60 lines
6.2 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
6.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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id: render2d/art
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search_names: [Aseprite, pixel art, drawing, layers, undo, redo]
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icon: file.art
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group: asset-studio
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group_title: Assets and Art Studio
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group_order: 15
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group_icon: file.art
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order: 5
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title: Art Studio: drawing, frames and source files
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summary: Create a drawing, edit layers and frames, then distinguish saving its source from publishing game assets.
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---
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# Art Studio: drawing, frames and source files
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Art Studio edits source documents; the asset pipeline prepares the sprite frames and animation clips used by the game. Start with a new drawing to learn the canvas without changing a shared imported image.
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## Version and availability
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This is the development-branch guide, not a claim that the public 0.12.1 download contains every Stage 12.5 change. Desktop Art uses the project's open document and Undo. Standalone web Studio uses a browser-local document and explicit file exchange; it does not automatically edit a desktop project's dirty document. An embedded Try scene demonstrates runtime behaviour, not the full authoring workspace.
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| Workflow | Documented state |
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|---|---|
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| Editable `.aeart`, layers, frames and channels | Existing source workflow; save the source before importing/publishing its generated game assets. |
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| Open a PNG directly for drawing | Development implementation opens an in-memory draft; first Save asks to create/link `.aeart`, not silently overwrite PNG. Final UI/save/recovery acceptance is pending. |
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| Real `.ase` / `.aseprite` input | Subset importer into a new `.aeart`, with diagnostics and confirmation for omitted data. |
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| `.aseprite` output | Development interchange-copy export, not the normal Save format or verified lossless round trip. Keep the Aego source and stable game references. |
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| Drawing from a tablet over LAN | Not available in this documented slice. There is no working pairing/server workflow to follow here. |
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## First drawing
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Input: a writable desktop project and a new, unused source path. Choose **Assets → New Pixel Art**, create a 32×32 `.aeart`, and open it from Assets. Select Pencil, choose a colour and draw a short stroke. Undo should remove that stroke; Redo should restore it. Save the document, close it and reopen the same source to check the pixels.
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Layers organize pixels within a drawing; they are not scene render-order layers or physics collision layers. Select a layer before drawing. A locked or reference layer is not an ordinary writable paint target. Changing the active frame or surface channel changes the target cel, not the source AssetID.
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## Frames and preview
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In Animation Timeline, duplicate the current frame, select the second frame and change its pixels. Enable Onion Skin to compare adjacent frames. Set a different frame duration and play the preview: the timing should follow the document's durations. A linked cel shares content with its linked target; unlink before making an independent variant. Saving the drawing and assigning a generated clip to an AnimationPlayer are separate actions.
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Check: reopen the source, select both frames and compare their pixels and durations. Then import/publish the saved source and explicitly assign the prepared frame or clip in the game. Particle flipbooks use their configured FPS, not every authored frame duration or tag.
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## Save, publish and conflicts
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Save writes the editable source. Import prepares runtime artifacts. Assigning a prepared frame or animation changes a scene or preset reference; exporting packages saved project inputs. None of these is a SaveGame operation. Keep `.meta` with the source so AssetIDs remain stable.
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Opening a PNG draft alone must not write files. Its development first-Save route creates a linked `.aeart` after confirmation and warns that shared users are affected; the original PNG is not the save target. If an external edit, unresolved recovery or import-journal guard blocks the operation, keep the dirty document open and resolve that specific conflict. Do not delete recovery or force a blanket reimport to dismiss it.
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## Legacy copy workflows
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Choose **Assets → New Pixel Art** to create an editable `.aeart` source. Open it from Assets to edit the canvas and asset timeline. Prepared sprite frames and animation clips are generated by the existing asset pipeline; a source document is not a replacement for an exported runtime asset.
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In Image Viewer, **Edit as .aeart copy** copies the entire PNG as a single frame. For a PNG with multiple saved, equally sized slices, **Create animation from PNG slices** instead creates an independent `.aeart` with one frame per saved slice, in metadata order, and a duration you choose for all frames. The confirmation lists what is not transferred: names and IDs, pivots, surface channels, materials and existing animation clips. The original PNG, its metadata, existing animations and scene references are not changed. Assign the new sprite frames or generated clip explicitly; this is not direct PNG editing.
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## Import an Aseprite file
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Choose **Assets → Import Aseprite**, enter the `.ase` or `.aseprite` file path and a new `.aeart` path in the project, and select **Import**. A relative input path starts at the project root. The original file is not changed. The destination must not already exist. The imported source opens in Art Studio; its frames and tags produce prepared sprite and animation subassets through the normal pipeline.
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The supported subset includes raster, group and reference layers; RGBA, grayscale and indexed pixels; static palettes; raw, compressed and linked cels; frame durations; forward, reverse and ping-pong tags; and basic slices and pivots. Indexed transparency is normalized to palette entry zero. Normal, multiply, screen and additive layer blends are supported.
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This is not a lossless importer for every Aseprite file. Tile sets and tilemaps, indexed background layers, custom ICC or gamma profiles, animated palettes, nonzero cel z-index, and unsupported blend modes are rejected. Some non-pixel metadata, finite tag repeat counts, layer UUIDs and nine-patch centers cannot be retained. When such data is omitted, the import displays diagnostics and asks for confirmation before creating the new source; cancel leaves the project unchanged. Fully transparent pixels may lose invisible RGB values in a composed preview. Keep the original file if you need unsupported information.
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