I’m always trying to keep up with the various pixel art formats and standards, and I wanted to let you know that lately there has been activity on the PAML repository:
The standard isn’t yet documented, but examples are available. Currently the whole project is undergoing some experimental appraoches with JavaScript which are rather promising — here an example (Live HTML Preview link here):
It’s worth keeping an eye open on PAML!
The example of the above link is quite interesting. Look at the JS source of how the sprite is represented in ASCII therein:
var rawPaml = `<paml>
<info>
author=Nintendo
dateofcreation=2013-05-31
license=Recreated_by_Joe_DF
xpixels=19
ypixels=20
sizexpixels=10
sizeypixels=10
bgcolor=#0055AA ;blue
</info>
<defcolor>
b=black ;or o=b000000
g=#555555 ;Dark grey
w=white
y=yellow
x=#D3D300
r=#FF3E3E
</defcolor>
<drawpixels>
, , , , ,b,b, , , , , , , , , ,b, , ,
, , , ,b,g,b, , , , , , , , ,b,y,b, ,
, , , ,b,y,b, , , , , , , ,b,y,x,x,b,
, , ,b,y,y,b, , , , ,b,b,b,y,x,x,x,b,
, , ,b,y,x,b, , ,b,b,g,g,b,x,x,x,b, ,
, ,b,y,y,y,y,b,b,y,y,g,b,x,x,x,b, , ,
,b,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,b,b,x,x,b, , , ,
b,w,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,x,b, ,b,x,x,b, , ,
b,b,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,y,b, , ,b,x,b, , ,
b,y,y,y,y,w,b,y,y,y,y,x,b,b,x,b, , , ,
,b,y,y,y,b,b,r,r,y,x,x,b,b,b, , , , ,
, ,b,x,y,y,y,r,x,x,x,b,b,b, , , , , ,
,b,y,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,b, , , , , ,
, ,b,b,y,y,y,y,y,b,x,x,b,b, , , , , ,
, , ,b,x,y,y,y,b,y,x,x,x,b, , , , , ,
, ,b,x,b,x,x,x,x,b,x,x,x,b, , , , , ,
, ,b,b,b,b,b,x,x,x,x,x,b, , , , , , ,
, , , , , , ,b,b,b,x,b,b, , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , ,b,y,y,x,b, , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , ,b,b,b, , , , , , , ,
</drawpixels>
</paml>`;
This kind of ASCII representation of pixel art could find application in many textual apps and text-only protocols (eg. MUDs/MUSHes, etc).