14 DAY TRIAL // Pixelaria is a graphic editor that helps with the creation of pixel animations or cartoons. The application is able to handle animations with multiple frames and offers a set of tools for editing each frame.
It’s free and can be run on all Windows platforms out there. You may define animated sprites for games, import animations from other sheets, as well as export animation sheets.
User interface
The GUI cannot be characterized as highly intuitive. Actually, you need to arm yourself with patience because the learning curve is not smooth especially if you are a rookie in the domain. You can rely on tooltips for viewing short descriptions of the tool’s features.
All newly created animations are displayed in a list, so-called ‘Bundle.’ With a double-click on the target animation, you can open the working environment where you can process and manipulate each frame.
What’s more, you can delete or duplicate the selected animation, open a previously saved project for future adjustments, as well as view a list with recent files.
Define and export a new animation
A new animation can be created by specifying a name, setting up the dimensions (width and height), and adjusting the playback settings (number of frames per second). The generated pixel art animations can be saved to PXL file format, which is a spreadsheet used by Pocket Excel.
Import animations and create animation sheets
You are given the freedom to import animations from PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF, or TIFF file format. As soon as you add a file, the utility reveals a sheet preview of the current animation. In addition, it lets you preview the animation, zoom in or out of it, play or stop the preview mode, as well as skip to the desired frame.
Several settings can be tweaked while importing animations. You may adjust the x and y starting coordinates, width and height, specify the frame and skip count, reverse frame order, as well as modify the FPS. Pixelaria is able to automatically decompose each image into several frames.
A new animation sheet can be defined by providing details about the name and configuring the exporting settings, such as sort frames by size, use uniform grid, reuse area of identical frames, force minimum dimensions, and favor ratio over area. The sheet images can be saved to PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF or other file format.
Frame manipulation options
You may build up an animation by manually adding frames in the main panel. Upon importing an image file, you are given the option to alter the animation size (keep the original one, use maximum size or apply new size), frame scaling method (place at top left or center, stretch, or zoom), and drawing mode (pixel art or photography).
You may enable or disable the preview mode, attach new empty frames at the desired position or at the end of the animation, copy, cut, paste or delete frames, as well as undo or redo your actions.
Apply various filters
The tool offers support for different filters that help you adjust the transparency, scale, offset, fading color, rotation, hue, saturation, lightness, and stroke. Each of the aforementioned filters comes with its own set of fine-tuning parameters, more specifically bars from where you can modify the intensity of each effect.
You may create lists with your favorite filters and delete the ones that you do not need anymore. A preview panel displays the original and edited frames so you can easily check out what the adjustments look like. In addition, you can jump to each frame embedded in an animation and select the frame range to apply the filter.
Built-in frame editor
The frame editor allows you to personalize each frame individually and export it to different image formats, such as JPG, PNG, BMP or GIF. Plus, you can undo or redo your actions, go to next or previous frame, and work with a color picker.
You may draw freehand designs using a pencil, erase unnecessary parts from the drawing, use a spray paint with an adjustable size and form, insert lines, rectangles and ellipses, fill in areas with different colors, pick the blending mode (blend or replace), and preview the frame. Plus, you can enable or disable the onion skin, tweak the onion skin depth, and show previous frame with onion skin.
The Good
The Bad
The frame editor implements only a few editing functions so more parameters are welcomed to boost its functionality. The GUI is not quite appealing and needs several improvements in order to make the entire process more intuitive.
There’s no support for a help manual that could give rookies detailed information about the program’s capabilities, so experimenting with the built-in parameters is your only chance to understand how the utility works.
