What's next

It's a constant fight to dedicate time to making Depixel. There's so much I want to do, yet life and survival always get in the way. Too often, I feel like I'm doing the work of a hundred men. Sometimes, it's getting to the point that I can't keep up and start to neglect my needs, and it's a snowball effect that I'm trying my hardest to slow down. Despite all this, I do not entertain the idea of abandoning Depixel. It became a significant and influential part of my life, and I want to see it succeed.

Contribution

Depixel needs a slight makeover. I want to bring in third-party contributions, and first, I want to make sure that their work won't feel like work by making sure each texture is accompanied by a project file where it was made (in this case, PSD) and every layer is appropriately named and neatly organized. Some of Depixel's older textures have very messy project files, and some don't even have them, making it difficult to make adjustments and adaptations in the future. It means re-creating these textures from scratch, applying the latest best practices, and making sure Depixel not only looks great but is also effortless to work on. I have made a local Git repository for Depixel, where I've started to assemble the best Depixel has ever been. I code-named it "Depixel One," referencing the road to release 1.0. This repository is going to be accompanied by another repository containing the respective project files that will be accessible only to selected contributors.

The Standard

Depixel could not have been what it is without the knowledge and experience gained over the years through failure and frustration. Accepting contributions means that I must share this knowledge with each contributor to ensure everyone is on the same page about the core values and principles of Depixel. This, in written form, will be reflected in the Depixel Standard, from philosophy to practical application. There is an initial draft that is currently just text, but could use some accompanying pictures. Eventually, when the first edition of Depixel Standard is polished, I'd like to offer it as a physical brochure, the cover design for which I've already prepared.

Optimization

Minecraft has been expanding a lot lately, and despite all the talk of "lazy Mojang developers," almost every update brings the biggest amount of detailed textures I have ever seen. I'm sure this will continue, and Depixel will only grow in size quicker than ever. It is where my little software project comes in: an optimization utility tailored for resource packs. Its goal is to losslessly optimize everything possible by trimming excessive image bit depth, indexing images with less than 256 colors, applying appropriate color type to images where having three channels is unnecessary, compressing JSONs by removing unnecessary whitespace and line breaks - all potentially summing up to 50% in size reduction of the compressed archive.

These are all remarkably ambitious projects, and seeing them come to life will mean a lot to me and, hopefully, will be meaningful to you.