SpriteTracer 6.0

By Grim (admin@spritedatabase.net) - http://spritedatabase.net

SpriteTracer is a program that helps automate every step in the process of ripping sprites, allowing you to take screenshots, edit sprites out of them, and organize those sprites into a sheet.
This program is Windows-only and requires the .NET framework.

This guide will walk you through the process of using the program to edit several screenshots into a single sprite animation as seen on a typical sprite sheet.


Loading a Source image

SpriteTracer is named for its ability to "trace" sprites out of images by deleting the background. To do this, you will need a Source image and one or more Target images.

The Source is an image that will tell the program what colors to keep when editing screenshots. Any colors *not* included in the Source will be deleted when using Erase background.

There are three ways to load a Source into SpriteTracer.

In this example, we'll just open one from a file. If you want to follow along, you can find the images used here.

Step 1: Loading a source image

Notice that the source image now shows in the Source panel, and the color count is displayed as well.

Loading Target images

Now we're ready to load some Target images. The Target is the image (or images) that will be edited by the program. Like the Source, there are a few ways to load them in:

Again, we'll just open them from files this time. Remember, you can open multiple files at once, including screenshots taken with AnimGet or ScreenGet.

Step 1: Loading a source image

Using Erase background

Now that we have a Source and some Targets, we can finally edit the background out of these screenshots. All you have to do is click the Erase background icon or use the shortcut key CTRL+E

Step 1: Loading a source image

As you can see, every color not found in the Source image has been deleted in the Target images. This includes the character we're focusing on, and some other pixels that just happened to have the same colors. But we can get rid of those in the next step.

Making a selection and cropping

In order to cut down on excess space, we can Crop our target images down to a more reasonable size. See the below animation for an explanation.

How to crop

  1. First, we click the Select icon. At the bottom left of the window you will see the instruction "click the top-left cropping coordinates".
  2. Then, inside the target panel, we click in a spot to the upper left of the character. At this point, the instruction changes to "click the bottom-right cropping coordinates".
  3. Click in a spot over to the character's lower right. At this point, you will see a rectangle indicating the cropping area.
  4. You can scroll through all of your target images to make sure they fit safely inside the rectangle, as in the animation above.
  5. If you are satisfied with the rectangle you've chosen, you can now click the Crop icon. This will crop all target images to just the area you've chosen. Again, in the animation above you can see that all five images have been cropped to the same size.
    • Tip: instead of clicking the icon, you can crop faster by holding the CTRL key during your second click. This will automatically crop all the images.

Additional tips:

  1. You can crop your images more than once if necessary.
  2. You won't be able to make a selection that goes outside the dimensions of any of your target images.
  3. Opening or pasting additional target images will deselect the current selection.
  4. You can crop images before erasing the background, and doing so will actually make the process a little faster since there will be fewer pixels for the application to analyze.
  5. If you don't like the selection you made or you decided not to crop after all, you can cancel by navigating to Edit > Selection > Deselect or by pressingCTRL+D.
  6. It is also possible to expand, shrink, or move the selection box:
    • Use CTRL+Arrow Keys to move the top-left corner of the selection box.
    • Use ALT+Arrow Keys to move the bottom-right corner of the selection box.
    • Use CTRL+ALT+Arrow Keys to move the entire selection box.

When you're done cropping, we can move onto the next step.

Using Trim


Original Image Trim Trim Horizontal Trim Vertical

Combining your images

There are two ways to combine your target images into one final product.

The Combine tool combines all your target images into one row or column.

Combined images

How the resulting image comes out will depend on your settings. In this example the spacing color was set to green, the spacing set to 5 pixels, the combination type set to 'row', and the alignment set to 'bottom'.


For combining images into multiple rows, there is the Grid combine tool.

Grid settings
  • Horizontal spacing determines the space between images within a row.
  • Vertical spacing determines the space between rows.
  • Images per row, if checked, sets the number of images before a new row is created.
    • If you have 36 images and set this to 10, you will get 3 rows of 10 images each and 1 row of 6 images.
  • Maximum width, if checked, sets the maximum width a row can reach before a new row is started.
    • On this setting, each row will contain as many images as possible without exceeding the maximum width.

Here are two different grid results using the same 25 target images.

In this example, we set horizontal and vertical spacing to 10px each, and images per row to 10.

Grid with 10 images per row

In this example we also use 10px for the horizontal and vertical spacing, but instead of images per row, we use a maximum width of 400 px.

Grid with a maximum width of 400px

Export your results

Target images can be exported at any point in the process.

Creating a Source image in SpriteTracer

If you don't have a source image to start with, you can create one inside SpriteTracer.

  1. In SpriteTracer, click Create New Source or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+N. The Create New Source interface will appear.
  2. Load the file you want to base your Source on with either Open or paste Paste.
  3. The selected image will appear in both the left and right panels of the Create Source Image window. The left panel will contain the original, while the right contains a preview of the changes you will be making. At first they will look the same.
  4. You can interact with the left panel in a few ways.

