pixel art Pulchritudinous Paint Animation v0.5

[CaptainBinky]

The Indie Stone presents

Pulchritudinous Paint Animation

v0.5.2.0 (alpha)

 
 
Pulchritudinous Paint Animation is a free pixel art animation tool, in the spirit of Deluxe Paint Animation, supporting true palettised graphics, and written by me
 
It's currently in alpha so may contain bugs and slight weirdness. It's also fairly bare-bones, feature-wise, at the moment but it's at the point where it's useable. Feedback and bug reporting would be invaluable.
 

Click to Enbigulate

 
Key Features

• True palettised graphics - changing a palette entry updates your animation in real-time
• Flexible palette - rearrange palette entries without breaking your animation
• Photoshop-style layers
• Loads Deluxe Paint Animation (*.ANM) files
• Dither brushes
• Export to animated GIF
• Ability to load 32bit background images for tracing

Future Planned Features

• Export sprite sheets
• Import from sprite sheets
• Support of dither and gradient fills
• Additional tools (circles, rectangles - filled and unfilled, etc)
• Load / Save frames from / to images (png, gif, etc) quantising on load
• Other stuff

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DOWNLOAD v0.5.2.0 (alpha)

Requires .NET Framework 4 Client Profile

 

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

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[CaptainBinky]

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

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Interface

 

+  Increase Brush Size

-   Decrease Brush Size

 

Ctrl +   Zoom In

Ctrl -    Zoom Out

 

[   Previous Palette Colour

]   Next Palette Colour

 

P   Pencil Tool

E   Eraser Tool (not implemented yet - paint the transparent colour instead)

L   Line Tool (not implemented yet)

V   Move Tool

 

Cursor Keys   Nudge Layer

 

 

Animation Controls

 

1   Previous Frame

2   Next Frame

4   Play / Pause Animation (Loop)

5   Play Once

 

Shift 1   First Frame

Shift 2   Last Frame

 

 

PALETTE CONTROLS

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• Double-Click on any palette colour to display the colour dialog.
• Click and Drag palette entries to re-arrange
• Hold Alt and click on a pixel in your animation canvas to select the colour from your palette

 

EXPORTING A SPRITE TO AN ANIMATED GIF

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1. Click the "select" button in the sprite preview window (bottom-right of the right-hand panel)
2. Click and drag a rectangle around your sprite in the main window
3. From the sprite preview window menu, select Sprite > Export GIF Animation...
4. Save the file using the save dialog

Additional Notes

 

Once you've selected the sprite in step 2 above, you can optionally click the "+" button to the right of the "select" button to name the sprite animation and add it to the drop-down list.

 

This is useful if you want to define multiple sprite animations from the same animation canvas.

 

In the future, the sprite animation list will be saved in the PFF files, but this is currently unsupported.

[Thuztor]

 

[CaptainBinky]

This looks great, I'm going to try it out right now.

When are you planning to get importing/exporting sprite sheets in?

Awesome

Importing requires me to write some simple form of quantizing since I'd be wanting to be able to import from PNG files - exporting is more straight forward.

I'd also like to slot the sprite sheet packing code I put into the Zomboid export tool in there as an option on export

So no timescale, but it's probably the most important thing to get in.

[Thuztor]

I'm not really sure.
Is your program a kind of "Spriter" ? (if you know this program)
Or is your program for the connection of stagnant images?

I will test it later.

[CaptainBinky]

Is your program a kind of "Spriter" ? (if you know this program)

Or is your program for the connection of stagnant images?

It's an animation program with the production of sprites in mind. At the moment, there's no way to load individual frames in (that's what the disabled 'Image' menu will be for) so until that point, it's no good for making an animation out of pre-existing frames.

[CaptainBinky]

Quick 5 second update with support for 32bit images in the background (for tracing, etc).

Crude implementation - no support for moving, changing its opacity, or saving the setting in PFF files yet but will add all that in the next proper update.

Option is at: Display > Background Image > Open

[CaptainBinky]

Background Image, now with Settings dialog, to tweak the opacity and visibility:

 

Note: Not in the current version - this'll be in then next update along with some other fixes.

 

 

Ability to offset next - then saving of the settings into the PFF files, and then that's pretty much that feature complete

[steffgaming]

Hey, maby also add update button or check for update ?

[CaptainBinky]

Hey, maby also add update button or check for update ?

 

Good idea - done, and will be in the next version

[CaptainBinky]

Thanks, acex222 Few quirks and missing features which I've been slowly repairing and adding when I get a moment. Will hopefully have an update next week some time which will then have the new-fangled "check for updates" menu option in it

 

Glad you're finding it useable in spite of this though

[CaptainBinky]

New Version (0.5.1.0) Released!

Link in orginal post

 

Changelog:

 

• 32bit background images (with opacity support)
• Drawing optimisation
• Check for updates
• Fixed off-canvas painting
• Added palette presets and information links
• Implemented line tool
• (and various other fixes)

 

To check for updates, click Help > Check For Updates...

 

Preset palettes display a small preview icon of the first 16 colours. So if it's a larger palette, you'll just see the first 16.

[Kitt Frostpaws]

I think I'll have to give this a go..

[Nickenstein79]

Holy zomg-wow!

 

This is great! I made an animated splodge thingy (using the authentic c64 palette).

 

I'm no pixel artist (this avatar is the only pixely thing I've ever made), but if I was, I would be all over Pulchritudinous Paint.

 

It's got just the features you need without being bloated by all of those features that new pixel programs boast to justify a price tag, yet nobody actually ever uses. (Onion sniffing, or whatever, etc...)

 

On a serious note: It's got all of the good bits from the awesome Deluxe Paint animation programs I used on my Amiga back in the olden times, without having to clart about with DosBox (Fuck you, EA). Also, the realtime palette reshuffling is a master stroke. Bravo!

 

[CaptainBinky]

New Version (0.5.2.0) Released!

Link in orginal post

 

Changelog:

• Eraser tool implemented


• Fixed loop setting in exported animated GIFs


• Save frame to 32bit PNG or 8bit GIF


• Load and save animated Gif files


• Oops - use the correct version number in the about box
  

[MonsterMMORPG]

wow looking nice. unfortunately i can't draw anything

@CaptainBinky would you consider drawing some pets, monsters for my game

[bul]

Hey This looks awesome. I am particularly interested in your export to spritesheet ability. that is something I'm looking for. Copy paste frame by frame is what i do now and it wastes a lot of time.

 

I will give this a go.

[doomblood66]

Thanks for doing this Binky, altho im not a good artist i appreciate the fact that you made it available to us!

[Ghosk]

 

New Version (0.5.2.0) Released!

Link in orginal post

 

Changelog:

• Eraser tool implemented
• Fixed loop setting in exported animated GIFs
• Save frame to 32bit PNG or 8bit GIF
• Load and save animated Gif files
• Oops - use the correct version number in the about box

 

 

Hey Binky, could I know if this software is finished/being updated yet? I am getting into pixel art and I'd love to know, thank you.