Best software for pixel animation?

[larvapuppy]

I've been getting back into pixel art for the past year or so; a bonus of this is that it's easy for me to add simple little animations to my pieces to bring them to life a bit. I currently use FireAlpaca to make the art, assemble the frames as individual transparent png files, then animate them with the online gif maker, ezgif.

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My problem being that I want to branch out and start doing more complex animations with these pixels. My animation skill itself is alright, but I find it quite annoying that I am unable to scroll through my frames, reorder and assemble them in one program, and make minor edits without throwing off the timing of the whole piece. So I'd love some recommendations from my fellow pixel artists for art programs with good pixel art + animation functions.

My wishlist:

• Supports & respects alpha (aka if I draw something at 40% opacity it exports at 40% opacity, rather than disappearing or being changed to 100% opacity)
• Exports animated gifs
• Free or lump sum price (no subscription services)
• Animation timeline with onionskin, easy to change timing and scroll through / do test shots
• Works on MacOS (and older versions, I use High Sierra)

Hopefully that isn't too much to ask!    Thanks in advance!

[dirtnap]

ooh i like your style!

sadly, you can't have partial-transparency in a gif. the format itself does not support that.

as far as i know, no animated image format supports partial-transparency. there are apngs, but they're a very weird format that a lot of devices don't properly support, and i wouldn't recommend using them.

(EDIT: re-reading your post, i realise you weren't asking for a file format that supports both animation and partial-transparency, but software. presumably for the benefit of either pngs or gifs as needed.)

i had no idea firealpaca can't save gifs.

the software i use for animating gifs is an old version of photoshop elements. (i say old, i don't think they still make elements so probably all versions of it are old now). i wouldn't recommend it for animating anything with more than a dozen or so frames, scrolling through the layers is a pain and it will refuse to save a gif over a certain very small size, even though other software can save gifs ten times that size.

i know there's a lot of dedicated pixel-art software out there (i hear aesprite is popular) so you might want to look through those since they'd presumably be less bloated than photoshop for your purposes, and may be better about saving "big" gifs.

[fizzylimesoda]

use libresprite, it's basically a continuation of aseprite 1.6 (which is the last free version before shifting into a propriteary license)

[zawieja]

I can vouch for aseprite - I rarely buy programs unless I think they really deserve it, but this one does for sure I'm not sure how it would work on MacOS though.
And as it has already been mentioned - I don't think you can make GIFs with partial transparency due to format limitations.

[larvapuppy]

Thanks for the recommendations everyone- a shame that gifs don't allow partial transparency, but that explains why the smoking guy's smoke disappeared when I had it fading away. I'm not as familiar with apngs but if they have partial transparency as a feature I'd be more likely to try them.

Nice to know that aseprite now works on Mac. I'd heard of it before, but the last time I checked (a few years ago now) I believe it was Windows-only? I think I'll download the trial version to see if it's worth buying. The open-source version sounds interesting as well, so I'll compare them.  EDIT: The trial version of aseprite apparently doesn't allow you to save your files? How do they expect people to try it out properly if they can't make something they'd wanna save     

If there are other alternatives I'd still love to hear about them, so I can pick what suits me best.

[candycanearter07]

I can vouch for aseprite - I rarely buy programs unless I think they really deserve it, but this one does for sure I'm not sure how it would work on MacOS though.
And as it has already been mentioned - I don't think you can make GIFs with partial transparency due to format limitations.

You can also get it for free if you're a nerd

[GarbCat]

Hii sorry for the 3-month bump but!!! Aceprite is probably considered the premiere pixel animation software but if you can't afford it, don't know how to compile it yourself, or it doesn't work on macOS (as most software is macphobic it seems) I highly recommend piskel/piskelapp. It is a browser-based (though a desktop version exists, it is mac-incompatible), open-source pixel art/animation program. Due to working in-browser its compatibility is greater than the average art software that needs to be installed on desktop (however, it is still unusable on mobile basically... maybe it works on tablets?). It features pretty robust animation-related features and what *I* think are pretty flexible export/import options. Besides drawing in it I also use it a lot for editing GIFs in general, something I found is kind of a crapshoot in a lot of other art/imaging editing software.
Honestly I don't know how ""good"" it is compared to Aceprite- piskel is what I picked up when I was 11 and wanted to recolor Mega Man sprites and so I ended up kind of learning it and am now set in my ways. But I promise it's a very fine, flexible tool and I really recommend it both for making original art/animations and for readjusting pre-existing GIFs