How to start a new Adobe Illustrator Project Correctly

davidsalomondavidsalomon Member Posts: 136
edited November -1 in Art, Graphics, Music and Sound
Hello everyone,
I would always choose for the highest graphics and better quality, but I've read and found out iPhones, iPods and iPads just need 72 ppi.

So what should I choose to start a good Ai project?
image
image

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Comments

  • davidsalomondavidsalomon Member Posts: 136
    Plus, should I create the images the size I want them to be exactly in GameSalad/iPhone/iPod?
  • SpriteAttackSpriteAttack Member Posts: 524
    As long as you stick to RGB it really doesn't matter that much as you are working with scalable graphics and the important part is the exporting to bitmaps.... but... If you go with a 'copy and paste' it helps to work in the right size (e.g. bring in a 64x64 bitmap (as a sample target size), use it to make a vector box as a border and build the illustrator image inside the dimensions of this border.

    I would always suggest going 2x the size and do the retina images while you are at it ;)
  • davidsalomondavidsalomon Member Posts: 136
    @SpriteAttack: Thank you very much for your help.

    Woah sorry for all my questions I'll ask, but I really would like to know everything:
    What do you mean with the 'retina images'?

    Isn't PNG much better than BMP?
    Or I should only use PNG when I need transparency and complex effects?
    What would you choose in the:
    PNG export options:
    image

    BMP expor options:
    imageimage

    [ds]
  • SlickZeroSlickZero Houston, TexasMember, Sous Chef Posts: 2,870
    .png images are bitmap images so to speak, and they are what GameSalad uses natively. Bitmap is a format with huge file sizes, and .png's have the same quality, but with a much smaller file size. .png is what they call a "lossless" compression, meaning the quality of the image is not diminished when using this compression format.

    You probably won't see a difference between the 2 formats, with the exception of the file size. And .png handles transparencies much better.
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  • davidsalomondavidsalomon Member Posts: 136
    @SlickZero: thank you very much!

    What about the 'retina images' SpriteAttack commented about?
    What's that?
  • keweworkshopkeweworkshop Member Posts: 377
    david before I started my first project I went through this tutorial here,



    It is an older video with an older version of gamesalad but it was so helpful to me and right in the beginning he talks about retina images. I think you would enjoy this tutorial. There are quite a few videos, you will have to go to youtube to watch the rest.
  • SpriteAttackSpriteAttack Member Posts: 524
    BMP are basiclly lossless bitmaps - no compression with the full spectrum of colours while the PNG formate uses a non-patented lossless data compression method known as DEFLATE, which is the same algorithm used in the zlib compression library. Making image filesizes smaller while still offering full colour depth as well as an advanced transparency to the GIF format it derived from.

    Retina displays [iphone4] are using 2x the pixels [with some restrictions] of the ipod or older iphone displays. By creating the art at twice the size you save time when aiming for ipad and retina iphone 4 builds.
  • davidsalomondavidsalomon Member Posts: 136
    Thank you very much guys!
    Where can I find the pixel size screens of the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad?

    Width x Height.

    Then if I want to release it to the older versions, I should divide by 2 everything I did, right?
  • JohnPapiomitisJohnPapiomitis Member Posts: 6,256
    portait for iphone and ipod touches under 4: 320x480, landscape is 480x320

    iphone4 is 640x960 portrait and 960x640 landscape

    portrait for ipad is 768x1024, landscape is 1024x768

    thats width first then height btw
  • keweworkshopkeweworkshop Member Posts: 377
    @john you beat me to it! This was a question I could actually answer lol but in my defense, my internet keeps cutting out.
  • davidsalomondavidsalomon Member Posts: 136
    Haha, thank you very much John, and thank you anyways keweworkshop ;)

    Now I'll be able to start my graphics optimizing everything, without having to re-edit everything at the end!

    Thanks!

    [ds]
  • informedstudiosinformedstudios Member Posts: 18
    Hey I've been searching around and I still can't find an exact answer for this. Why is everyone setting their files to 72ppi? Can we not build our art assets at 326ppi and take advantage of the full screen resolution?

    From what I understand, the iphone 3 has half the ppi of the iphone 4. With the resolution independence feature can't I build my artwork at 326ppi and it will create another file that is half the resolution for use on the iphone 3?

    It just seems strange to me to bebuild art assets at 72ppi when it is less than a quarter of the potential quality.
  • SingleSparqSingleSparq Member Posts: 1,339
    Probably the same reason I would use 72 for the web, that's the standard resolution for screen. Any larger and your just creating a bigger file size with no other benefit. But I'm sure someone else can chime in On the specific reasons why.
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  • informedstudiosinformedstudios Member Posts: 18
    Thanks, SingleSparq.

    When I do graphics for the web I always keep them at 72ppi because there is no benefit to going higher. That's how I started doing my artwork for our game.

    What is throwing me off is the fact that the iphone 4 is now capable of 326ppi. Does this change the 72ppi standard? I would think that if the device is capable of 326ppi that we could build our artwork to this quality if we want to show more detail in a character.
  • SingleSparqSingleSparq Member Posts: 1,339
    The only rule I know, if using resolution independence for iPhone 4, is to make the images 2x what they would normally be (for iphone3) at 72 and divdable by 4. As long as that works I wouldn't worry about the 326.
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  • informedstudiosinformedstudios Member Posts: 18
    So what you are saying is to bring my characters in at 144ppi (which is dividable by 4) for the iPhone 4? Then when I enable resolution independence, it will run at 72ppi on the iPhone 3 for better performance?

    That part makes sense to me. I'm just wondering why we are sticking to 72ppi if the device is capable of over 4x that. If it is a performance issue, I can understand that.
  • informedstudiosinformedstudios Member Posts: 18
    Nobody knows? Does everyone just build their artwork at 72ppi even if you can build it higher?
  • SingleSparqSingleSparq Member Posts: 1,339
    Yes we all do it at 72, I think your reading too much into it. Don't really want to start getting into the whole "how many pixels are packed into a size" thing it doesn't matter. Just follow the formula and not worry about it.

    If I'm creating a game(using iphone4 retina setting) and I drag an actor onto the scene, I make it the size I want, then I open it to see the size parameters and adjust it so it's divides by 4 THEN I take that size and times it by 2. That is the size I would then make the image file for it at 72ppi.
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