I've only just started with Godot so aiming to do things the right way. I've been drawing 2D characters and objects in photoshop then exporting them as transparent PNGs and they have pretty rough edges often with white lines that really show up on a dark background. I've just been dragging and dropping them into an assets folder to import. I did find something about importing them and using border alpha but that made little difference. Am I better off using SVGs? What is the best way to make characters that have a shape and are coloured?

    Just a little additional... I've been trying some SVGs and one I downloaded from wiki worked perfectly in Godot. Full colour, nice edges. I've have made a couple more of my own in Inkscape and when I import these they are just black shapes, no colour. If I export them from Inkscape as PNGs then they look OK in Godot so I'm using that option for now but it would be good to know what best practice is or if there are other options.

      nb_dot I've have made a couple more of my own in Inkscape and when I import these they are just black shapes, no colour.

      You may have exported the SVG in Inkscape format. Try "Plain SVG".

      I don't remember the details anymore, but when I had a similar task in front of me, I went through the import settings. But I was using Krita and GIMP.

        You can export PNGs from Photoshop and they should work. I use GIMP, but the PNG format should be the same. SVG is possible, but it still converts it to bitmap when used in game, so there is not too much advantage. If you want to send me the PSD or PNG (or both) I can take a look on my end and tell you what the problem is.

        nb_dot If I export them from Inkscape as PNGs then they look OK in Godot so I'm using that option for now but it would be good to know what best practice is or if there are other options.

        That is your best practice. Godot import just does the same, but worse. Godot integrates a really light weight library for this functionality just as a last resort sort of thing.

            Not sure how set you are on Photoshop. I use GIMP and I know it works, though the features are not as good as Adobe. However, for illustration I would recommend Krita. It is free open source and I would say better than Photoshop for that kind of stuff (drawing characters, etc.).

            Megalomaniak That is your best practice.

            That may be true, but I'm surprised that Photoshop wouldn't work. There must be some settings issue. For example, the wrong depth on the alpha channel or something. I'm sure Photoshop can export PNGs correctly.

              Fully transparent pixels can still have a colour, you just can't see it normally. If a texture is scaled, the visible pixels along the edge can blend with adjacent pixels that are fully transparent, leaving a coloured fringe, This also happens when making mip maps. If the characters/objects were drawn on a white background then masked with alpha, the background is still there and can bleed over into visible pixels under certain circumstances.
              This isn't a photoshop or PNG specific thing.

              What some artists do is add padding around a character, extending the colour into the transparent area so any bleed will have no effect.

              For example here's one of my most used sprites (got it with Haaf's Game Engine many years ago). On the left is the sprite normally with alpha on a black background. On the right is the actual colour data in the texture if you ignore the alpha.

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