Quickstart: your first scene

This walkthrough runs a single scene from a flat image to a layered PSD, taking each step's default the whole way. You bring in a scene, let the AI name and cut out its objects, let it repaint the art behind them, decide which sprites need rebuilding, and export a layered Photoshop file that opens in anything.

Every screenshot below comes from one real project — "Pixelburg", a 1288 × 794 isometric medieval town that Pixploder cut into 154 elements under 24 tags, eleven of them filed into two folders. The numbers in the text are that scene's numbers, so you can compare them against your own as you go.

New here? What is Pixploder explains the pipeline in a page, and Features overview maps out what each step can do once you want more than the defaults.

Before you start

1. Sign in. On the landing page press Start free trial — or Sign in, if you already have an account. Behind the dialog waits a Sign in to start page with one Sign in / Create account button. There is no anonymous editor.
2. Open a project. Pixploder is project-first: the Your projects screen appears before the canvas does. Type a name into New project name…, press New, and the editor opens on Step 1. From then on the header prints a save state rather than a Save button — editing the project is saving it. See Projects & autosave.

The header stays with you the whole way: your project name and its save state, a Projects button, an Upgrade button (it reads Plans & Credits once you are on a paid plan), and your account chip with the credit balance. Under it sits the eight-step bar — 1. Source Art through 8. Preview & Export. A completed step wears a check, and once your scene is loaded every node on the bar is clickable, so you can hop back at any time.

Step 1 · Source Art

1. Drop your art on the canvas. The left pane is one big dashed panel headed Upload your 2D game art, and the line under it names what it expects: Drag & drop or click to select a background or sprite-sheet image. PNG, JPG or layered PSD. Bringing art in is free.
2. Read the review panel. The right panel becomes Source Art Review. Dimensions prints the size in pixels — 1288 x 794 px for Pixelburg — and Elements reads Uncalculated until objects are found. Source art is capped at 4096 px on its longest side; a bigger file is refused with a notice rather than loaded.
3. Move on. Press Continue to Extend Canvas. Skip — go straight to Find & Cut jumps past the next step entirely, and ↺ Replace image starts over with a different file (it asks first, under Replace image — start over?).

The one decision here: none. This step exists so you can check the art you are about to cut up.

Step 2 · Extend Canvas

The panel is headed Extend Canvas (optional), and on a first scene that parenthesis is the whole story — the frame you brought in is almost always the frame you want.

1. Leave the frame alone. Eight handles ring the canvas, Canvas size — px per side holds the four margin fields with an anchor pad between them, and Snap to ratio offers presets. Growing the canvas is an AI fill and its button prices itself as Extend canvas · {n} credits; dragging a handle inward crops instead, and the same button reads Apply crop (free).
2. Press Continue to Find & Cut. Your pixels arrive at Step 3 untouched.

The one decision here: whether your scene needs room it does not have. If it does not, skip.

Step 3 · Find & Cut

The FIND & SEGMENT card in the right rail holds two paid actions, and they do different jobs: the first one names what is in the picture, the second one cuts it out.

1. Press Find Objects. It sits at the top of the card with its price beside it — 1 cr on the default AI model. The AI reads your scene and fills the card with tag chips, one per thing it recognizes. Pressing it again later reads Find More Objects. This spends credits.
2. Curate the chips. A hollow chip has not been segmented yet. Click a chip to highlight its masks on the canvas, Ctrl-click for several, and use the cross on a chip to drop a tag — it takes every element that tag has already found with it, and Ctrl+Z brings them back. Only the first 24 enabled tags are segmented in one run, and the card says so when you have more. Curating is free.
3. Press the Segment button under the chips. It names its own plan and its own price: on a first pass over Pixelburg's 24 tags it reads Segment 24 tags (24 cr) — one credit per tag. Each tag becomes one or more elements with a real mask, the elements land in FOUND ELEMENTS, and the chip over the canvas counts them as {n} Sprites Found. After a pass the same button renames itself to Find more · all tags ({n} cr) — or Find more "{tag}" ({n} cr) with a tag selected — because a second run hunts for what the first one missed. This spends credits.
4. Optionally sweep. Sweep Leftovers · SAM 2 under it segments everything that is not an element yet and adds the pieces to FOUND ELEMENTS. It is a flat 3 cr per sweep whatever its own settings gear says. This spends credits.
5. Glance down FOUND ELEMENTS. Hovering a row previews that element's mask on the canvas. New element arms a one-shot box you draw on the image by hand, the undo arrow beside the heading steps the whole list back, and the dashed Background row at the bottom is the live bottom layer — scene − {n} elements.
6. Press Confirm & Proceed. That takes you to Step 4 · Rebuild Backplate.

