Aseprite

Aseprite is a pixel art tool designed for creating animated sprites and static pixel art. It provides a frame-based editor with layers, frames, and a timeline, enabling artists to draw frame-by-frame animation with onion skinning to see previous and next frames.

The editor uses a pixel-perfect canvas and supports tilemaps and tilesets, palettes, and color management with indexed palettes and dithering options. Tools include pencil, brush, eraser, line, curve, shapes, fill, and selection tools, plus transform and pixel-perfect snapping. It supports layers, layer groups, and blend modes.

Animation and export: the timeline allows looping, playback, and frame rate control; onion skinning can be enabled for planning animation. Aseprite can export animations as animated GIF or APNG, as well as sprite sheets (PNG) and individual frames; it can export tilesets and other assets. It supports scripting with Lua, enabling automation and custom tools.

Platform and licensing: Aseprite runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The source code is released under the MIT license, and developers may build from source; official binaries are distributed for purchase.

Usage and impact: widely used in indie game development and pixel art communities for its focused workflow, extensibility, and active community. Development continues with regular updates.