Squint

"Maybe if I squint, those pixels will look better"

Squint is a live upscaler companion program for Aseprite that allows you to see live what your drawing would look like upscaled through one those filters:

• xBR-lv1-noblend (simpler, but less fancy)
• xBR-lv2 (fancier with extra smoothness and settings)

Usage

Aseprite setup

• Install the extension named squint-client.aseprite-extension. Either double-click the file or install it through Aseprite by locating the "Extensions" tab in the Preferences menu, pressing the "Add Extension" button and locating the extension.
• In the File menu, a new "Connect to Squint" entry should have appeared. If you don't see it, you probably haven't reloaded Aseprite or you may have accidentally disabled the extension.
• When clicking on the new menu entry, a small window should appear. It's non-blocking so you can still edit the current sprite while it's on.
• Aseprite is now waiting for squint to wait for a connection.
• You can now launch squint and see it showing your sprite once the communication is done.
• As a quirk from the first version of the script, the script will shut down if you switch to another sprite. This is well known and is planned to be fixed.

Controls

• F1 to toggle the help screen.
• F2 to toggle the background's color between white and dark gray.
• Right-click or TAB to toggle the options screen.
• S to save the current result into saved.png.
• F11 to toggle fullscreen mode.
• F12 to screenshot.

Compilation

Squint requires a compiler with C++17 and C11 support and CMake.

It has a few dependencies: raylib, raygui and IXWebSocket.

Tested setups

• Windows 10 x64 and Visual Studio 2019
• Archlinux x64 and GCC 11.1.0
  • The AUR's aseprite package doesn't build with websockets and scripting enabled. You might want to tweak the PKGBUILD to compile a version with those.

Dependency handling

• Raylib will be downloaded automatically by CMake if it wasn't installed on your computer
• The other libraries will be fetched once you type git submodules init --update at the root of the repository.

Compilation steps

• Install a compiler.
• Create a build folder inside the repo's root.
• Open a terminal there and press

    cmake build .. -DUSE_ZLIB=OFF

• CMake should create either a Makefile or a Visual Studio solution (or anything else if you precised it). Use your favorite IDE to use those to compile.
• If everything is alright, you should get a squint (or squint.exe) in the build folder.