🧪 SpriteBrew
AI-powered pixel art sprite sheet generator. Generate characters from text → animate → slice → preview → export game-ready sheets for Unity, Godot, GameMaker, RPG Maker.
Status: Live in production · Active development · Real customers brewing daily
🌐 spritebrew.com — Try it now (free account = 5 generation tokens to start)
What is SpriteBrew?
SpriteBrew is a web-based tool for indie game developers that combines traditional sprite sheet workflows with AI-powered generation. Create new characters from text descriptions across 21 visual styles, animate existing pixel art, preview animations with full keyboard controls, and export to every major game engine — all in one place.
Free tools (no account needed): Upload & Slice, Animation Preview, Multi-Engine Export, Pixel Editor, Pixel-Perfect Resizer.
AI features (free account, token-based): Text-to-Sprite Generation across 21 styles, Animate My Character. Free signup bonus + daily login rewards. Token packs start at $4.99 for users who want more.
Features
🎨 AI Sprite Generation
Describe a character in plain text and pick from 21 visual styles across 5 categories: characters (Pro Fantasy, Sci-fi, Horror, Painterly, Simple, Default, Top Down, Platformer), tiles (Isometric, Hexagonal, Spritesheet, Dungeon Map), UI elements (Typography, FPS Weapon, Skill / Spell Icon, UI Panel, Inventory Items), and animation styles (4-Angle Walking, Walking & Idle, Small Sprites, VFX Effects, Custom Animation, 8-Direction Rotation). Each style has its own tier (Fast / Plus / Pro / Animation) with token cost scaled to model complexity. Powered by Retro Diffusion's pixel art models via direct API.
🖼️ Per-Style Example Lightbox
Tap the ⤢ icon on any style card to open a carousel showing what each style actually produces — 2-5 curated examples per style. Pick what you actually want, not what you think a style means by name. "Use this style →" in the lightbox toolbar selects + closes in one click.
🌅 Persistent Background Toggle
The "Remove background" control sits on the sticky generate bar — always visible during the entire generation flow. Defaults intelligently per style category (on for characters, off for tiles). Toggle off to keep environmental detail in your generations.
🏃 Animate My Character
Upload your existing pixel art character and generate animation frames from it. Walk cycles, idle loops, attacks, jumps, crouches, subtle motion, and custom actions — the AI preserves your character's appearance while creating smooth motion. Smart animation padding ensures weapons and motion aren't clipped.
🧙 Auto-Prep Character Pipeline
Drop any character image and SpriteBrew handles the rest: contour-based sprite detection, smart cropping, background removal with adjustable tolerance, and pixel-perfect resize to 64×64. Before/after preview with one-click approval. Edit the prepped image in the built-in pixel editor if auto-detection missed something.
✂️ Upload & Slice
Drop any sprite sheet PNG, configure frame dimensions (auto-detect or manual), and slice it into individual frames. Grid overlay preview, multi-select frames, contour-based detection for non-grid layouts, and smart auto-assignment of animation groups with directional detection.
🎮 Animation Preview
PixiJS-powered interactive demo area with full keyboard controls. Walk your character around with arrow keys, trigger attacks with spacebar, and test animations in real-time. Supports 4-directional movement for top-down RPG sprites. Multiple tiled backgrounds (grid, grass, dungeon, stone).
📦 Multi-Engine Export
Export to six formats in one click:
- TexturePacker JSON Hash (Unity, Godot, general)
- Aseprite JSON (pixel art workflow)
- GameMaker horizontal strips
- RPG Maker MV/MZ 3×4 grid
- Godot SpriteFrames .tres
- Raw Frames ZIP (individual PNGs)
🖌️ Pixel Editor
Click any frame to open a zoomed pixel editor. Fix AI artifacts, touch up details, or make manual adjustments. Pencil, eraser, eyedropper, color palette, undo/redo (50 states, Ctrl+Z). Edit at 8-16× zoom with pixel grid overlay and 1× preview alongside.
📸 Generation Gallery
Browse all past generations with filtering (Created vs Animated). Download PNGs, send to slicer, or delete. Per-user history — each account sees only their own generations.
🪙 Token Economy
Free users get 5 tokens at signup, +3 tokens every daily login, and a +6 bonus on every 7th consecutive day. Subscribe to the newsletter for +5 more. Token packs start at $4.99 for users who want to brew more. Generation costs: Fast 3 / Plus 10 / Pro 40 / Anim-short 15 / Anim-long 50 tokens.
📐 Pixel-Perfect Image Resizer
Built-in nearest-neighbor resizing for preparing pixel art for animation. Upload a high-res character, resize to 64×64 with crisp pixel-perfect scaling — no blurry bilinear interpolation.
🔐 Authentication
Sign in with Google or email via Clerk. Free tools work without an account. AI generation requires a free login. Production SSO, bot-signup protection enabled.
Tech Stack
| Layer | Technology |
|---|
| Framework | Next.js 16 (React 19) |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS v4 |
| State | Zustand |
| Animation | PixiJS 8 |
| Auth | Clerk (@clerk/react) |
| AI Backend | Retro Diffusion direct API |
| Async Queue | Cloudflare Queues (producer + consumer Worker) |
| Storage | Cloudflare KV |
| Payments | Stripe (live) |
| Transactional Email | Purelymail SMTP |
| Audience Email | Resend |
| Image Carousel | yet-another-react-lightbox |
| Export | JSZip |
| Hosting | Cloudflare Pages (Workers Paid plan) |
| License | AGPL-3.0 |
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
