Pixscape Studio free 0.2.1

[lrobbens]

Pixscape Studio Free 0.2.1 — TMX Import and Spatial V3

Pixscape Studio Free 0.2.1 is a major workflow and runtime integration update focused on two important areas:

• importing maps and tilesets from Tiled
• introducing Spatial V3 for more reliable and precise 2.5D scenes

This release also includes extensive improvements to tileset placement, tiled animations, image layers, repeatable sprites, physics integration, scene activation, rendering stability, and editor reliability.

Pixscape Studio Free remains fully open source under the Apache License 2.0.

No Pixscape royalties.
No runtime fees.
No hidden export fees.

Important compatibility note

This release introduces breaking changes for existing scenes containing older tiled-map or Spatial tiled data.

Affected scenes should be re-imported or recreated with Pixscape Studio Free 0.2.1.

These changes were necessary to support:

• Tiled transformation flags
• tiled animations
• image collection tilesets
• tileset profiles
• repeatable images and sprites
• improved runtime mapping
• Spatial V3 canonical tile ordering and connected wall structures

Tiled and TMX import

Pixscape can now import supported .tmx maps as new scenes.

The new import pipeline includes preflight validation, import planning, scene materialization, diagnostics, and rollback handling.

Supported workflows include:

• external and inline .tsx tilesets
• standalone .tsx import for supported single-image tilesets
• orthographic and isometric maps
• CSV and supported Base64-compressed tile data
• single-image tilesets
• image collection tilesets
• Tiled tile animations
• horizontal, vertical, and diagonal tile transformations
• Tiled image layers imported as editable Pixscape Classic layers
• image-layer visibility, opacity, offsets, and parallax
• repeatable image layers using repeatx and repeaty
• tileset margin and spacing

Unsupported features are reported before import instead of being silently ignored.

TMX object layers are currently detected and reported, but are not imported yet.

Tileset profiles

This release introduces tileset profiles for controlling how tiles are placed and rendered independently from their native image dimensions.

Profiles can define:

• logical cell size
• native render size
• orthographic or isometric projection
• anchor position
• placement offsets

This improves support for tall isometric tiles, oversized environment sprites, and tiles whose image dimensions differ from the map cell size.

Tileset profiles are exported through tileset-profiles.json and used consistently by both the Studio and Pixscape Runtime.

Spatial V3

Spatial V3 introduces a redesigned model for deterministic 2.5D wall, tile, and actor ordering.

Highlights include:

• connected wall structures
• automatic wall merging and splitting
• deterministic corner and junction handling
• precise wall footprint editing
• exposed-face compilation
• canonical tiled ordering
• circular actor-footprint relations
• altitude-aware structures
• improved ordering around corners, seams, and enclosed structures
• stable rendering without relying on the previous Spatial V2 fallback paths

Spatial-generated collision fixtures are now managed coherently while Use for physics collision is enabled.

Generated fixture geometry is locked, while Sensor, material, and filter properties remain editable. Deleting the generated fixture automatically disables the Spatial collision option, with full undo and redo support.

Reliability and editor improvements

This release also fixes and improves several important editor workflows:

• Spatial ordering remains active after changing scenes
• tiled and Spatial scenes use a stable single-load activation pipeline
• rejected Spatial operations no longer advance undo/redo history
• changing Spatial layer defaults immediately invalidates and rebuilds affected geometry
• failed Spatial compilation no longer leaves stale overlay geometry visible
• invalid tiled edits linked to Spatial walls are rejected before mutation
• selected fixture properties no longer remain bound to deleted fixtures
• Studio atlas-backed tiled rendering keeps tileset profile metadata after reload and atlas rebind
• Preview detects missing or stale runtime exports and profile manifests
• repeated image layers now render consistently in both Studio and Preview
• sprite rendering remains coherent after physics-body changes
• TMX diagnostics are displayed in a scrollable dialog
• the Studio foreground / always-on-top behavior has been corrected

Distribution

This release is available as:

• Windows x64 ZIP
• Linux x86_64 AppImage
• Linux x64 tar.gz portable archive

SHA-256 checksum files are provided for the downloadable builds.

Requirements

Pixscape Studio Free 0.2.1 requires Java 21.

Projects exported by this release use Pixscape Runtime 0.1.8.

Pixscape Runtime 0.1.8 is published on Maven Central with Java 8-compatible bytecode for broader LibGDX ecosystem compatibility.

Current TMX limitations

• TMX import creates a new scene
• reimport and synchronization are not included yet
• importing layers into the current scene is not included yet
• object layers are detected but not imported
• unsupported Tiled features are reported during preflight
• standalone TSX import currently supports single-image tilesets
• tileset profiles are global per tileset; per-tile overrides are not included yet

Project direction

Pixscape Free is the open-source foundation of the project.

Pixscape Pro will remain a separate optional edition focused on advanced production workflows. Its purpose is to fund the long-term development of Pixscape without replacing, restricting, or weakening Studio Free.

Thank you to everyone who tested the TMX import pipeline, Spatial V3, Linux builds, and Preview workflows.

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This discussion was created from the release Pixscape Studio free 0.2.1.