LBIT
The Lightweight Bitmap Illustration Tool
LBIT is a minimal drawing program for pixel art
It's purpose is to provide only the minimum tools needed for creating pixel art, in the most minimal user interface possible. Nothing but a floating grid of squares and your lonely little cursor.
If you want fancy tools that do all the work for you, keep searchin, sista. If you need an interface with lots of text and buttons that describe everything to you, keep searchin, sista. If your brain can't memorize a single hotkey, keep searchin, sista.
Anything that could be left out was. Despite being minimal, LBIT also aims to be smooth and pretty, so it's pleasant to look at and use.
LBIT is Extremely Lightweight
- a single 3.3 MB exe file
- uses ~2400KB of ram
- starts in 200 miliseconds
LBIT is Extremely Minimal
- No text or menus
- No buttons or windows
- Controlled with mouse / hotkeys
- No duplicated tools
LBIT Simplifies Pixelling
- no saving (instant autosave)
- no canvas sizes (infinite canvas)
- infinite history (undo all the way to the beginning)
- easy export of current selection / zoom level
LBIT has Cool Features
- tweak a color everywhere on the canvas live
- generate a gif of your entire piece from start to finish
- comprehensive mouse/keyboard shortcuts / combinations
- control the cursor with keyboard arrow keys
LBIT is Smooth
- smooth transitions between zoom levels
- drawing strokes optimized for smooth lines even at high resolutions
- simple / clean cursors and background grid
But why?
Beautiful pixel art requires only a few simple tools, and I find shortcuts only lead you to worse results. For such a simple process, a complicated user interface is not necessary, so I also designed the entire app without any buttons or text. This puts the focus purely on the art.
Being completely mouse and hotkey focused also makes the program much quicker to use, so you can spend less time looking at menus and more time placing pixels.
This app may not be ideal for creating complex game assets, but can be a calmer experience for just making art.
Yes, this tool is opinionated. If you don't like it, leave your stupid comments in your pocket.
Thanks for your feedback! If you want to say more, please post a Suggestion or Bug Report!
our next patreon goal: $227 / $250