Quest Creation Companion Tools

[Zeror]

I was thinking it could be very helpful for all Quest Designers here to have a topic where we can notify each other to helpful tools to create Quests easier.
Tools like which sprite/tileset editor, which script editor (if you are not using the one in Solarus Quest Editor), which tool to compose music and sounds, etc... etc...

Be helpful and share the name, link and a little explanation of what your advised tool does.

[Zeror]

Kicking off:

Name: GuideGuide
Link: http://guideguide.me/
Description: It's a plugin for Photoshop CS5 (or above). It create guidelines easily. You can set up a grid very easy. In my opinion a must-have when working with sprites.

[fosamax]

Name: GraphicsGale
Link: http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/index.html
Description: It's a standalone pixel editor and animation tool.

GraphicsGale his not free (it's a shareware with a quite low fee) but the free version is not time limited and has only one missing option which is gif export (that's not really a problem since we'll export in png format)

Animated gif export can anyway be usefull for illustration purpose on websites.

[Diarandor]

Hi! I would recommend some programs for quest makers. These are the ones I use (I won't give the links, but you can find them using google).

For sprites I use Aseprite. It is free and very intuitive (much simpler than Gimp to use), although it only has basic tools.

To create 8-bit/16-bit sounds I use sfxr, which is really easy to use. After the sound is created, it can be improved/edited using Audacity (I use it to change the volume, copy/paste/delete some parts, and convert the sound to ogg). There are other similar programs that could be useful, but I only use this ones.

To compose retro music, with sounds similar to the SNES, (and also to create some complex sounds), Famitracker is a very nice tool. I recommend it a lot, but it takes some time to learn the basics (there are lots of tutorials of other people in youtube, although only few of them are useful).

(For the code, Notepad++ is wonderful and very customizable, although you know it for sure.)

[oclero]

Hello ! As a text editor, I would recommand "Code" by Microsoft
https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/code-vs.aspx
Very powerful, I use it everyday at work , it can manages folders, open images, ...

[Zeror]

Hello ! As a text editor, I would recommand "Code" by Microsoft
https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/code-vs.aspx
Very powerful, I use it everyday at work , it can manages folders, open images, ...

And the Adobe equivalent is Brackets