How does GameSalad interpret graphics when scaling/zooming?

grierdill

I'm just doing some tests with camera zoom and was wondering how GameSalad interprets scaling sprites and images. So for my example I added a sprite that is an 8bit style graphic, but I doubled the size so each pixel is actually two pixels wide (but still retains the sharp edges and looks 8bit style). So when I add this character to the scene and then zoom out 200% hypothetically, the image should look exactly like it did before I scaled it up in photoshop, 1:1 pixel ratio, but GameSalad is softening the image, making it anti-aliased when what I want is to keep those sharp edges.

Is there any way to keep the sharp pixel look when scaling/zooming in? (think of "nearest neighbor" scaling vs "bicubic with smoothing" in Photoshop)

gyroscope

@grierdill

Hi, GSC (and iDevices) all will interpret the same way when graphics are made larger than their original size; and it doesn't matter whether or not you've made the image style 8bit or not, that has no bearing on it.

So the only solution to keep the sharpness of graphics when making larger is to have the maximum size of any graphic when zoomed to be the actual size of image brought into GSC. (Then this image reduced to it's start size in GSC).

So in your example, say you have your graphic starting at 100pixels square and you want to zoom in during gameplay to double that, then you have to make your graphic 200 pixels square to start with (or 400 for retina display support); reducing it to 100 pixels square to start on-screen. So when you zoom in to double that, it won't lose any sharpness of detail.

grierdill

Well that's what i figured, but what actually happens, is if your original image is 100px and you double it, then bring it into GS, when you scale it down 50% it still blurs it a little so its not EXACTLY 50%. That's what's frustrating.

gyroscope

Just to check: you're not just doubling the size in Photoshop from the original size, (and the original size is 72ppi) I'm wondering? You'd get blurring like that.

Anyhow, if not, and you were getting blurred when you enlarged it even though that enlarged is it's original size; and now it blurs even when you reduce the image, I've no idea what's going on there. Hopefully someone else can chime in with understanding this new development.