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I thought I should start with asking what tools are the best to create pixel art for Game Frame (MSpaint, Photoshop, Illustrator)?
Is there a preferred file format the Game Frame will use (GIF, BMP, PNG)?
Is there a maximum file size or number of frames that can be used by each image?
Photoshop is perfect, if you’ve got it. But the main thing to know is that graphics must be 24-bit BMP files. There may be a theoretical file size limitation, but it’s nothing you’ll have to worry about at this resolution. I haven’t hit a maximum number of files, either. However, I’ve been making most of my recent animations as film strips, where all of the frames of animation are combined into a single, tall graphic.
Obviously this needs a major FAQ treatment. I’ll write up a sticky post tomorrow. I’m exhausted at the moment.
Can you post details on the config file format? Can you post a sample?
Yes! This is a great idea. I’ll put this together today.
Anyone have any experience with pixel art apps for an ipad? I’ve looked at a few but wondered if there was a clear winner.
My Favorite iPad app is Pixaki. It supports layers and can output as a Photoshop PSD.
That was one of the apps that I had heard about (wanted some confirmation that it was worth the higher price) thanks for the quick reply!
To combine several images into a film strip (not required, but it has advantages) I’ve tried several apps, and these are the best I’ve found so far.
Mac:
Image Stitcher (.99 cents)
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/image-stitcher/id819501444?mt=12The author is very approachable, and actually added BMP to the export options for me. Unfortunately, it uses the standard Mac image library which stupidly encodes BMP bytes in reverse order. So, while this tool does a great job stacking images, it won’t play more than the first frame on Game Frame until you open the file in another App (like Photoshop) and save it out again (24 bit). I haven’t found an alternative to Photoshop on the Mac that saves the byte order correctly, but I haven’t spent much time looking yet. Would love some help here.
PC:
GlueIt 1.06 (Free)
http://www.varcade.com/blog/glueit-sprite-sheet-maker-download/Super simple, works great. You want a single-column image. It saves a 32-bit BMP though, so you need to open the exported file in another App (Photoshop or Irfanview work well) and save as a 24-bit BMP.
I just use ImageMagick on the command line to stitch images together.
brew install imagemagick (if you use OS X and Homebrew)
montage *.bmp -mode concatenate -tile 1x output.bmp
Is there a way in ImageMagick to give a range of files instead of typing each one?
For example: balloon_1 to balloon_25Excellent, I was looking forward to figuring out imagemagick when I had the time. Can you post one of your output BMP files so I can see if it’s compatible with Game Frame?
You can use -type truecolor to force 24-bit BMP.
montage *.bmp -mode concatenate -tile 1x -type truecolor output.bmp
Attached sample.
Jeremy – I got an email notification about a BMP problem but I don’t see it here – did you delete it?
Yeah, sorry about that. It looks like my browser got routed back to the old server and the message was posted there. Anyway, here’s the post:
Interestingly, seq.bmp is formatted correctly, whereas your fireflies BMP (sync.bmp) is in reverse, the typical Mac format. Were they both created with ImageMagick?
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