Various Tools Missing

teacherpeter

Dec 11, 2013 at 1:45 pm

Hello! First of all, I'd like to say that for tiles, there simply is nothing out there with the same potential as Pyxel, and I am proud to have bought and support it. I intend to increase my donation over time as well!

That said, one "competitor", http://piq.codeus.net/draw , does feature an impressive library of tools, such as a button that adds noise on the fly, a draw tool that only darkens or lightens whatever you're drawing on top of (a huge shortcut for shading), and rather interesting x-axis and y-axis symmetry tools. I'd love to see the inclusion of such features in Pyxel one day, though I do want to say that it's certainly more than adequate already.

Thank you! Keep up the amazing work!

Simon

Dec 11, 2013 at 3:21 pm

you can actually do symmetry already when working with tiles:

1. Make a new tile and place it.

2. Now place the same tile beside it but this time use the rotation x (or what ever you want)

3. now when you draw both tile get updated but one is mirrored.

This way you can do nearly every combination of mirror stuff easily. Afterwards you can copy/move the stuff using the marquee tool.

Hope this helps.

Simon

Dec 11, 2013 at 3:24 pm

...but the iso tool is neat in the tool you linked! I have to say XD (Iso tile support would be nice anyway for pyxel as one of the next features. ;))

Danik

Dec 11, 2013 at 10:36 pm

Hi, thanks for buying and for the suggestions!
I actually have symmetric tile mode and an isometic line mode on my list of features to add (but I have many features on that list :P) I'd like to add more basic tools for lines, squares, ellipses etc first though.

Auxilium

Dec 12, 2013 at 1:05 am

Also, you can get a symmetrical drawing quite easily by using the select function, then simply copy/pasting it and finally rotating the selection. That is at least how I survived so far! ;-)

teacherpeter

Dec 12, 2013 at 6:22 am

Auxilium, I do the exact same thing. It's simple enough, though not as ideal. Anyway, it's just a suggestion!

I'd really like a darken and lighten brush one day. I know nothing about how difficult that'd be to make, but it's just so easy to use in piq. It's easy to work around, but still. It's just my preference, anyway.

Love the program and I'll be following its development and donating a few bucks a month toward its continued development. Danik, can I ask what features are planned? Is there a FAQ somewhere full of features that you will add in the future? Is this going to be as fully featured and robust (but specialized) as something like illustrator when it's done?

Danik

Dec 14, 2013 at 10:47 am

At the moment the list is not public, because I'm very busy finishing my degree and want to avoid promising too much to soon. I want to add all the basic features you find in pixel editors, such as different shape drawing tools, better palette management, drawing with transparency. I also want to improve the workflow for making and exporting tiles, maybe making it possible to select multiple tiles from the tileset and draw with all of them at once for example. The animation system should also be more flexible with support for per frame delays, inserting and removing frames etc. Possibly (in the future) some kind of project file system where you can use the same tiles and palette for multiple canvases, which would be nice for making levels for instance.

I wouldn't say it will be as fully featured as Illustrator, but my goal is to make it a really good and streamlined tool for pixel graphics!

Auxilium

Dec 16, 2013 at 11:26 am

At the moment the list is not public, because I'm very busy finishing my degree and want to avoid promising too much to soon. I want to add all the basic features you find in pixel editors, such as different shape drawing tools, better palette management, drawing with transparency. I also want to improve the workflow for making and exporting tiles, maybe making it possible to select multiple tiles from the tileset and draw with all of them at once for example. The animation system should also be more flexible with support for per frame delays, inserting and removing frames etc. Possibly (in the future) some kind of project file system where you can use the same tiles and palette for multiple canvases, which would be nice for making levels for instance.

I wouldn't say it will be as fully featured as Illustrator, but my goal is to make it a really good and streamlined tool for pixel graphics!

Don't forget to implement a money-printer function in it as well!

Danik

Dec 16, 2013 at 7:44 pm

Of course not, the money will be pixelated though!

