Top Down Sprite Maker – Pixel Art Character Creator

Top Down Sprite Maker is the perfect pixel art character creator for developers that care about the finer details.

Features

Customize

TDSM gives you complete freedom to customize every facet of your character, yet the sprite assembly rules still ensure that sprites always look good and production-ready.

• Controlled randomization: Generate random sprites with the click of a button. Randomization can be constrained by locking customization layers you wish to exclude.
• Smart layering rules: Customization layers update dynamically based on changes to other layers they depend on. For example, changing your body type from "average" to "small" in the Pokémon style will render your head a pixel lower and switch to the small body clothing assets, but the outfit choice will stay the same.

Configure

Configure your sprite sheet to your exact needs. Have TDSM adapt to your existing projects rather than having to rework code or sprite sheet slicing configurations.

• Sizing: Crop or pad individual sprites to your liking, ranging from 1x1 px to 128x128 px
• Sequencing: Determine which directions and animations to include in the export, and in which order
• Layout: Determine the axis along which directions and animations are exported in the sprite sheet, as well as how distinct animations follow one another

Export

Export sprite sheets and associated data from TDSM in seconds.

• Sprite sheet as a PNG image
• Sprite sheet metadata as JSON [optional]
• Sprite sheet with customization layers separated as Stipple Effect project (.stip) [optional]

Sprite styles

TDSM is not designed for any particular style of sprites, but rather in an abstract way that makes it easy to extend the program with new sprite styles.

Currently supported sprite styles

• Pokémon Trainer [Gen 4]: Inspired by the Generation IV Pokémon games (Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSiver)

  • Default sprite dimensions: 32x32 px
  • Directions: Left, right, up, down
  • Animations
    • Walk: 4-frame cycle (represented as 3 frames in a ping-pong loop because frames 2 and 4 are the same)
    • Idle: 1 frame
    • Coming soon: Run, surf, swim, cycling, and more

  

  The Pokémon style will also be extended with more customization options, including body types, head shapes, hairstyles, and especially clothes.

Planned sprite styles

• Pokémon Trainer [Gen 3]
• Style inspired by Stardew Valley
• Original 16-bit and 32-bit RPG styles with 4, 6 and 8 directions

Buying the program grants you access to all future updates. The program will probably go up in price as sprite styles and animations are added and it becomes more full-featured, so come aboard sooner rather than later!

Contribute

You can help me develop TDSM by reporting bugs or even by helping me draw base assets.

License

TDSM is released under an end-user license agreement.

You may...

• Use TDSM for personal or commercial projects
• Clone the TDSM source code and privately modify it to suit your needs

You may not...

• Distribute or sell copies of TDSM (whether modified or not)

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Stipple Effect is a scriptable pixel art editor perfect for doing post-processing on exported sprite sheets. .stip is one of TDSM's export file formats.