Ensuring art assets are good for iPad, iPhone 4 and 3GS?

MetzoPaino

Hello everyone,

Currently having some troubles figuring out the scale that I should be working in to make sure all the art assets made for my app are going to work on all iOS devices. If I wanted an actor to be 50x50 on the screen, should I have it drawn at 100x100 for an iPhone 4, then resolution independence would halve it for a 3GS? If thats right then what should be done about iPad assets?

beefy_clyro

Correct.

If you want a 50x50 in GS, design art at 100x100. With RI ticked, when you import the assets, it will automatically resize the actors ti half size. If a 3GS or below is used it will use half size images (creates a set at half size), if its a 4 or above it will select the image at full size.

Make sure your art when divided by 2 is an even number or it will blur. So don't create a 50x50 actor for RI, that would be 25x25 and wouldn't look good, round up to 52x52 so it would be 26x26.

As for iPad, the resolution is 1024x768, you'll need to resize your iPhone game size to iPad and either resize all your art to the dimensions you want for the iPad or just use your retina as there isn't much difference.

MetzoPaino

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

How good is GS at resizing stuff? Just so I know how far I can push an image in GS before it starts to blur because it has been stretched or squished too far.

MotherHoose

@CodeMonkey said: … in this link

10:27AM
Another thing that might inflate the size of your project is if you have Resolution Independence enabled. What this does to the final app is it adds image files that are half the size of the original so non-retina display devices use less RAM when the game runs.

my take:

if you √ Resolution Independence:
all your image files should be created/imported at twice the size of what you want on-screen (to utilize retina display)
and … GS (during build/Publish) will add… a set of all your images … that are half the size of those your project contains
thus your app will contain 2 sets of images (retina and duplicates at 0.5 W,H )

at this phase of our developerCareers … as all 4iOS and later devices are retina display …
and, iPad 3 will no doubt be retina … see: 9to5Mac
this might be time to start doing our images at 2xs the on-screen size and not checking the Resolution Independence
(resulting in more imagesMb in project … but, our apps will not have the extra half size images with their bloating bytes!)

hopefully, in the next build, GS will allow imageImports of 2048 W,H …
or, for iPad BGs we'll have to continue to replace them in the project's images folder

@};- MH

beefy_clyro

There will still be a large portion of users on 3gs and i think excluded them at the sake of a few extra mb is a risky move. By not checking RI, the older 3gs will use the double size image and this will increase the RAM usage of the game. I guess a lot comes down to the design of the game and as always, you should always test on multiple devices to see what works best.

MotherHoose

that is so! @beefy_clyro … I often forget about 3rd generation devices …

but, unchecking Preload Art will cause the image to not be loaded into RAM at scene load
using null images for actors will also do this …
and, then only calling for the image (changeAttribute self.image) during run-time will really enable you to keep RAM demands low.

@};- MH

beefy_clyro

@MotherHoose, that'll keep initial load times down but the RAM usage could still inflate. Fair enough you won't have it on preload but once the game/scene calls for it you may see the ram shoot up. If you have a graphics intensive scene, lots of animations etc, don't check preload the result will be a quicker load time but then it all gets called into action and then it must use that RAM again at the retina size! Again, it all depends on the game. We should all see what we can do to strike the best balance for our own games!

tutyses

resolution independence works making the size double or half of it? i mean if i create a 32x32 actor, in old devices it will look like 32x32 and in the new ones it will be 64x64 or it will be 16x16 on old devices and 32x32 on new ones?

MetzoPaino

I only own a 3GS so I won't be discarding art for its resolution.

One last point of issue, my main actor is 40x40 in the game, so should be 80x80 when brought into GS. However my artist made the main character at 28x28, but because it is pixel art the software it was made for allows it to be exported to png at 4 times the size, so it came out at 112x112. Is it ok to bring an actor in at a bigger size than necessary for HD, or will GS's blur it just from the amount of resizing?

MotherHoose

@MetzoPaino … sizing down from imported image does not usually blur … though, sizing-up can distort things

I would import the 112x112 and do the sizing in the actorAttributes

@tutyses … I too find this RI thing so confusing! you import a larger size image
(2Xs the Width and Height you want to show on screen)
you make your actors the size you want then drag-in the larger image that you imported …

GS when you publish with Resolution Independence, adds a set of your images 1/2 size … and iOS knows what image size to use at runtime from a device's resolution display capacity.

@};- MH