Godot 4 Aseprite Importers

This is a plugin for the Godot 4.x game engine that adds several import plugins for the Aseprite 1.3+ graphics pixel art editor files.

I highly recommend that you use the Importality plugin instead of this plugin. It is a rethinking and continuation of the initiatives I made in this repository.

Please read the documentation for importing files from Aseprite. And I highly recommend using RAM Drive for intermediate temporary files during the import process.

godot_aseprite_importers_preview.mp4

💽 Installation

Simply download it from Godot Asset Library.

Alternatively download or clone this repository and copy the contents of the addons folder to your own project's addons folder.

Then:

• Go to Project Settings
• Switch to the Plugins tab
• Enable the plugin
• Switch to the General tab
• Turn on Advanced Settings toggle
• Scroll down the settings tree and select Aseprite Importers section
• Specify the path to Aseprite executable file

👷‍♀️ How to use

After installing the plugin, the project will support .ase- and .aseprite-files.

1. Place the Aseprite graphics files in the project
2. Select one or more Aseprite graphics files in the project file system tree
3. Select one of the import plugins in the import panel
4. Set import preferences
5. Optionally set a customized settings configuration for the selected import plugin as default
6. Click the Reimport button

🛠 Import settings

• Spritesheet - spritesheet import settings group
  • Embed Image (not implemented yet) - include the resulting image in a resource or place it next to the source file
  • Layout - spritesheet layout type
    • Packed all the sprites trimmed and compactly arranged in the spritesheet
    • By Rows (with the Fixed Columns Count parameter) - all the sprites have similar size and layed out by rows with fixed length
    • By Columns (with the Fixed Columns Count parameter) - all the sprites have similar size and layed out by columns with fixed height
  • Border Type - the type of the border around each sprite
    • None - does not create border around sprites
    • Transparent - creates a 1 pixel wide transparent border around each sprite
    • Extruded - creates a 1 pixel wide border, duplicating the colors of adjacent sprite pixels, around each sprite
  • Trim - (only for grid-based layouts) - reduces all sprite cells equally so that the animation fits into the new cell size
  • Ignore Empty - does not include sprites in the spritesheet image, on which all pixels are transparent
  • Merge Duplicates - merges the same sprites into the same areas on the spritesheet image
• Animation - animation settings group
  • Default - settings for the default animation (if there are no tags available in the Aseprite graphics file)
    • Name - the name for the default animation
    • Direction - default animation direction
      • Forward - animation plays from the first to the last frame
      • Reverse - animation plays from the first to the last frame
      • Ping-pong - the animation plays from the first to the last frame, and then back to the first, without duplicating the last frame
      • Ping-pong reverse - the animation plays from the last to the first frame, and then back to the last, without duplicating the first frame
    • Repeat Count - number of repetitions. Edge frames are not duplicated when animation changes direction
  • Autoplay - the name of the animation that will be marked as starting automatically
  • Strategy... (only for animations based on AnimationPlayer) - set of node properties that the AnimationPlayer will use to animate
• Layers (not implemented yet) - Aseprite layers settings group
  • Include Reg Ex (not implemented yet) - Regular expression for white list of included layers
  • Exclude Reg Ex (not implemented yet) - Regular expression for blacklist of included layers
• Tags (not implemented yet) - Aseprite tags settings group
  • Include Reg Ex (not implemented yet) - Regular expression for white list of included tags
  • Exclude Reg Ex (not implemented yet) - Regular expression for blacklist of included tags

🧱 Types of Imported Resources

🖼️ Texture

You can import your *.aseprite or *.ase files as regular textures from image files. Unfortunately you can not select layers or frames to render. It renders all visible layers from first animation frame.

🎞 SpriteFrames-based animations

• SpriteFrames - creates a SpriteFrames resource for further use in animated sprites
• AnimatedSprite2D - creates ready-to-use animated sprite for 2D scenes
• AnimatedSprite3D - creates ready-to-use animated sprite for 3D scenes

📽 AnimationPlayer-based animations

Creates a PackedScene resources with an AnimationPlayer child node that animates it's owner. You can see AnimationPlayer node in the parent node if you check the Editable Children box in the context menu.

• Sprite2D - creates a PackedScene resource with Sprite2D node and child AnimationPlayer node
• Sprite3D - creates a PackedScene resource with Sprite3D node and child AnimationPlayer node
• TextureRect - creates a PackedScene resource with TextureRect node and child AnimationPlayer node

Animation strategies with AnimationPlayer:

For grid-based spritesheet layout:

• Animate sprite's region - animates the region property of the sprite
• Animate sprite's frame index - animates the frame property of the sprite
• Animate sprite's frame coords - animates the frame_coords property of the sprite
• Animate single atlas texture's region - animates the region property of the atlas texture of the sprite
• Animate multiple atlas texture instances - instantiates an AtlasTexture per unique frame and animates the texture property of the sprite

For packed spritesheet layout:

• Animate sprite's region and offset - animates the region and offset properties of the sprite
• Animate single atlas texture's region and margin - animates the region and margin properties of the AtlasTexture in the texture property of the sprite
• Animate multiple atlas texture instances - instantiates an AtlasTexture per unique frame and animates the texture property of the sprite

🤖 In plans for the future:

Handle import error messages in the console

Some errors may appear in the console during the import process. Most of them are internal bugs in the Godot engine version 4.x, while it has not yet been fixed all the shortcomings.

If there will be error messages related directly to the import script - please create a ticket with their description and reproduction algorithm.

Add import settings

• Checkbox to embed image in resource Spritesheet/Embed Image: bool
• Regular expressions for Layers/Include, Layers/Exclude, Tags/Exclude and Tags/Exclude
• Import regular texture resources (TileSetAtlasSource, ImageTexture, CompressedTexture, PortableCompressedTexture and AtlasTexture)
• Regular sprites (Sprite2D and Sprite3D without animation)
• Import resource type TileSetAtlasSource
• Import resource type NinePatchRect
• And something else, if there are interesting proposals from you)))