The one decision here: how many tags you keep. Each enabled tag costs a credit and turns into one or more sprites you will have to judge on Step 5.

Step 4 · Rebuild Backplate

Cutting the objects out left holes. This step paints them in, and the heading says so: REBUILD BACKPLATE — FILL THE HOLES, THEN REFINE. The right rail is two numbered stages, and you only need the first.

1. Press Generate take · {n} cr in stage ① FILL HOLES — 26 credits on the default scene model. The AI repaints the holes, the result lands as a tile in the grid headed TAKES — CLICK TO USE · CLICK THE ACTIVE ONE TO PEEK THE HOLES, and it installs itself as the backdrop on the spot. This spends credits.
2. Roll a second one with the dashed + take · {n} cr tile beside the first. Same price, new roll.
3. Click the take you want. Selecting is installing, and the tile's footer turns emerald: ✓ In use · Whole image. That take's full frame becomes your background — there is no mode to pick. Clicking the active tile again peeks at the original with its holes showing. Clicking any tile is free.
4. Press Continue to Finish Sprites.

The one decision here: which take. It is the whole background frame, not a patch, so pick the one whose repaint you would be happy to see behind every sprite.

Step 5 · Finish Sprites

Here each object becomes a finished sprite on transparent alpha. The scene sits on the left; the right rail holds one panel, Rebuild sprites, with three shelves — QUEUED, RESULTS, APPROVED — and the shelf a sprite sits on is the decision you are making about it.

Every sprite that has never been through a call is lined up on QUEUED the moment you open the step. Pixploder's assumption is that such a sprite still needs rebuilding, so approving is the decision here, not the default. For a 154-sprite town that means the queue starts full and your job is to empty it.

1. Read the header. It counts the section in one line: how many sprites it holds, then {n} calls · {n} cr for what is queued, {n} ✓ for what is done, and {n} to review in amber for results waiting on you. The shelf captions say the same thing in words — waiting for Generate, generated — review with ✓ / ↺, done — flows on to Add Shadows.
2. Approve everything the cut already got right. The ✓ in a tile's top-left corner takes that sprite out of the queue and onto APPROVED; the price on the Generate button falls in the same frame. Tick the States checkbox above the scene to see the same thing on the artwork — every silhouette is tinted emerald for approved, rose for queued, orange for rebuilt and still to review. Approving is free.
3. Leave the damaged ones queued. A sprite whose cut-out has a bite taken out of it — because something was standing in front of it when the mask was cut — is exactly what this step rebuilds. If you approve one by mistake, ↺ in its top-right corner un-approves it and queues another try. Both directions are free. Once the section holds more than six sprites a filter approved by name… box appears above the shelves; it narrows the APPROVED pile only.
4. Press ⚡ Generate · {n} calls · {n} cr under the QUEUED shelf. Queued sprites are packed together into calls: one call is 24 credits and holds up to 20 sprites on the step's own model, and the packer splits a call whose sheet would come out too large. ⚡ Generate all · {n} calls · {n} cr at the foot of the rail is the same run through a second door — same list, same price, one confirmation. Confirm the Use {n} credits? dialog. This spends credits.
5. Judge what comes back. Results land on the RESULTS shelf. Click a tile to open its version row — Versions of {name} · click to APPLY · Ⓢ solo, again for the scene · 🔧 retouch. Clicking a thumbnail applies that version to the scene, the circled S badge shows it alone at full size, and the wrench opens the repair window. All of this is free.
6. Approve or re-roll. ✓ in the top-left moves the sprite to APPROVED; ↺ in the top-right queues another try. When nothing is left unjudged a banner appears under the section: ✓ All {n} reviewed — approved sprites continue to Add Shadows.
7. Press Continue to Add Shadows.

