Piskel: Time for an upgrade?

GDevelop general
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Hi everyone at GDevelop!

First off, I want to say I’m loving the progress GDevelop has been making recently—features like multiplayer and 3D functionality are really exciting! That said, I’ve run into some challenges with the default sprite editor, Piskel, and I wanted to share my thoughts (constructively, of course!).

The Big Issues:

  1. Handling Large Images:
    Piskel seems to struggle with larger images. Anything beyond, say, 600x600 tends to make it crash entirely. While I understand embedding lightweight or free tools like Piskel is cost-effective, it’s tough when the editor can’t handle more complex sprites. Considering how integral sprites are to most games, this feels like a crucial area that could use some love.
  2. Ctrl+Z Limitations:
    Using Ctrl+Z to undo edits more than a few times can cause the editor to turn completely white, forcing a restart. This issue has cost me hours of work on a few occasions, which can be frustrating, especially when working on detailed sprites. Improving stability in this area would make the workflow much smoother and more reliable.
  3. Brush Size Limitations:
    The brushes are pretty bare-bones, with sizes ranging from 1-pixel to 4-pixel squares. That’s great for pixel-perfect games (which are super popular here, I know), but for more detailed or non-pixel art games, it feels like the editor is holding us back.

Why This Matters:

GDevelop is making strides in so many areas, and it’s awesome to see. But it feels like Piskel hasn’t kept up with the rest of the editor’s evolution. While it’s decent for basic sprite creation, its limitations with colors, frames, animations, and tools make it hard to recommend for more complex projects.

The TL;DR:

Piskel, as it stands, feels like it’s no longer a good fit for GDevelop. With the engine growing and attracting a wider range of users, I think it’s time to consider a more robust or updated image editor that can match the engine’s progress!

Thanks for taking the time to read, and I’d love to hear others’ thoughts. Maybe someone has found a good workaround, or perhaps this sparks a conversation about what’s next for sprite editing in GDevelop!

Best regards

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At this point, I think Piskel should just outright be removed as it leads to bad behaviors/confusion/issues for users. It’s not part of the GDevelop project nor maintained by them, just bundled with the engine to simplify things.

I don’t think the devs have stated any intent to make their own editor, so it is probably better if there isn’t a bundled (and slightly broken) editor so people get more used to external tools like Pixelorama/Krita/Aesprite/etc, especially as those skills are transferrable from other engines to GDevelop.

A perfect world (for me) would definitely be a better bundled editor, with something like Dpaint.js or another compatible software, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen either as folks have been asking for it since 2019 when I look at feature requests. (to clarify: software like Aesprite/Libresprite are not compatible at a code level, and in most cases at a license level)

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