GrafX2
Grafx2 is somewhere between a pixel art program and a CG program. Grafx2 binaries are currently available for Windows, Amiga, Mac, and Linux.
It is designed for doing pixel-precise work like demoscene logos (as in many of the works at http://gfxzone.org), and also has many useful CG-ish features -- like Quickshade, which darkens/lightens pixels in the currently selected ramp as you paint; smudge, translucency, smoothing; It keeps track of how many colors you've used, and provides an quick + easy way to reduce colors; the split-screen zoom (like a more powerful version of the zooming in OHR's built-in sprite editor) can be very handy, and everything can be accessed via customizable keyboard shortcuts, for speed. It's inspired by 'DeluxePaint' and 'Brilliance' for the Amiga, so it is also very easy to change drawing colors (even as you are painting), to paint with two different colors quickly, to pick up part of the picture as a brush, to stencil out some colors as 'read-only' or to get a 'spare page' for testing stuff on.
Download
Documentation
http://code.google.com/p/grafx2/wiki/UserManual
NeoTA says
Probably *the* best program for casual editing/creation of static sprites/images. (the '98%' is not just for show :) Pixeling in Grafx2 is very different (and far more fun!) than pixeling in GIMP, Photoshop, or even ProMotion, for me; It is very friendly to the kind of experimentation needed to achieve the best result. It also does not confuse the issue with things irrelevant to pixeling, so it is good for newbies to get a grasp of pixeling with.
If you load in your entire 256-color palette when drawing sprites, you don't need to do any palette management - just pay attention to the reported number of colors used, and the only other thing you'll need to do is reduce to 16 colors before you bring it into OHRRPGCE.
Supports limiting rgb precision via the /rgb commandline argument -- eg. default rgb precision is 256 (0..255), 16 steps of RGB is more useful IMO, eg "grafx2 /rgb 16".
It's a pretty nice way to create master palettes, too. the /rgb restriction is good for this, since you want to avoid having virtually-identical colors.
More recently, it has acquired a Tiling mode like Pro Motion's, where drawing on one tile in the picture updates all identical tiles in the picture (tile size is taken from grid settings, btw). This is handy for building maps and making better quality tiles, since you can see the tile as it is in the map or tiled with itself.
Guide to common manipulations
- Darkening or lightening tiles which use a single color ramp
- Go to the palette area. leftclick on the starting color, then rightclick on the ending color.
- Click on FX then 'QShade'.
- Make sure 'Feedback' in the FX dialog is OFF.
- QShade is active, now you can lighten or darken things which use that ramp using all the usual drawing tools -- leftclick darkens, rightclick lightens (if you use the typical dark on left, bright on right arrangement). Pixels of a color not in the ramp will be unaffected.
- If you rightclick the QShade button in the FX, you can modify the 'Step' (default = 1) to control how strong the effect is per application.
- http://code.google.com/p/grafx2/wiki/DrawingModes explains how it works.
- Of course you can quickly switch ramps to shade tiles with a few different color ramps in use (just do the leftclick on starting color, rightclick on ending color procedure again)
- remember to turn off Shade mode when you want to draw normally (try pressing the 'All Off' button in the FX dialog)
- Darkening or lightening tiles which use multiple or crossing-over color ramps
- Set up the ramps explicitly (rightclick on the Shade button, not QShade).
- Shading can work however you want it to using this (and Grafx2 remembers the shade table for you)
- however, initial setup takes longer. check the DrawingModes list above for an example
- again, remember to turn off Shade mode when you want to draw normally
- Copying tiles
- First enable Grid (FX ->Grid); set the Grid parameters appropriately (X,Y = 20)
- Use the 'rectangular brush grab' tool (dotted rightangle, near middle of toolbox) to pick the tile(s) you want
- That is now your brush. When drawing, the background color you have currently selected is considered as transparent in the brush.
- When you are finished putting down copies of the tile, click on the brush selector (top left icon in the toolbox) and select a normal brush
- you can also paint using fragments of tile, by using the 'freehand brush select' tool adjacent to the 'rectangle brush select' tool when initially picking your brush. You probably want Grid OFF for this.