    • Click the Zoom In and Zoom Out button to change the image size, or use the keyboard shortcuts CTRL++ and CTRL+-. Note that you cannot zoom out smaller than the image's original size.
    • Click and drag with the mouse to pan the image back and forth. If you lose track of the image simply zoom in, then out, to reset its position.
    • You can also use the scrollbars built into the panel to look around the image.
  5. To begin selecting colors to use in the final Source image, hold the CTRL key and click the colors you want on the image in the left panel. When holding the CTRL key, your mouse cursor will change to a color dropper () and the color your mouse cursor is currently pointed at will appear in the toolbar. Without letting go of CTRL, click to add that color to the new source image. As you click additional colors, the right panel image will update to include only the colors you have picked. If you are having trouble selecting the right colors, use the Zoom In tool to get a better view.

    Create source

    • If you make a mistake, you can undo by clicking the Undo button, or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+Z. You can also redo; click the Redo button or use CTRL+ALT+Z. Note that if you use undo, then make new changes, you won't be able to redo what you undid.
    • Also note that as you click on more colors, the toolbar will show how many you have selected. This does not include the background color.
  6. When you are done, the right panel should only contain the sprite you will be using as the source. At this point you can save the image for future use - click Save or use CTRL+S. When you are done, click OK to return to the main SpriteTracer window, where the new source image will already be loaded. If you want to return to SpriteTracer without using the image you've created, click Cancel instead.

Settings

SpriteTracer has a number of options you can adjust via the config Settings menu.

Grid settings
  • Background color is the color that will be used when using Erase background.
  • Spacing color is the color used for the spaces between each image when using Combine or Grid combine.
  • Selection color is the color used for the outline of your selection box when using Select.
  • Spacing determines the amount of space between each image when using Combine.
  • Combination type determines how the images will be Combined, either horizontally (row) or vertically (column.)
  • Alignment determines how the images will be aligned when Combine is used.
    • If Combination type is set to row, the choices are top, middle, or bottom.
    • If Combination type is set to column, the choices are left, center, or right.
  • Enable screen capture allows SpriteTracer to automatically capture a screenshot of the active window any time you hit the PrintScrn key.

Functions


The following is a list of all functions in SpriteTracer, including a short description of what they do. Most functions also have a keyboard shortcut to make them more accessible.

Icon Function Keyboard shortcut
New source image
Create a new source image using the Create Source Image interface.		 CTRL+N
Open source image
Load a source image from your computer.		 CTRL+SHIFT+O
Paste source image
Paste a source image from the clipboard.		 CTRL+SHIFT+V
Open target images
Load one or more target images from your computer.		 CTRL+O
Paste target image
Paste a target image from the clipboard.		 CTRL+V
Save target image
Save the selected target image to your computer.		 CTRL+S
Save all target images
Save all target images to your computer. Images will be numbered starting with 0001.		 CTRL+SHIFT+S
Copy target image
Copy the current target image to the clipboard.		 CTRL+C
Delete target image
Delete the current target image from the list.		 DEL
Delete all target images
Delete all target images from the list.		 SHIFT+DEL
Erase background
For each target image, replace all colors that are not included in the source image.		 CTRL+E
Combine
Combine target images into a single row or column. 		CTRL+J
Grid combine
Combine all target images into one or more rows. 		CTRL+G
Flood fill
Fills in all connected pixels of the color you click with the background color. 		(none)
Balance
Adjust all target images to the same dimensions. 		CTRL+B
Select
Create a selection - an area that can be cropped or deleted.		 (none)
Deselect
Undo the current selection.		 CTRL+D
Crop
Crops all target images to only include the selected area.		 CTRL+X
Clear selection
Replace every pixel inside the selection area with the background color. Affects only the current target image.		 CTRL+DEL
Trim
Shrinks all target images to their minimum size by eliminating empty space in the image.		 CTRL+W
Trim horizontal
Shrinks all target images to their minimum width by eliminating empty space to the left and right of the image.		 CTRL+H
Trim vertical
Shrinks all target images to their minimum height by eliminating empty space at the top and bottom of the image.		 ALT+V
Mirror
Reverse the current target image horizontally.		 CTRL+M
Mirror all
Reverse all target images horizontally.		 CTRL+SHIFT+M
Flip
Reverse the current image vertically.		 CTRL+I
Flip all
Reverse all target images vertically.		 CTRL+SHIFT+I
Rotate left
Rotate the current target image 90 degrees to the left.		 CTRL+L
Rotate left all
Rotate all target images 90 degrees to the left.		 CTRL+SHIFT+L
Rotate right
Rotate the current target image 90 degrees to the right.		 CTRL+R
Rotate right all
Rotate all target images 90 degrees to the right.		 CTRL+SHIFT+R

Notes

Version History