Slate is a bitmap graphics editor designed for creating game sprites and seamless tilesets. It focuses on the drawing operations involved in producing small, pixel-based assets rather than attempting to provide the extensive facilities of a general-purpose image editor.
A central part of Slate’s design is its support for seamless tile creation. Artists producing terrain, floors, walls or other repeating graphical elements can inspect how their artwork fits together, helping them avoid visible boundaries between adjacent tiles.
The application also supports layers and sprite-sheet animation previews. These facilities make it useful for preparing artwork for two-dimensional games, particularly where individual frames or repeating textures need to be checked before being imported into a game engine.
Slate uses Qt and provides a customisable interface intended to make pixel editing accessible without unnecessary complexity.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Create and edit pixel-based bitmap images.
- Draw individual pixels using a graphical editing canvas.
- Organise artwork into separately editable layers.
- Control the visibility of individual layers.
- Create seamless tilesets for two-dimensional game environments.
- Inspect repeated tile arrangements while editing.
- Work with patterns designed to join without visible seams.
- Preview sprite-sheet animations.
- Check animation frames before incorporating them into game projects.
- Use a customisable workspace designed for pixel art.
- Work directly with graphical assets in a desktop application.
- Use the editor for game characters, environmental tiles and other bitmap artwork.
- Cross-platform support – runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Website: github.com/mitchcurtis/slate
Support:
Developer: Mitch Curtis
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Slate is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Pixel Art Editors | |
|---|---|
| Pixelorama | 2D sprite editor, made with the Godot Engine |
| PixiEditor | Create beautiful sprites for your games, animations, edit images, create logos |
| Piskel | Simple web-based tool for spriting and pixel art |
| LibreSprite | Create 2D animations for videogames |
| rx | Modern and extensible pixel editor implemented in Rust |
| GrafX2 | Billed as the ultimate 256-color bitmap paint program |
| mtPaint | Painting program to create pixel art and manipulate digital photos |
| PyDPainter | Usable pixel art program. |
| Slate | Qt-based pixel art editor |
| PikoPixel | Draw and edit pixel art images |
| Fizzy | Pixel art editor and animation editor |
| voidsprite | Pixel art editor in an early stage of development |
| csprite | Tiny pixel art tool |
| Tilf | Simple yet powerful pixel art editor |
| PixelPen | Pixel art editor with layers, animation and Godot integration |
| Pixcil | Pixel art editor with an almost infinite canvas and animation |
| PixlPunkt | Modern, cross-platform pixel art editor |
| Pixed | Pixel art editor |
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