Pixelorama
Pixelorama v1.0.3 is out!
Artwork by Uch, one of the artists for v1.0’s splash screen artworks.
Hello everyone, new Pixelorama version today! Just like the previous minor versions, this one also contains important bug fixes, but it comes with a few new features and improvements as well!
Among the new features is a new layer effect called Index Map, contributed by Variable. This effect makes the original red and green color values of the image act as x and y positions of a separate image (the map), and the result uses colors from the map based on the red and green color values from the source images. This allows you to change the colors of the map, and the changes get automatically applied to the source project. This can allow you to use techniques such as this:
To explain how this new effect works, Variable has even prepared a video!
As always, if you wish to support us, you can become a Patron and receive exclusive awards, or buy Pixelorama on Steam, or from itch.io!
Full changelog of version 1.0.3:
Added
- Added new global layer buttons that change visibility, lock or expand all layers on the first level. #1085
- Added a new Gaussian blur image and layer effect.
- A new Index Map layer effect has been added. #1093
- Is it now possible to adjust the opacity of onion skinning. #1091
- Added option to trim the empty area of the exported images. #1088
- A quality slider has been added to the export dialog, when exporting jpg files.
Changed
- The layer opacity and frame buttons are now fixed on top, always visible regardless of the vertical scroll position. #1095
- The default blend mode of layer groups is now pass-through.
- The color picker popup when editing gradients is now moveable.
Fixed
- Fixed an issue where the ‘\n` escape character got inserted inside the palette name, causing the palette to fail to be saved.
- The export dialog has been optimized by caching all of the blended frames. Changing export options, besides the layers, no longer cause slowness by re-blending all of the frames.
- Optimized the lasso and polygon select tools, as well as the fill options of the pencil and curve tools. The time they take to complete now depends on the size of the selection, rather than checking all of the pixels of the entire canvas.
- Fixed a crash when re-arranging palette swatches while holding Shift.
- Fixed a crash when using the move tool snapped to the grid.
- Fixed wrong preview in the gradient dialog when editing the gradient and dithering is enabled.
- Fixed a visual bug with the preview of the resize canvas dialog.
- Fixed wrong stretch mode in the cel button previews. #1097
Thank you all for taking the time to read this blog post and for supporting us. We appreciate every and each one of you, with special thanks to our contributors, our translators and our patrons! Happy painting, and keep pixelating your dreams.
Comments
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Now that there is a steam version, I'm really curious about the revenue difference between itch and steam. You don't have to disclose specific values, but it should be really interesting if you could tell that "in the past month, the total revenue on itch (after deducing the itch cut) was 76% the steam revenue (after deducing the steam cut). This alone could be valuable data for people that are deciding between launching a free (with optional donations) app on itch or a paid app on steam.
The difference between itch and Steam is quite significant. Right now, the daily average of sales on Steam is 5 (although these last few days it has gotten lower, 2-4 per day), while on itch we get 0-1 donations per day, with some rare days getting 2 donations. During April, 22 people have donated on itch, which resulted in $175 gross revenue (itch lets people choose how much money they want to donate, so some people give less than the default value which is $9.99, and some give even more). On Steam, Pixelorama has sold 265 copies during August, resulting in $2400 gross revenue. Of course we will get less than that due to the 30% cut that Steam takes, and August was a good month because it was just after the Steam release, so from now on the amount of copies sold will become less and less (unless Pixelorama gains more popularity).
If Steam had a pay what you want model like itch has, we would probably see a lot less sales, so it's not very fair to compare the two, as people can get Pixelorama from itch either completely free, or by donating a small amount, but in Steam they have no choice but to pay. But in general Steam has more people, and it has tools like the discovery queue which can bring more traffic to your Steam page (once you have reached 10+ reviews), and that helps. Our Steam page currently has double the impressions than our itch.io page in the last 7 days, but weirdly enough it has less actual visits than our itch.io page. Could be that the two platforms are counting visits differently, Steam only counts unique visits, but I'm unsure how itch counts page visits.
If you want to publish an app on Steam, go for it, you will most likely see more revenue than on itch.io. Just keep in mind that you have to pay a $100 fee for every Steam page you publish, but you will get that back once you reach $1000 in revenue. And it might be a good idea to have a period where your Steam page is public and you lead people there to wishlist it, before actually launching it.
Thank you for replying so promptly, and excuse me for responding in kind. It was very kind of you to provide raw data on sales even tough you didn't need to disclose it. It really helps an outsider to grasp what to expect from similar scenarios.
I always tought that optional donations on itch where not a real revenue strategy, but merely a tip, a bonus, for something that the developers would already give for free even if donations where not available, and the donations you got in april where in fact more than I would expect (even though I don't have any other dataset to compare to).
But the difference from steam to itch, not only in value, but mainly in sale units, really staggers me. I would expect that a non-free product on itch would maybe sell a bit more units than pixelorama did in april, but I would also expect the sale units to still be really below what you got on steam.
I do intend to put a non-game app on steam but unfortunately it is not related to content creation and according to steam they currently are not accepting non-game apps that are not related to content creation
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/mpby67/why_wont_steam_allow_nongame_soft...
Maybe I could gameify the app to work around the restriction, but I would risk having the submission being denied.
Anyways, thanks again for the reply, you really did help me =)
Edit: the reddit link is old, but when I paid the steam direct product submission fee last week and had to select if I was submiting an app or game, I have seen that exact same message. To be exact, a short sentence about publishing non-game software and a link that led me to somewhere in the docs where I could see that exact same text they put in the reddit link.
Thats why i was one of the first steam buyer. Good job should be supported.