COLDSTEEL's Sprite Studio

Released: Nov 2, 2023
Platforms
Last updated: 14 Sep 2026, 20:10 GMT

Updates & announcements

4 posts

25 Apr 2024Developer post
Beta Version 1.18
Shapes Shapes come in two forms, ellipses and rectangles. From these, you can make circles and squares. The shapes give you the ability to change the border and the fill colors of the shape. The shape is 'placed' in its artboard, and more specifically, its owning layer, by raster
16 Feb 2024Developer post
Beta Update 1.17
Beta 1.17 UI Themes UI themes are now available. You can select them in the Options drop down menu. You can also create your own if you launch in debug mode. Variable Palette Sizes When creating projects, you can choose the dimensions in pixels for palettes for your projects. Pre
09 Jan 2024Developer post
New Update: Palette Modification
A new update for Sprite Studio is out, and this is a large one. TLDR You can now modify palettes directly, A new brush has been added that simply allows you to select which artboard to be active without having to modify it, Some changes have been made to API, Some bugs have been
A new update for Sprite Studio is out, and this is a large one.
TLDR

You can now modify palettes directly,
A new brush has been added that simply allows you to select which artboard to be active without having to modify it,
Some changes have been made to API,
Some bugs have been removed, and
Scripts will be updated shortly.
Overview
Sprite Studio has received its next major update. This adds a new features to the application; you can now modify the palettes directly. This features is used for more advanced control over the colors of your images, and you can do some pretty cool things with this.
With this feature you could draw your subject on the palette, and then reference specific pixels of the palette for your artboards. Then, you can update the appearance of the subject in the palette, and all pixels on artboards which referenced the changed pixels will also be changed (because they look to the palette to know what color to display).
Of course, changing palettes to change images is not new, neither to Sprite Studio nor the rest of graphic design. But the limitation of the old way is that the palette would only store one copy of a particular color value. So all pixels which referenced that color would be changed simultaneously when the one copy on the palette is changed. Now, because you can modify the palette directly, you can put multiple copies of the same color in the palette. Thus, when you create your artboards, you can select which color copy from the palette you want to use for your artboard modification. Then, you can change individual copies of the color in the palette, and only the pixels on artboards that reference that specific copy will be changed.
I'm sure this is a difficult thing to understand, because it's extremely difficult to explain. You will find a link to a YouTube video explaining this concept in much more detail and quality. The video is also very illustrative of how Sprite Studio works in general.
Future of Sprite Studio
There are a few additional features Sprite Studio would need to exit Early Access. I consider those to be:

Shape (ellipses and rectangles at least) tools
Line and curve tools
Text tools
Certainly there are others, but these are, I feel, the most important and missing. I will continue to work toward these features, possibly releasing them all together in one major update, and making the application leave Early Access at the same time, but Sprite Studio will be shifting away from my priority. I plan to begin work on a new, unannounced game which I will be sharing more about when its ready.
Thank you for reading this post. I hope you have found some use out of Sprite Studio, and I hope you will stick with it to see what happens in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsOKwUwL1bE&list=LL&index=133
Original post
03 Nov 2023Developer post
COLDSTEEL's Sprite Studio Early Access Beta Release!
COLDSTEEL's Sprite Studio COLDSTEEL's Sprite Studio is a new generation pixel editing and animation application for 2D graphic creation, and it is releasing into beta Early Access now! This has been a 10 month project by one person to experiment and expand on the offerings of pix
COLDSTEEL's Sprite Studio
COLDSTEEL's Sprite Studio is a new generation pixel editing and animation application for 2D graphic creation, and it is releasing into beta Early Access now!
This has been a 10 month project by one person to experiment and expand on the offerings of pixel editors we currently have.
Features
Sprite Studio has a number of unique features that make it worth investigating.

Animation Support: you can create animations and export them into an easy to use file format thanks to,
STEEL's Sprites Library: a free and open source library written in both C and Java you can use to import and animate the images you create in Sprite Studio. You can find links to it below,
Scripting Support: you can create, upload, and download scripts from the Steam Workshop or share them among friends. These scripts are written in Python and are a powerful way to extend Sprite Studio,
Steam Workshop Integration: You can write small Python scripts and share them with the community via the Steam Workshop, this allows you to add all manner of new things to Sprite Studio, including new brushes, new exporters, and new palettes, and
(Most) everything else you expect in a pixel editor: Several easy to use brushes, layers, both visual and nonvisual (more on those another time), saving and loading projects, exporting, with many options and into various formats such as PNG, JPEG, and bitmap, customizability, both in control binds and other settings, etc.
And you can find documentation for the scripting API, which is just the right size to get started, at
steelsoftworks.net
STEEL's Sprites in C
STEEL's Sprites in Java
Thanks!
Sprite Studio is in beta and Steam Early Access. You can expect much more in the future if interest exists.
Thanks for reading and enjoy!
Original post

COLDSTEEL's Sprite Studio

Updates & announcements

Beta Version 1.18

Shapes

Lines

Bug Fixes

Next Time

Beta Update 1.17

Beta 1.17

UI Themes

Variable Palette Sizes

Bug Fixes

Next Time

New Update: Palette Modification

A new update for Sprite Studio is out, and this is a large one.

TLDR

Overview

Future of Sprite Studio

COLDSTEEL's Sprite Studio Early Access Beta Release!

COLDSTEEL's Sprite Studio

Features

Thanks!