Modular Sprite Editor
A desktop editor for modular pixel-art sprites on retro consoles, with exporters for the Mega Drive (SGDK) and the
SNES (PVSnesLib).
Artwork is cut into reusable modules, assembled into frames (positioned, flipped and rotated parts, nested
frames, hitboxes and points), sequenced into animations, composed in timeline scenes, re-skinned with
mappings and recoloured with palette swaps. The console exporters bake it all into data that a small runtime
draws on the console exactly as the editor shows it; sprite sheets for other engines (Godot, Unity, any engine that
reads Aseprite's JSON) and Aseprite files go both ways.
Website and user guide: modularsprites.bionic-productions.com
Download
The editor and the command-line exporters for the Mega Drive (export_megadrive) and the SNES (export_snes) for
Windows, macOS and Linux are on the Releases page (the
editor exports for both itself; the exporters are for build scripts), with the example projects in
ModularSpriteEditor-examples.zip and the SNES demo in ModularSpriteEditor-snes-demo.zip (the ROM, for an
emulator, and its PVSnesLib project). The builds are not signed: on Windows choose "More info › Run anyway", on
macOS right-click › Open the first time.
Status
- Modules, Frames, Animations and Mappings are the most complete and most used part of the tool.
- Timeline (scenes) is newer: objects can carry their own mapping and palette swap, follow a point of their
parent's frames, and animations can be choreographed with keys; the UX may still change.
- Palettes (the newest tab): palettes in slot order, palette swaps and colour cycles, for the console the project
targets (Mega Drive, SNES, NES, Game Boy Advance or Game Boy); the Mega Drive and the SNES have exporters.
- Project files carry a
format_version (currently 8); older files are upgraded when opened. See
docs/FILE_FORMAT.md.
- Each fully supported console has its folder: the Mega Drive's exporter (SGDK), runtime and demo ROM in
examples/megadrive, the SNES's (PVSnesLib) in
examples/snes; docs/CONSOLES.md says what full support means. The
example projects are console-neutral: examples/pop, examples/sonic, examples/adventurer.
Features
Everywhere
- Project-wide undo/redo for every editor, unsaved-change tracking and a save prompt on close.
- Welcome screen with recent projects, the example projects and the user guide; Help ▸ User Guide (
F1) and
Help ▸ Example Projects. Empty tabs say what to make first.
- Laptop-friendly: view bars wrap instead of cutting controls off, inspector sections fold away (and stay folded),
the window opens where and as large as it was, and the Timeline's dopesheet and the Animations step sequence keep the
height they were dragged to. One selection rule:
Shift+click adds, Cmd+click adds or removes.
- Crisp on scaled displays: on Windows at 125 or 150 % the editor draws its UI at the display's scale instead of
being stretched, and pixel art stays pixel-exact at every zoom.
- Safe saving: a save replaces the file in one step and keeps the previous version as
name.json.bak; unsaved
changes are autosaved every 30 s to a recovery folder and offered again after a crash.
- Images edited elsewhere reload by themselves when you return to the editor.
- Check Project (Tools menu): everything an export would leave out or show differently, such as steps whose
frame was deleted, missing images, more colours than the console has or names that clash in C, with Go to and a
fix for most. Deleting something that is still used asks whether to remove its uses too.
- One canvas model: wheel/trackpad zoom glides and settles on whole pixel sizes (1×, 2×, 3×…), Space/Alt/middle-drag
pans,
Cmd/Ctrl+0 fits. View ▸ Scroll Moves the View makes scrolling pan instead, with pinch or Cmd+scroll
to zoom.
- Preview mapping and palette swap above the tabs: what every preview and export draws with.
- Filters on all long lists (modules, frames, animations, scenes, palettes); frames and animations also have
groups and sort by list order, name (numbers count as numbers) or group.
- Each project opens where you left it: the tab, each tab's selection, zoom, pan and grid.
- Preferences (
Cmd+,): the theme (like the system, dark or light; also View ▸ Theme), scrolling, 50 Hz
previews, the backdrop colour, the tick rate of new animations, how often unsaved changes are kept, the welcome
screen.
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