Bitmap editor to make game sprites in Linux?

Question

We would like to draw textures and skins for games like Minetest and Minecraft. What do you recommend? Feature preferences (in order of importance):

1. Similar to software used by experienced artists for such games.
2. The subject of tutorial(s) for drawing game graphics
3. Works on current Linux
4. A live preview that updates while we edit a magnified view
5. Free/Libre/Open source
6. Color picker
7. Line, border and fill tools
8. Actively maintained

We have looked at this list, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Raster_graphics_editors_for_Linux but we don't yet know which of those apps have features 1 and 2.

This list looks closer to the mark: http://alternativeto.net/software/grafx2/?platform=linux

Related questions:

• What pixel graphics program supports creating seamless tiles? (answers are Windows and Mac apps)
• General-purpose sprite manager
• Game development content pipeline/toolchain?

Answer 1

You could try aseprite, an opensource (see their faq) pixel art editor which supports:

• Sprites are composed by layers & frames (as separated concepts).
• Supported color modes: RGBA, Indexed (palettes up to 256 colors), and Grayscale.
• Load/save sequence of PNG files and GIF animations (also FLC, FLI, JPG, BMP, PCX, TGA).
• Export/import animations to/from Sprite Sheets.
• Tiled drawing mode, useful to draw patterns and textures.
• Undo/Redo for every operation.
• Mini-editor with real-time animation preview.
• Multiple editors support.
• Pixel art specific tools like filled Contour & Polygon.
• Onion skinning