates in a year or so (it's not abandoned, but it's developed by a single guy who's also a full time student). If you leave PE open too long, it starts to lag. Same thing if you have too many windows open in it, or too large pictures (I usually import references instead of having them open somewhere else). The animation tools are bugged out, so if you try to use the "preview" to draw animations (which I prefer over animating via the sprite sheet), every time you click in there it de-centers it and loses your zoom level). You also can't modify your keyboard shortcuts.

However, it has some features that I can't easily live without anymore. Shift+click is the equivalent of Aseprite's "quick line" tool instead of the regular line tool. You can shift+scroll wheel to change the brush size. It has built in tile sheet tools, which are excellent for game dev. And my biggest gripe about Aseprite, the color picker, is better in PE. It's closer to the photoshop style, where you have a hue slider and a box to pick the specific shade of that color. I highly highly *highly* prefer that style color picker over the full spectrum or color wheel styles that Aseprite has. That's the main reason why I use PE over Aseprite.

[Herr Lobster]

Hi Kamirose,

You pretty much listed all the problems I have with PE (lack of updates, images de-centering). I don't use PE much for colour, preferring PS for that. One thing I did like were the hidden sliders in PE that you can open by clicking the side arrow in the colour picker, wish PS did that.

I might try Aseprite and see if it's worth switching over. Those built in tile sheet tools sound interesting.

[kamirose]

Originally posted by Herr Lobster:

I might try Aseprite and see if it's worth switching over. Those built in tile sheet tools sound interesting.

Just to clarify, the tile sheet tools I'm talking about are in Pyxel Edit. The tools there for tile and sprite sheets are pretty strong in my opinion.

[wolfqack]

I was wondering the exact same thing since I really like PE but it looks like development on it has slowed down massively to the extent that if an alternative like Aseprite was being updated and supported more that I would be more than willing to swap over.

So my biggest question is do you think Aseprite will be updated to include more/better features and how has the support been so far? I tried looking around the forum but it was hard for me to tell if anything has been improved since the initial release.

(To clarify, I use PE for small-ish sprites and a lot of animation)

Thanks to anyone who responds

[dacap]

Originally posted by Downloadable Dog Streak:

I tried looking around the forum but it was hard for me to tell if anything has been improved since the initial release.

Hi there! I can point you to the release notes page[www.aseprite.org] which is an interesting way to view updates from the first commercial release v1.0.

I hope it helps but maybe other users would be able to give you more details about the update/support experience ^_^

[JerHenning]

Own both and use both, however I prefer Aseprite.

[Fireandsteel]

I am not a game dev, just a casual pixual artist. Aseprite is miles better in my opinion. Much more streamlined and efficient workflow.

[DRQuinn]

Ok first things first Pyxel Edit is commonly used for tile editing which to create maps in 2d platformer. And for Aseprite it is used for building a character and animating it and it is easy to do this in Aseprite. There is a third option which is Pro Motion NG it have both animation tool and also tile editing. But after recent update of Aseprite it now have tile editing too. So summing it up Aseprite have a beginner friendly UI and is more popular (more tutorials obviously) and it now have tile editing so I would suggest you to buy Aseprite even if your just an artist. Peace

[shponglefan]

Originally posted by Dr_Quinn:

There is a third option which is Pro Motion NG it have both animation tool and also tile editing.

The only thing I'd caution is if one has a high-res (e.g. 4k) display, that Pro Motion NG does not support high-dpi scaling. I tried it on a 4k and the interface was quite blurry as a result of scaling. That coupled with the not very readable icons made it overly difficult to use.

In contrast Aesperite's screen scaling feature allows the interface to scale up without introducing blurriness. Makes it much more usable in my experience.

[terbas]

As a comparison, Aseprite is the best on the market.

[DRQuinn]

Originally posted by terbas:

As a comparison, Aseprite is the best on the market.

Yep I would too.
If anyone of you're new to aseprite this quick reference may help you.
https://www.aseprite.org/quickref/

[LOKI]

Originally posted by Herr Lobster:

Wondering if anyone's tried both and has an opinion?

Aseprite i have both and pyxeledit is outdated have some missing features
aseprite is updated have everything you need and is easy to use.

[TheLightningYu | Mike]

Originally posted by Dr_Quinn:

Ok first things first Pyxel Edit is commonly used for tile editing which to create maps in 2d platformer. And for Aseprite it is used for building a character and animating it and it is easy to do this in Aseprite.

That's what i gathered as well watching a pixel-art tutorial recently, that both are good (esp. for beginners?) tools to have, but for different reasons.