Some years ago we make a game in gamemaker, and one of the most tedious things to deal with, was the fact that from time to time was a need to import/update sprites in the project. The projects is now finished, and I just discovered this tool “LazyLoad”, a bit late, but for the next Gamemaker project, this will be the on the list.

Extracted from the itch.io project page:

lazyload is a sprite management tool for GameMaker Studio 2 that allows you to automatically import and update sprites to a project.

What does it do?

• Auto import / update sprites to GMS2
• Supports png, gif, and Aseprite files
• Can alphabetically sort your sprites in GM
• Adds custom prefixes to resource names (ex: spr_)
• Processes strip images into frames automatically
• Can scale all imported sprites by a given number
• Converts resource names into either snake_case or camelCase
• Allows you to set a default sprite origin point
• Flexible permission options to control exactly what lazyload does

How do I use it?

At a minimum, you must set a GMS2 project directory and a directory to sync images from. If you would like compatibility for Aseprite files, simply input the location of Aseprite in the “Aseprite Executable” field.

To customize your import options, go to the “Import Options” tab at the top left of the tool. Each option has a tool tip when hovering over it that will explain what it does clearly.

lazyload additionally has a “Permissions” menu that let you customize what the tool is allowed to do. Minimum will only import sprites, while Standard will import and update sprites – but it will only update sprites that were originally created by lazyload. If you want to allow the tool to overwrite sprites you created in the GMS2 IDE, set the permissions to Maximum.

When you are ready to import and update, simply check “Enable Sync”! While syncing is enabled, any new image to enter the watch directory will be imported, and any image in the watch directory that is modified will have its respective sprite updated.