Pixel Pilot

The story

Pixel Pilot is a native macOS pixel-art and sprite-sheet animation tool for game artists who want first-class tooling on the Mac. Drawing canvas, multi-frame animation, multi-layer editing with cel linking, tagged playback sequences, onion skinning, and a full export pipeline tuned for game engines. Built solo end-to-end in Swift, SwiftUI, and Metal.

The brief was simple: a small, fast, native app that respects the platform. No Electron. No web wrapper. No subscription. Free to start, with a one-time Pro upgrade for serious projects.

Drawing and animation

Custom canvas sizes from 8x8 up to 512x512 with presets for the common pixel-art ratios. A full pixel-art toolset (brush, eraser, fill, eyedropper, magic wand, line, rectangle, ellipse, move), all single-key bindings so artists stay on the canvas.

Multi-layer editing with cel linking lets a single piece of artwork live across many frames, so a static element only has to be drawn once. Tagged animation sequences support forward, reverse, and ping-pong playback with configurable per-frame durations, and onion skinning shows previous and next frames at adjustable opacity while drawing.

Document model and pipeline

Pixel Pilot saves to a .pixelpilot document bundle containing JSON metadata and pixel data, with iCloud sync via Apple's ubiquity container so projects move between devices. Standard macOS document behaviour is wired in: open / save / recent files, unsaved-changes indicator in the window title, warn-on-quit, and revert.

Imports include sprite sheets and Aseprite JSON, so existing work moves across cleanly. Exports cover PNG sequences, sprite sheets with configurable columns and spacing, and animated GIFs, plus engine-ready metadata for Godot and Unity.

Apple HIG and accessibility

The app is built on a small in-house design system (8pt grid spacing, semantic typography with Dynamic Type, semantic colours with automatic dark-mode support) and is fully VoiceOver-labelled across every tool, layer cell, frame cell, and palette swatch.

Cross-platform

Released on the Mac App Store (macOS 14+). iPad version is in active development against the same SwiftUI codebase, with a shared FilePicker abstraction handling open / save / export / directory-pick on both platforms and a touch-optimised toolbar for the iPad workspace.

Highlights

• Native macOS, built in Swift, SwiftUI, and Metal (no Electron, no web wrapper)
• Solo end-to-end build, from engine and rendering through to App Store submission
• Document-based architecture with iCloud sync via Apple's ubiquity container
• Aseprite JSON import; PNG sequence, sprite sheet, GIF, and Godot/Unity metadata export
• Full Apple HIG compliance: VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, dark mode, full keyboard navigation
• Free to start (10 frames, 3 layers); one-time Pro upgrade for 10,000 frames and 100 layers, no subscription

Status

Live on the Mac App Store. iPad version in late development.