Well, it's been two years since I last updated ATE. I had ambitions to work on a Voxel editor component for it, but I just haven't had the time to focus on it. It's still something I wish to do.
ATE is a useful tool, built from other useful tools and libraries. It uses open source like ImageMagick and other utilities found online that were free or open source. It also uses Lost Astronaut's Game Creation Framework, implementing an OpenGL-based graphics engine underlying a complex and organically grown game engine.
ATE is being released on Github, GPL v2, to permit others to peer into the source code and gain insights on how ATE works, how to automate processes, and change ATE to your needs.
I think by releasing ATE it will only further help those users who have purchased the program, and allow others to delve into its inner workings, perhaps submitting Pull Requests with desired changes, improvements, bug fixes, and additional features. You are encouraged to get in touch if you wish to submit changes, directly on Github.
You can find the source code and default graphics for ATE here: https://github.com/LAGameStudio/ATE
Note that the GPL v2 license applies only to ATE's source code -- the application and engine source -- not to the third party libraries and utilities, nor to the graphics themselves. Graphics included in ATE were free to use and provided either by me or by sites like OpenGameArt. They were really never included to be used exclusively, they were just examples, as you are encouraged to create your own tilesets to import into ATE and then remix.
ATE is not just a tile editor, it lets you create particle systems, and other meta data, and it does basic graphics processing important for users who are making games and wish to do sprite stacking, voxel work, particle systems, tile-based game backdrops, and more. It works well with art created in other graphic editors like AESprite, The GIMP, and Adobe suite, or acquired from free game graphics and clipart sites.
This is not the end of ATE, just the new beginning it needs to continue on. By purchasing the editor on Steam, you have done your part to support Lost Astronaut Studios and made this possible. Please continue to use ATE and, if you wish, make it the tool of your wildest dreams.
LostAstronaut.com will continue making changes to ATE, and will submit them to the repo and also update Steam when a major release milestone is reached.