Using Photoshop for Character Automation

[Grizzy]

I've been debating very hard on just buying Photoshop. It seems to me as a must have… One question I want to ask before going down to the store and purchasing it is this... When it comes to item, sprite, animation, npc, and different forms or gfx creation that includes some sort of animation is there any kind of way that Photoshop can cut down on the time it takes for me to create something.... example:

Say I'm creating a sprite is there a way it can automatically render the walking animations so I don't have to for every single sprite.

So that's all I want to know. Thanks and I'll wait for answers. :)

[demon xxx x]

I mean paint or graphics gale are probably your best choice for pixel art.

[Zetasis]

As far as I know there is no way photoshop can create animated sprite frames for you. Plus, I don't really think photoshop is meant for pixel art; more for image editing. I recommend giving paint.net a try if you haven't yet. It works well for pixel art and there are a ton of plug-in available as well.

[Grizzy]

I've been using paint for a while. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't some big giant thing I've been missing. lol. Time is always important to me.

[deathtaker26]

> I've been debating very hard on just buying Photoshop. It seems to me as a must have… One question I want to ask before going down to the store and purchasing it is this... When it comes to item, sprite, animation, npc, and different forms or gfx creation that includes some sort of animation is there any kind of way that Photoshop can cut down on the time it takes for me to create something.... example:
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> Say I'm creating a sprite is there a way it can automatically render the walking animations so I don't have to for every single sprite.
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> So that's all I want to know. Thanks and I'll wait for answers. :)

I have an ACA certification in Photoshop CS5 and CS6\. That being said I would like to tell you about the percs and craps about Photoshop. Photoshop SUCKS for pixel art, there are so many other free softwares out there that are better for Pixel Art. If you're going to spend money for pixel art buy Pixen. I hear it's pretty good. Another Crap about photoshop is it sucks for vector art and painting. If you're looking for a painting software, use Krita. It's free and AMAZING! If you're looking for Vector art software, use Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape. So what is Photoshop good for? I find it good for developing GUI's and adding effects to images, creating buttons and web related content… Photo Manipulation... you know what Photoshop really is... a Photo Manipulator.... meaning it's made for adding effects and editing images, and has SOME features for 3D and SOME features for web stuff... if you're going to use it for anything else, there are better alternatives out there.... trust me, it's not a must have,

[Erikai]

If you want to speed up your production time with pixel art animation, Photoshop isn't what you're looking for. Is it possible? Sure. To be fast in Photoshop, you would have to come up with a system for doing specific things. But I personally think Photoshop is better for Web stuffs.

Try some of this free stuff first though:

>! [**Paint.net**](http://www.getpaint.net/download.html "External link")
>! Paint.net is a advance version of Microsoft paint, and is easy to use than Microsoft paint.
>! [**Graphics Gale**](http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/ "External link")
>! A software especially created for making pixel art, easy to use but it's not noob-friendly.
>! [**Pro Motion**](http://www.cosmigo.com/promotion/index.php "External link")
>! A drawing and animation software designed similar to the famous Amiga Deluxe Paint, this software can also be use for pixel art animations.
>! [**Personal Paint**](http://www.amigaforever.com/classic/ppaint.html "External link")
>! A powerful and intuitive paint, image processing, animation and 24-bit printing package. Employ stunning effects like emboss, water-colors, transparencies and stereograms (as in "Magic Eye").
>! [**Tile Studio**](http://tilestudio.sourceforge.net/ "External link")
>! A complete development utility for graphics of tile-based games.
>! [**Ultimate Paint**](http://www.ultimatepaint.com/ "External link")
A full-featured 32-bit Windows graphics program for image creation, viewing and manipulation
>!  
>! [**Pickle**](http://www.pickleeditor.com/ "External link")
>! A **cross-platform pixel editor** for creating game animations, tiles and sprite sheets.
>!  
>! [**iDraw Chara Maker**](http://tsukuru.pl/index.php?link=programy/iDraw "External link")
>! A graphics program widely used by the game-making community (RPG Maker in particular), which uses palletized graphics, grid snapping, and animation previews. It is very useful for those making graphics for a tile-based game.
>!  
>! [**Ragepixel**](http://ragepixel.com/ "External link")
>! A very powerful tool in fast prototyping and gamejam scenarios.
>!  
>! [**RotSprite**](http://info.sonicretro.org/RotSprite "External link")
>! A sprite rotation and scaling utility developed by Xenowhirl. It outperforms most professional graphics software (such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro) when rotating sprites through an angle other than 90° or one of its multiples. Typically, other graphics editors will apply anti-aliasing or use a primitive nearest-neighbor method when rotating images, which produces results that are ugly or unsuitable for sprites.

[Chief]

Photoshop is suited perfectly well for pixel art… Not really sure why anyone would disagree with that; however, I wouldn't buy is specifically for pixel art. in that case, there are other (free) tools that can do what you need.

[Grizzy]

I'm checking em out now… I'd say for example.. making a new suit of armor takes me on average 45-70ish minutes if I don't take breaks and its pretty simple. Idk on average how long it normally takes someone else.. I just know I'm pretty novice at best.