The one decision here: what you leave queued. It is the only thing on this step that costs money, and it is the only thing that decides how long the step takes.

Step 6 · Add Shadows

Shadows are free and optional. Two things ground a sprite here: a ground shadow on the floor and base shading on the sprite itself.

1. Look at Shadow groups. Anything you grouped back in Step 3 arrives as a ready-made shadow group; every other sprite is listed under Ungrouped. The readout beside the heading counts both, as {n} grp · {n} solo. Pixelburg's tree opens with two groups — one seeded from a Step 3 folder, one built here.
2. Pick a target. Click a sprite on the preview or a row in the tree — Ctrl-click adds one, Shift-click takes the range. Until you do, Shadow settings reads Select a group or a sprite above to edit its shadow.
3. Add and tune. A sprite that has no shadow of its own offers Add a shadow, which fits one immediately; once there is a shadow to edit, the sections under the heading — Contacts, Ground shadow, Base shading — tune its shape. New group and Ungroup restructure the tree; dragging one sprite onto another groups them. The White bg checkbox above the preview composites on plain white so shadows read clearly.
4. Press Continue to Final Polish.

The one decision here: whether a sprite is grounded by a group's shadow or its own. Groups keep a row of houses consistent; a lone prop usually wants its own.

Step 7 · Final Polish

Two racks, both free, both fine on their defaults.

1. Transform · whole image holds one switch, ★ Repixelize. Pixploder turns it on when it reads your art as pixel art and leaves it off otherwise. While it is on you also get Pixel Size, an aspect-locked Output size pair and an Algorithm list; while it is off nothing is resampled and every export uses the full-resolution document.
2. Palette · whole image is off until you want it. Turn ◧ Palette snap on, drop in any image as a palette — every unique color in it becomes an entry — and the whole baked scene snaps to the active palette. Leave the switch off and nothing changes.
3. Press Continue to Preview & Export. The bake runs on the way into Step 8 — the resample, then the palette snap — and the line above the button says in advance exactly what it will do to your document.

The one decision here: whether to resample. If your source was pixel art and you want it to stay on its grid, leave ★ Repixelize on.

Step 8 · Preview & Export

1. Look around. The 3D / 2D toggle sits above the preview. In 3D your layers are staged as a depth stack — drag over the board to rotate it and see behind the sprites, scroll to zoom. In 2D you get the flat composite plus the two comparison tools you already know from the earlier steps, Hold: original (C) and Compare with a divider you drag anywhere over the image.
2. Check the stack. In 2D, hold or wipe the original back over your composite — that is the alignment check, and it covers the whole scene at once. If a sprite sits wrong or paints over its neighbor, its order, position and size are all set back on Step 5 · Finish Sprites; this step only shows the result.
3. Export. The right rail is one panel, EXPORT, and it opens expanded: press its first button, Export PSD (layered Photoshop). Pixploder builds the file in your browser and it downloads — groups as folders, every sprite as an editable positioned layer with its shadow baked in, plus the background tree. Past 30,000 px it switches to .psb on its own. Exporting is free.

The one decision here: none, if PSD is what you came for. The panel ships ten formats and they are all built from one shared snapshot of the scene, so they always agree with each other.

What a scene this size actually costs

Every price below is what the button prints. The only variable is how much you ask for.

Where to go next

You now have a game-ready, layered file. Open it in Photoshop, Krita, or anything that reads PSD, and every sprite is already isolated and positioned. Want a Unity package, an Aseprite file, a texture atlas or a JSON scene instead? The same EXPORT panel ships ten formats — see Export formats.

Each step has its own guide, in the order you just walked them:

• Step 1 · Source Art — uploading, generating a scene, PSD import
• Step 2 · Extend Canvas — margins, anchors, ratio presets, takes
• Step 3 · Find & Cut — tags, segmentation settings, sweeps, grouping
• Step 4 · Rebuild Backplate — takes, touch-ups, the hole mask
• Step 5 · Finish Sprites — the queue, versions, placement, the gate
• Step 6 · Add Shadows — contacts, ground shadows, base shading, style
• Step 7 · Final Polish — Repixelize and palette snap
• Step 8 · Preview & Export — the previews and the export hub

And when you want the map rather than the path, Features overview shows every surface in the app in one illustrated tour.