2blackbar

Dec 28, 2013 at 3:14 pm

I have a very very very hard time to flip the tiles and use the flipped version, i managed to do it somehow magaically but i really hate how it works when you press x then it flips the tile but still remebers that its flipped so when you do all the work and edit flipped one then pressx again to go to normal then you realize its not really flipped, i hate that, iy should not remember that its flipped, can you change this so its easier to just flip tile by x and it stays flipped always, for real, not just temporary until you press x again.
Or please describe entire process of making new flipped tile from original one cause its very irritating.

Danik

Dec 28, 2013 at 4:34 pm

You can place the tile flipped and then Ctrl/Cmd-click the flipped tile in the canvas to make flipped copy.
I agree that it could be easier though.

tieTYT

Jan 26, 2014 at 1:22 am

I've never heard of a darken/lighten tool, but that sounds amazing. Such a tool has my vote.

Spitznagl

Jan 26, 2014 at 4:27 pm

idk how much useful a darken/lighten tool would be for pixel art.

What would be imo, is a way to quickly get 25%, 50% and 75% darker/ligther and mixes out of the selected colours for shading purposes.

Something like this:

In paint shop pro, I usually dedicate a brush to mixing colours, but even then you need to keep changing the opacity for different ratios and reselecting black and white. This feature would save a lot of time.

Danik

Jan 27, 2014 at 11:11 am

Interesting idea. I think in the example it takes up too much space, but maybe something similar but more compact.

Spitznagl

Jan 28, 2014 at 1:05 am

It could also only display the mixes for the primary colour. It wouldn't be a problem with the colour swap button just above.

Ubu

Jan 29, 2014 at 12:32 pm

A shade (darken/lighten) tool could be displayed the way "Tile Studio" does it, by showing a gradient like this based on the selected color. It could fit just to the right of the "Remove the selected swatch" icon in the Palette panel. I agree that this would be a most useful addition.

A lighten/darken tool like the one in "piq" would also be great.
And the already planned additions like symmetric tile mode, isometic line mode and shape drawing tools will all be welcomed features.
I'm excited about the further development of a nice piece of software with a great potential.

Attachments

Danik

Jan 30, 2014 at 2:53 pm

Yeah, maybe I can fit it nicely in the palette panel, hmm.
I sort of think this belongs in the color chooser window, but that would require an extra step (pressing C to open it).

Spitznagl

Jan 31, 2014 at 2:03 am

Now that you mention it, it would indeed make more sense to have the selection in the colour chooser window.

If you could make the movable window save it's location between calls, placing it in the middle of the screen would actually be quicker than having to move the mouse all the way to the toolbar.

A few minor nitpicks while we're on the subject. With the "red value" text box in focus when you open the colour window, it's not possible to use the key shortcut (X) to swap the primary/secondary colours. Not that big of a deal right now, but if you do implement the shading palette in there, it would be useful to be able to switch easily when this window is in focus.

Also, when using Tab or shift+Tab to jump between the different colour properties (RBG & HSL), it would be great to have the next value already highlighted to be able to enter a new value right away. Ctrl+A works, but it's not as straightforward.

Don't worry, I don't have anything else to criticize ;)

Pyxel edit is fantastic. Thanks!

Danik

Jan 31, 2014 at 12:20 pm

Yes, I will probably go for adding them in the color chooser.
Good point about remembering the location for the color chooser, I have been meaning to add that.
I have tried to make the text fields select all when you give them focus without success, but I'll give it another shot because I agree it would be a lot nicer!

KurtLoeffler

Feb 5, 2014 at 4:26 am

I did something like this in a voxel editor thingy I'm making. It also did hue and saturation adjustment as well. It looks like this:

I planned to have settings that let you choose how much to increment hue sat and brightness individually, and also what direction the hue shifts. I found that hues between 25% and 75% look nice shifted 1 way and the rest looks nice shifted the other way, so I have it choose based on that by default.

Danik

Feb 5, 2014 at 9:22 am

That looks really nice Kurt. I might try to implement something like this!

Simon

Feb 5, 2014 at 4:45 pm

Oh this looks nice Kurt. Want to have that in Pyxel too! @Danik! :D