Make images with Ava in GIMP

The GIMP (Headless) room is where Ava makes 2D work by hand rather than by generating it: icon sets, game UI, sprite sheets, textures and web graphics. She writes the steps, GIMP carries them out on your computer with no window open, and you keep real layered files you can open and change yourself.

Before you start

• Install GIMP 3. It is free from gimp.org. Earlier versions will not work. Ava finds GIMP on her own in the usual places.
• If yours is somewhere unusual, open Settings, General, and under "GIMP (2D images)" click Choose… and pick gimp.exe from GIMP’s bin folder. The VS Code extension and the desktop IDE share this setting.
• GIMP itself costs nothing to run. The chat with Ava is on your own key.
• The very first run on a computer can take around half a minute while GIMP gets ready. After that it is quicker.

Finding the room

Open the Creative Studio and look under 2D in the sidebar for GIMP (Headless). Tell Ava what you need and where it will be seen, or start from one of the suggestions: a matching icon set, game UI, a sprite sheet or web graphics.

The brief comes first

Before anything is made, Ava puts a brief on the stage: what it is, where it is used, the style, the exact sizes, how it fits a set, the palette, references, whether a generated picture would help as a layer or reference, and the purpose, with her reasoning.

• Question it with her in the chat, or click Edit and change it yourself.
• When it is right, click "Agree the brief". Only you can agree it, and nothing is made until you have.
• Any later change to the brief waits for your agreement again.

She looks at her own work

After every run Ava sees what she made, and she can look closer: a close-up of one area, the piece on a dark or light background, or a proof sheet that shows it large and at its real small sizes. Each run also reports every layer as it really is and flags problems such as a hidden layer, an empty one or one that has slipped off the canvas. That is how she catches what a single preview hides.

Your own art

Use "Add your art" to bring in a PNG, JPEG or WebP image of your own (up to 50 MB): your logo, a character, an existing screen. Ava tests the work against it, so the new piece fits what you already have.

Choosing between designs

• When there are different ways to go, Ava can show two to four options side by side and ask which you want. Click the one you prefer.
• When a piece has several designs, they appear as lettered tiles (A, B, C…). Click one to look at it, then make it the main one, keep it for later as a separate piece in your Library, or delete it.
• Ask her to try an idea on a copy, and the original stays untouched.

Finals

A piece is finished when it has a final: the version that goes to the Library and, if you want, into a brand kit. Ava asks before she marks one. Finals appear in the Final strip under the stage, and you can remove one from there.

Going back

Every successful run is saved as a step in the History strip. Click a step to look at it, then "Go back to this" to restore it. Going back is a step of its own, so nothing later is lost. The last 20 steps are kept. A run that fails saves nothing: the work stays exactly as it was.

Ava checks in

She stops and asks you after three good runs since you last spoke, so the work never drifts far from what you wanted. Say "keep going" and she can do up to ten. Three failures in a row also stop her.

Fonts

Ava checks which fonts GIMP can really use before she sets any text. If a piece needs a Google Font you do not have, she asks before installing it, and the install is for your user only. Google Fonts are free to use but not all under one licence, so the record of how a piece was made notes each font’s licence.

In this room Ava makes, she does not generate

The icon, logo, video and voice generators are switched off in this room: the work is made in GIMP, step by step, from the brief. Ava can still generate a picture to use as one layer or as a reference when the brief calls for it, which uses your Qwen key.

What keeps it safe

Each script is checked before it runs. It is refused if it tries to start other programs, use the network, reach outside the work’s own folder or quit GIMP. Ava only works inside the folder for that piece.

Your work

• Every piece has its own folder with a layered .xcf per image, a flat PNG of each, exact-size exports and its finals.
• Open in GIMP opens the layered files in your own GIMP. Change anything, save, and Ava’s next run builds on your version.
• "Add to a folder" files the piece into a Library folder, so a set stays together.
• Delete removes the whole folder. It always asks first, and it waits while Ava is working.

Folders and packs in the Library

From your Library into your game engine

Selling what you make