Advanced Tools

This section covers the advanced functionality of the Image Editor.

Apart from the tools listed on the page covering the Image Editor, there are also a number of advanced tools available to you to make editing sprites and backgrounds easier. These tools are listed below.

Scratch Page

The Scratch Page addition enables you to store parts of images that have been cut out, or draw your own temporary images and manipulate them, away from the main sprite frame being edited. Think of it as a sort of "scratch pad", where you can test or change things without fear of editing the actual sprite itself.

You can switch between the current animation frame and the scratch page by pressing "J" on your keyboard and the scratch page is treated exactly the same as any other image frame. You can cut and paste images, use the built in effects and even save the results out as a PNG file. However this scratch page image is not stored with the sprite itself, and when you close the editor its contents will be removed.

Custom Colour Pallets

GameMaker: Studio permits you to define custom colours from the colour checker box for the left or right mouse buttons for drawing. However this approach is not very flexible and you need to recreate the palette of custom colours each time you open the program when using that method of colour mixing. However there is another way to create your own custom palettes easily and save and load them as you require. In the image editor you can see on the right of the window the selection of colours available, and normally these are fixed hues. But, if you middle-click on any of the default colours, you will open up the colour mixer window (as happens when you click on the left or right draw colours), only now you can create your own colour and - without having to add it to the custom colours of this window - and click "Okay" to have it saved as part of the default palette you are working with in the main IDE.

Once you have created your custom palette, you can then save it out from the File dialogue. There you will see the option to Save Colour Palette which will save the palette as a *.PAL file. You can then re-load it for use at any time later from the same menu by using the Load Colour Palette option. Note that the *.PAL file created is non-standard so trying to load in palette files made with software other than GameMaker: Studio will not work.

RMB Erase

In the Image Editor, you can set the Eraser Tool to work on the right mouse button instead of implicitly selecting it. Normal behaviour is that you have the pencil tool and the eraser tool and you switch between them from the buttons on the interface, however if you right-click on the eraser tool button, it will set the right colour of the mouse to be the eraser, with all the same properties that have been assigned to that tool. This means that you can draw with the left mouse and erase with the right. When you have selected the right mouse erase option, you will see that the right colour is now shown as a "checker-board" to show that you are using it as an eraser instead of a pencil.

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