Aseprite

About this release

Aseprite is built for one discipline and does it better than any general image editor can. Everything about it assumes the artwork is measured in individual pixels: the brush never antialiases unless asked, the zoom snaps to whole multiples so nothing is ever shown blurred, the selection tools work on exact pixel boundaries, and the colour handling stays in indexed palettes where the medium expects it.

Animation is the other half and is where most of the time gets spent. A timeline runs along the bottom with frames, layers and cels, onion skinning shows the surrounding frames underneath the current one at adjustable opacity, frames retime individually, and tags group a sequence into named animations that preview in a loop. The result is that a walk cycle is built and judged in the same window rather than exported to check it.

The palette workflow is genuinely thoughtful. Palettes load, save, sort and generate from an image, colours are replaced across the whole sprite in one action, gradients and shade ramps generate between two entries, and the indexed mode means a colour change updates every pixel using it. There are also shading and dithering brush modes that follow a ramp, which is the kind of tool only a program written for this work would include.

Practical output is well covered. Sprite sheets export with configurable packing, trimming and margins alongside a data file describing every frame, animations write out as looping images or video, and layers and tags export individually when a pipeline wants them separated. Tilemap layers support building levels from a tileset directly, and a scripting interface automates the repetitive parts.

What it does

Pixel exact tools

Brushes, selections and zoom that never blur or antialias unless explicitly asked.

Animation timeline

Frames, layers, cels, per frame timing and named tags that preview as a loop.

Onion skinning

Surrounding frames shown underneath at adjustable opacity while drawing.

Palette workflow

Indexed colour, ramp generation, sorting and sprite wide colour replacement.

Tilemap layers

Build levels from a tileset inside the same document as the art.

Sprite sheet export

Configurable packing and trimming with a data file describing every frame.

Changed in this version

• Tilemap editing gains better handling of very large tilesets.
• Faster canvas rendering on high resolution displays.
• Export dialogue reworked with clearer sheet packing options.
• New shading and dithering brush behaviour options.
• Scripting interface extended with more timeline access.

System requirements

Install order

1. Unpack the archive.
2. Run the installer, or run the portable build directly from the folder.
3. Set the default new document size and colour mode in preferences.
4. Open a sample sprite once to confirm the timeline and preview behave as expected.

Worth knowing before you start

File details