Image size question

gariantroll

I have 1811 frames of animation that total just over which currently brings my game to just over 24MB of Memory of information. But when i run Viewer on the IPAD and the game is playing, it says I am using 98MB of Memory. What can I do to reduce the size of this, and I am sure the each frame is in 72dpi. I am confused a bit.

gariantroll

To add to this, it says my images are 73.9MB. I am confused.

scribblstudios

Did you try compressing stuff?

gariantroll

I am changing the character sizes now. It will take me a long time since I have over 1800 frames of animation. But tenacity is the key. And what other compression techniques are there?

old_kipper

Compression of images does not effect memory usage. The only thing that does is the pixel measurements. It's an old one but if you have not heard it before, the 'buckets' that GS holds the graphics in are set up to take graphics in powers of 2. If they marginally go over you are doubling the amount of memory if you stay under. SO measurements as 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024. And the image doesn't have to use the same number for both sides.

If you can pull the memory down by loosing frames it helps... but I do understand...

hope that helps kipper

p.s. the other memory on top of your graphic is for the GS engine, sound, and those naughty pixies that live inside the iDevices and run around with your pictures and looking at your rules.

p.p.s quit the viewer between test to get a real reading as it builds up with each run.

SlickZero

Isn't there a memory issue with the GS Viewer showing it's using more memory than it actually is? Or was that just on older devices?

gyroscope

Yes, as kipper said: 258 x 256 uses the same memory as 512 x 512 for instance.

Any chance of bringing down your fps, again as kipper suggested? If it's flat colo(u)r graphics you might even get away with 10fps or less...

old_kipper

As Gyro say about getting the frame rate down is what I manage to mangle... I find generally it is better to have 6 frames of good animation that do the move than 15 of 'so so'. The only caveat of is when the animation is very large on screen so you end up with strobing.

Most animators I know shoot on '2s' for film and tv (cutting the work by half) ending up with 12, or 12.5 fps. The Anime guys push it often to 12 frames of one pic, a fade and a slow zoom, and avoid action as all costs. And as for old Scooby Doo... Long tracking shot to backs of heads, lots of shots of eye, reaction shots, buildings, and a walk cycle down a long tunnel side on with a new background each week, anything to cut costs and work.

gariantroll

Thanks for all the feedback. It seems my files were kinda big, and halving them seems to do wonders with the memory. Shrinking the sizes saves 75% of the memory and I will cut the music for now which was a whole 4MB. The animation in this game is really one of the highlights and I have to push my self to make it work with sacrificing as little as possible. We will start marketing our game at the end of July, so you will see that all this ambition and headaches will pay off. Thanks guys.

gariantroll

By the way, if you want to see some of our other work, here is our website www.sodanimations.com This will be our first ios game we are working on. Unfortunately, we can't give any details right now.

gyroscope

Impressive site; best of luck with your game. Looks more than likely it's going to be a really professional offering from looking at your portfolio/clients list.:-)

gariantroll

We are trying to take GameSalad to the next level. We really like it even with its current flaws. We see this as the new way of game development.