GameBoy exporter for Aseprite
A downloadable plugin
Simple plugin to export sprites for a GameBoy game for Aseprite
Longer explenation on how to use the tool.
Shorter explanation on how to use the tool:
All the slices are exported as a single .c file with a table 2 unsigned chars (bytes) arrays (Tiles and Spites) and an optional list of #defines specifying offset of each sprite.
Spites should have a slice name starting with a dot (.) e.g. .hero
To specify the color the plugin only take a look at red channel (for my workflow I avoid using indexed file here):
0 - (default black) - very low red value
1 - (default dark) - low red value
2 - (default light) - high red value
3 - (default white) - very high red value
Installation
https://www.aseprite.org/docs/extensions
My workflow / Tips
- Every sprite must have a unique name
- Shift-C is your shortcut, double-click on to bring the properties of the slice
- The file I'm working on is full of explanations of what is what so I can send this to the programmer and avoid misunderstandings (I like using colors for explanations)
- if you have some tiles that need to be used multiple times (flipped etc) to build a bigger image just put expected result next to it and draw some arrows but assign no slice to it.
- I prefix every slice name with some category, e.g. enemy_, bg_, ui_ etc - they should have sense in your game.
- Use slice names that are valid .c names - i.e. use letters, numbers and underscore, and never start with a number
- I indicate frames of animation with a suffixes: _f1, _f2, and so on
- Sometimes you'll need to separate element into multiple slices because slices are only rectangles (and you'd like to safe on space after all). I use suffixes like _left, _right, _top, _tip etc for those cases.
- No need to separate each letter of the alphabet, number, another list of things of 1-tile (8x8 pixels) size each - programmer can easily find the offset for those
- I didn't specify default keybinding but you can easily assign it in `Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts...` to Export2GbSpritesC command
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- DocumentationMay 11, 2023
Comments
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i dont get it.. what exactly is it doing? can you make your sprites appear on a gameboy screen? how can i connect my gameboy with the pc?
Why, I'm not a programmer in the project I've been using this plugin for, but basically you use the bytes from the exported .c file and use them as sprites or tiles directly in your game, compile your game and than transfer it to a cardridge.
If you'd use GameBoy Development Kit it'll be something like in this tutorial for sprites .
The exported file is basically just bytes spelled out so if one uses different way of compiling a game it's still useful.
As for transferring to cardridge: search for something like "Gameboy Flash Cardridge" or "Gameboy cartridge reader/writer" - this is for development or very small-scale, self-handled release I guess.
If you'd actually like to release 100s (1000s? fingeres crossed) copies of non-writable cardridges you'd probably want to find a publisher that handle that for you.
Finally you can always just release .rom files and let your players handle that (either with emulation or their own cardridge writers)
hope it helps!