Retro Asset Studio is a free desktop application for generating and managing retro 16-bit game assets using AI. It gives game developers and pixel artists a complete pipeline for creating characters, backgrounds, props, and sprite animations with a consistent retro art style.

AI Providers¶

Hugging Face Nano Banana 2 Space Coming soon

OpenAI gpt-image-1 · dall-e-3 Coming soon

Google Gemini gemini-2.5-flash-image and newer Recommended AI Studio key · Paid plan required

Retro Asset Studio itself is free. You bring your own Google AI Studio key and pay Google directly for what you generate. In this alpha only Google Gemini is enabled; Hugging Face and OpenAI are visible in the app but disabled until a later release. See AI Providers for details.

Key Features¶

• AI-Powered Generation -- Generate pixel art characters, backgrounds, props, and UI elements with Google Gemini image models (more providers coming soon), configured per project.
• Image Editor -- A built-in pixel editor with palette management, color merging, pencil/eraser tools, undo/redo, and transparent color support.
• Scale & Resize -- Scale pixel art with hard edges, resize the canvas around a chosen anchor, mirror the image, and nudge pixels with the keyboard.
• Variants -- Create a variation of any saved asset from the Asset Browser, using the original image as the reference.
• Pose Editor -- Manipulate an 18-keypoint OpenPose skeleton to pose characters, then generate new frames with AI.
• Spritesheet Generator -- Describe an animation, pick a frame count, and let the AI draw a full sheet that you split into frames with a crop tool.
• Spritesheet Editor -- Organize animation frames on a timeline, preview playback at configurable FPS, and export spritesheets as PNG strips.
• Project System -- Manage multiple projects, each with its own style guide, background color, reference images, and API credentials.
• Export & Import -- Back up a whole project as a single .rasproj file and restore it on any PC.
• Style Consistency -- Style guides and reference images are automatically incorporated into all AI prompts, keeping assets visually coherent.

Who Is This For?¶

• Indie game developers building 2D pixel art games who want to accelerate asset creation.
• Pixel artists looking for AI-assisted workflows with full manual editing control.
• Game jam participants who need to produce consistent retro assets quickly.

How It Works¶

1. Create a project with a style description and background color.
2. Configure an AI provider in Project Settings. Enter your Google AI Studio key and pick a Gemini image model.
3. Generate assets (characters, backgrounds, or props) using natural language descriptions.
4. Refine the AI output with the built-in Image Editor: adjust the palette, merge colors, paint individual pixels.
5. Animate characters with the Pose Editor or the Spritesheet Generator and save animation frames.
6. Export spritesheets from the Spritesheet Editor for direct use in your game engine.

Getting Started¶

Head to the Installation guide to set up Retro Asset Studio, then follow Getting Started for a walkthrough of your first project.

Documentation Overview¶