Build Aseprite from source

I've been trying to do some pixel art for a very long time now and so here I am,.
To things right we need the best tools and for pixel art it is aseprite
So how do you build it ?

Steps :

  • First you need a LINUX system , any distros should work,
  • So first we need to get the aseprite source code , to get it do :
  • cd $HOME
    git clone --recursive https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite.git
  • Once it is done we'll need to get the Linux dependencies
    • You will need the following dependencies on Ubuntu/Debian:
    • sudo apt-get install -y g++ cmake ninja-build libx11-dev libxcursor-dev libxi-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libfontconfig1-dev
    • On Fedora:
    • sudo dnf install -y gcc-c++ cmake ninja-build libX11-devel libXcursor-devel libXi-devel mesa-libGL-devel fontconfig-devel
    • On Arch:
    • sudo pacman -S gcc cmake ninja libx11 libxcursor mesa-libgl fontconfig
  • To compile aseprite you'll need two more things :

  • Depot Tools & Skia from branch aseprite-m81

    • Open up a terminal and run :
      mkdir $HOME/deps && cd $HOME/deps
      git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools.git
    • So you can compile skia but it easy to use prebuilt official binaries , Get them from Here

      So grab the leatest release zip and run :
      unzip Skia-Linux-Release-x64.zip -d $HOME/deps/skia

  • Preparations are done!. Now we can finally compile aseprite


    cd $HOME/aseprite
    mkdir build && cd build
    cmake \ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo \ -DLAF_BACKEND=skia \ -DSKIA_DIR=$HOME/deps/skia \ -DSKIA_LIBRARY_DIR=$HOME/deps/skia/out/Release-x64 \ -DSKIA_LIBRARY=$HOME/deps/skia/out/Release-x64/libskia.a \ -G Ninja \ ..
    ninja aseprite

    It IT WILL FAIL because we used the precompiled libraries, Dont worry I gotcha.
    So you'll get a error in linking libwebp.a
    Copy the line begining with /usr/bin/c++ -Wall -Wno-switch ... and run it again but remember to remove the lib/libwebp.a and viola it's Done!
    You've compile aseprite run it by bin/aseprite