next »

[Nugsy]

Hey TIGers!

I'm thinking about starting to code an image editor mainly focused on pixel art and it's other disciplines, such as animation and tileset creation.

Is there anything you guys have always wanted to see in an editor like this, or can you think of any really useful features?

The reason i'm apprehensive about starting the project is that i'm unsure as to whether the world really needs a new image editor, are all the bases already covered?

I look forward to reading your replies!



Edit: Would some sort of proportion marker be a good idea? For example, you would select an image size, then a proportion type (realistic, heroic, etc.) and the program would mark out how large each of those parts needs to be.

[rivon]

No editor is perfect... I'm sure there will be people who will appreciate it.
I too thought about programming one

[JMickle]

i started making a whole range of art tools, (in game maker ugh) but there weren't really working too well for me, even though I designed them haha.

[Theophilus]

Animation playing within the program

Non-floating windows (see gimp and how awful the modal windows are)

Animation tools like stretching, condensing, adjusting the speed it plays

Only a few tools. The line tool, the pencil tool, and a selection tool. Maybe a bucket fill would be nice too.

Palette loading and saving

[Happy Shabby Games]

A simple tileset editor would be nice.

Here's some basic features I enjoy in other programs

Being able to...
-save/load your palette
-paste from the clipboard
-use the eye dropper on the canvas to add a color to your palette
-edit one tile and it edits every copy of it simultaneously
-flip/rotate your tiles
-export in png/gif
-customizable hotkeys

A GraphicsGale/Pixothello smoothie. Smoove would be a sweet name ha.

[tylerjhutchison]

-edit one tile and it edits every copy of it simultaneously

THIS!

I have been doing a ton of work on creating a raster based image editor; it is exceptionally rewarding.
I say go for it!  Just because there are lots of options already does not mean that another one is a bad idea.

My advice:
Think of things that are hard to do or time consuming when you make pixel art. 
Is there an easy way that this can be automated?
Can you make a tool that fills that special niche?
Have fun and give it a go!  If you get bored with it, eh no big deal you will still probably have learned some cool things in the process.

I have been doing most of my tool programming in AS3/Flex just because it is insanely portable and being able to provide web tools is pretty cool.  AS3 also has really good support for working directly with bitmaps.  I ended up writing a bunch of raster libraries for it and they run pretty quickly.  It would be really easy to turn these into a pixel editor.  If you need any advice give me a shout!

[Dysposin]

Edit: Would some sort of proportion marker be a good idea? For example, you would select an image size, then a proportion type (realistic, heroic, etc.) and the program would mark out how large each of those parts needs to be.

Although that would be a nice gimmick, I don't think it would be that useful in the end. Something similar, yet more useful, would be a custom grid with a wide range of variables (size of the grid, offset, visibility of the grid, etc.).

Most important tool would be propably a Pro Motion-esque tileset editor (like others have mentioned, editing one tile would edit all the tiles simultaneously). Another useful tool would be a good palette editor; I think a smaller custom-palette and another more high-resolution one similar to GraphicsGale/Photoshop/PSP would be pretty nice.

-customizable hotkeys

This!

Of course, reading through this topic, it's pretty obvious that there's just as many requests and preferences as there are artists, so pick the stuff you want from these posts and do whatever you want to do.

[moi]

everybody has different tastes and needs. So work on an editor that perfectly fits your needs and hopefully it will also be useful to many people.

[Nugsy]

I'm going to start working on this today, i'll get the basics working (displaying the image you are editing, pencil tool etc.) and then see where that takes me.

Thankyou for all the suggestions so far! Keep them coming!

[Geeze]

Will the source be open? I'm kinda interested.

[Nugsy]

I'm not sure about that yet, i think that is something i'll have to consider when the project is in a useable state.

Currently i'm trying to decide on a language to code it in. I'm trying to find the perfect balance between ease of use and complexity.

For example: C++ with Qt/wxWidgets offers pretty much everything i need, but it would be an extremely steep learning curve; whereas using BlitzMax would be very easy for me as i've used it previously, but it might be harder to get access to lower level OS features such as the clipboard.

Edit: Just found FLTK. Going to read into it more.
I guess i could always use SFML, which i have some previous experience with.

Too many options! If anyone has any suggestions, i'd love to hear them.

[Thomas Finch]

I want the image editor to draw things itself.

[Nugsy]

I'll put it in the to-do list.

[RichMakeGame!]

maybe something to help streamline AA workflow. like maybe you have your standard 2 colours chosen (like PS), and also a little panel which gives you several swatches of those colours mixed, eg 12.5%, 25, 37, 50 etc.

if you already have a palette defined it could try to pick the closest colours from the palette to those values (maybe a tickbox for that to toggle)

[Thomas Finch]

I'll put it in the to-do list.

If you're successful then you should name it: "Mindfuck: The Image Editor IN 3D"
P.S. Sorry I don't have any helpful suggestions, haha.

[Theophilus]

Color lerping from the program. Some image editors don't have this.

[Nugsy]

I tried to find some info on colour lerping but nothing came up.

Wuts a lerp? From what could gather it's some sort of line between two points.


Edit: I think i'm going to go with SFML on this!

I have previous experience with SFML, and it just clicks with me. The other libraries i have been looking at today haven't done that (Qt/wxWidgets/FLTK/GTK+/SDL/etc.)
As well as making sense to me, it is also cross platform which is a big plus.

I also need to brush up on my C++, and this seems like a great opportunity to do that.

Hopefully work shall begin tomorrow!

[Theophilus]

lerp means linear interpolation. For colors basically finding the mid tone between two (or more) colors.


See: http://www.design-lib.com/color_tool_mixer.php

[eiyukabe]

Definitely have layers. If you want.

[Nugsy]

Quick update!

I have now started work on the program. It's going to be a big learning experience for me, as i have a fair bit of knowledge about programming but limited knowledge about the more complex aspects of C++. I passed by reference for the first time today, it was beautiful.  
I've known about referencing for a long time but i never really understood it, but suddenly it just clicked today.

Thankyou for all of your suggestions! I'm going to start a devlog when i have something to show other than a black box that you can draw lines on haha.

 

@robolee: Sweet program! I bet it's great to be able to do some online collaboration.