Pixel art Program for Atari 2600 Development

[PaultheRoman]

Hey guys, question
What do people use to develop pixel art for the 2600? I would think other normal pixel art programs, but each pixel in the 2600 looks more like a rectangle than an actual square. What do you guys recommend me?

[+Karl G]

This is good for Atari 2600 sprites:

 

https://alienbill.com/2600/playerpalnext.html

[PaultheRoman]

This is good for Atari 2600 sprites:

 

https://alienbill.com/2600/playerpalnext.html

 

Is there something like this, but as a downloadable program? Like, what do other people use?

[+Karl G]

I've always made sprites by hand in the source code directly. I've only discovered this Web app recently. I have no idea if there are any downloadable programs for this purpose.

[+Nathan Strum]

Photoshop. You can set different pixel aspect ratios so you can work in single or two line kernels, create playfields, animation sequences, export frame sequences, etc.

 

On an iPad, I've used Sprite Creator and C64 Sprite Creator (which lets you work in rectangular pixels - a must for the 2600).

[+RevEng]

You can also do different pixel aspect ratios with The Gimp. (+ play back animations, export frame sequences, etc.)

[MemberAtarian]

For sprites, the best thing it the sprite editor in bB. Easy to use, you can preview it and plan your animations.

[drludos]

Personally, I use AlienBill's online program posted above.

I find it very handy to draw the sprite "outline", without bothering with the colors.

Then I manually try to set the colors directly in the program to be able to preview them through Stella.

[Impaler_26]

You could also try the sprite editor from junkosoft:

 

https://www.junkosoft.com/tools.aspx

[freshbrood]

My go-to method is to use MS Paint included on windows computers. I draw a grid that's 8 boxes wide and however tall I need it. Then I paste in a .bmp picture of what I'm going for and drop the grid over it, then try to emulate that image the best I can in another empty grid next to it, using the chunky pixels of the 2600.

 

That's how I got my avatar, which is just p0 and p1 side by side, with a 2nd frame of each on top. The flicker was minimal enough to show all the colors in a camera phone pic.

Edited September 25, 2018 by freshbrood

[TheHoboInYourRoom]

I've had success with the GrafX2 paint program. It lets you define custom brush shapes and arbitrary grid spacings for accommodating the aspect ratios of, say, player and playfield pixels. It's plenty powerful enough for the task.

[ultima]

I use Paint.net and load the palette for near colors