The VG Resource

Yeah, I'm aware that I've made like three threads asking questions within the past two days. However, I decided not to make this a poll for obvious reasons. ^^; Plus, I honestly am curious; plus, lately I've been pulling discussion ideas out of the blue as of late...eh, yeah. Heh.

(I honestly wasn't sure if this was the correct forum; I was hoping for this thread to stay relatively semi-serious with responses, but am unsure if it fits the criteria of the "real life" board. So yeah, I put it in the GD forum. ^^; )

Anyway, without further ado, what program do you generally use for pixel art / why? At one point in the past did you use a different one?

I used to use MS Paint--for the longest time, actually--but after trying out Graphics Gale again and realizing how absolutely amazing it is, I've been using it nonstop. Although the layer transparency when you make a brand new layer really tends to fuck up for some reason, it's like a general graphic art program like Paint.NET and a precision program like MS Paint had some kind of lovechild.
Oh, wait. It must have been a threesome because if you get the full version of GG you can animate stuff. God I love Graphics Gale~

I think that the main turn-off for me on MS Paint was the update with the Windows 7. The thing that annoys me the most about Win7 Paint is this really annoying quirk: when you draw something with the line tool or pencil (I think it was the pencil...?), if you try to use the eraser trick to replace a color en masse, any of that color (that you're trying to replace) that was drawn in with the pencil/line tool won't budge. So you have to copy and repaste the image in order for it to work.

I'm aware that this question has been brought up by a few threads in the past, but none of them that I've seen are actually recent.

I guess I didn't really mean for this post to be so long-winded though. Eh.

I use GraphicsGale. The ability to see an animation playing as you edit it is extremely useful, and it's just a great program for pixel art overall.

i use paint xp for everything except transparencies and rotations that aren't multiples of 90 degrees; when i need to do those things, i whip out gimp.

I took the liberty to change the title to better fit what you're asking


I have always been using MS Paint in tandem with a gif animator program for pixelart. In my earlier times, I'd use Game Maker's graphic edit app to test animations, but now that I have Graphics Gale, I can't think on myself using another thing.

By MS Paint I mean the XP one, Win7 Paint is the shittiest thing ever

Speaking of using other programs alongside the main one, I do as well. Transparency in GG is a bit of a pain to figure out, so I just do that in Paint.NET. I also tend to use MS Paint for scans, copying + pasting stuff into the canvas, and etc. However, I just can't sprite in Paint anymore because I'm so used to being able to zoom in, like, x1200. xD
Non-90 degree rotations can be a bit of a pain if you don't have the right program, I agree.

Gors: Thanks! Yeah, that's better.
Game Maker? Interesting. For animating I always used to use Microsoft GIF animator...it is a great animator overall, but it tends to distort your colors just a tiny bit. Plus some other quirks. I guess it's just better in GG because you can actually edit and compare each frame as you go along, all in one. So convenient, and I agree with you on the fact that I can't really see myself using any other animating program anymore.

Yeah, at first I really hated the Win7 Paint. Like, with a passion. But after a while I forced myself to get used to it; anyway, I had tried to replace that version of Paint with the Vista one several times (really took a liking to the version on Win Vista), but sadly to no avail.

(04-11-2012, 09:40 PM)Gors Wrote: [ -> ]By MS Paint I mean the XP one, Win7 Paint is the shittiest thing ever

Quoting this. When I opened MS Paint 7 the first time, I couldn't figure out where anything was for a while.

I feel silly, I use Win7 paint x)

I use Game Maker when making animations because I can see the animation and quickly make edits.
For regular pixel art I either use ms paint or gimp. I think I might try out this graphics gale though...

Count me in the 7Paint is awful crowd.
I use XP Paint for everything except animation and transparency.
For those, I use GraphicsGale.

P-P-P-Photoshop.

I know it's not the best, but I use 7Paint. I haven't found anything wrong with it apart from when use turn 'Transparent Selection' on and sometimes it acts like it wasn't turned on. I actually prefer it over XPPaint as the zooming is easier and it can store more than three edits in the undo command. I downloaded Graphics Gale a while back so I might have a go at using it.

PhotoFiltre because I love to work with grids.
Needless to say what I use for animations...

I'd actually really like to use GraphicsGale as my main program of choice, but it seems so complicated and intimidating that I haven't tried using it for regular pixelling

Paint is just so simple and easy to use and I know the program inside and out

GraphicsGale, The GIMP on occasion when I feel like using my tablet to draw the first "draft".

I use Vista Paint (teehee vista) and then I tediously transfer everything over to GraphicsGale for animating. I would like to just work straight in GraphicsGale, but it'd take some getting used to and I don't have the time or patience right now.