Aseprite

Aseprite is a source-available image editor designed primarily for pixel art drawing and animation. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and features different tools for image and animation editing such as layers, frames, tilemap support, command-line interface, Lua scripting, among others. It is developed by Igara Studio S.A. and led by the developers David, Gaspar, and Martín Capello.[1] Aseprite is neither free (libre) software, nor open source software, and it can be downloaded as freeware, or for a fee. Aseprite source code and binaries are distributed under EULA, educational, and Steam proprietary licenses. LibreSprite, a free software fork of Aseprite, was made from the last freely-licensed (free software under the GNU GPLv2) version of Aseprite.

Aseprite
Aseprite screenshot
Developer(s)Igara Studio S.A.
Initial release2001 (2001)
Stable release
v1.2.30 / October 26, 2021 (2021-10-26)
Repository
Written inC++
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, MacOS and Linux.
TypeRaster graphics editor
LicenseEULA, educational and Steam license
Websitewww.aseprite.org

History

Aseprite, formerly known as Allegro Sprite Editor, had its first release in 2001 as a free software project under the GPLv2 license. This license was kept until August 2016 with version v1.1.8,[2] when the developers switched to a EULA,[3] thus making the software proprietary. On the 1st of September 2016, the main developer, David Capello, wrote a post on the Aseprite Devblog explaining this change.[4] The EULA permits others to download the Aseprite source code, compile it, and use it for personal purposes, but forbids its redistribution to third parties. Both before, and after the license change, Aseprite was sold online, on Steam, itch.io, and the project's website.

After Aseprite became proprietary, a fork was made from the last freely-licensed version, called LibreSprite.[5]

The project's code repository was hosted on Google Code until August 2014, when it was migrated to GitHub, where it remains hosted to date.[6] As of November 2021, its repository has had 59 contributors and around 14 thousand stars.[7] From 2014 to 2021, Aseprite had 66 different releases.

Notable games such as Celeste used Aseprite for graphics and animations.[8]

Design and features

The main design purpose of Aseprite is to create animated 2D pixel-art sprites. Some of its features include:

  • Layers and frames, with layer grouping and animation tagging;
  • Pixel-art specific transformations and tools (pixel-perfect modes, custom brushes, etc);
  • Animation real-time preview and onion skinning;
  • Tilemap and tileset modes;
  • Color palette managing, including 67 default palettes;
  • Color profiles and modes (RGBA, indexed and grayscale);
  • Non-square pixels;
  • Command line interface (CLI) and Lua scripting.

Aseprite uses its own binary file type to store data, which is typically saved with .ase or .aseprite extensions. Different third-party projects were developed to support parsing of .ase files in programming languages including C#,[9] Python[10] and JavaScript,[11] and in game engines like Unity,[12] and Godot.[13]

Images and animations can be exported to different file formats including PNG, GIF, FLC, FLI, JPEG, PCX, TGA, and bitmap.

See also

References
  1. Aseprite, Aseprite, 2021-11-20, retrieved 2021-11-20
  2. Capello, David. "Aseprite - New source code license". www.aseprite.org. Archived from the original on 2017-06-23. Retrieved 2021-11-20.
  3. Aseprite, Aseprite, 2021-11-20, retrieved 2021-11-20
  4. "New source code license". September 1, 2016.
  5. "LibreSprite/LibreSprite: Animated sprite editor & pixel art tool -- Fork of the last GPLv2 commit of Aseprite". GitHub. 18 April 2022.
  6. Capello, David. "Aseprite - Migration problems from Google Code to GitHub". www.aseprite.org. Archived from the original on 2018-01-24. Retrieved 2021-11-20.
  7. Aseprite, Aseprite, 2021-11-20, retrieved 2021-11-20
  8. celestegame. "Celeste — Tools". celestegame.tumblr.com. Retrieved 2021-11-20.
  9. Whitley, Christopher (2021-10-15), MonoGame.Aseprite, retrieved 2021-11-20
  10. Dormont, Florian (2021-09-24), This library, retrieved 2021-11-20
  11. 🗺️ aseprite-atlas, oidoid, 2021-11-08, retrieved 2021-11-20
  12. Hodler, Martin (2021-11-18), Aseprite-Importer for Unity, retrieved 2021-11-20
  13. "Aseprite Wizard - Godot Asset Library". godotengine.org. Retrieved 2021-11-20.
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