Super fast question about Retina Display graphics...

gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
edited October 2012 in Working with GS (Mac)
There's been a zillion posts on this but I'm still just a little confused. So here goes...
Is making a 512x512 graphic in photoshop and then scaling down by half (256x256) in my project, the exact same things as Resolution Independence?
That's all, many thanks!

Comments

  • Braydon_SFXBraydon_SFX Member, Sous Chef, Bowlboy Sidekick Posts: 9,273
    Yeah thats the same thing.

    If you need to create a 256x256 actor, create a 512x512. Be sure to make sure to check the "Resolution Independence" in your project info. This will automatically resize and your images.

    Hope this helps.

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  • SearleSamaSearleSama Member Posts: 108
    gamesalad does the scale down for you. so when you make your game in game salad pick iphone and check resolution independence. Now when you work on your assets in photoshop just make everything double the size. When you import them gamesalad will have them at the single size.

    So in photoshop make your 512x512 image after import the actor will be 256x256.

    Make sense?
  • SearleSamaSearleSama Member Posts: 108
    quick tip with retina, make sure all your x2 size graphics are divisible by 2. no odd numbers in other words. They look terribly blurry on a retina screen if this is not done.
  • gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
    Yes thank you. I get that. But I just want to be clear, if I DO NOT CHECK resolution independence, BUT I've been making my graphics 2 time the size, and manually scaling it down by half- that this is the exact same thing. I know this must sound absolutely redundant, but not all of my graphics were made 2 times the size and I don't want to ruin anything. It appears, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that the only thing resolution independence does, is scale it down for you without you MANUALLY scaling it down by half (which is what I've been doing).?
  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    No Its not the same.

    When you check RI off on your project. What happens is your App Checks what device is being used to play the game. If its a retina display device it will display the full double the size art for all your actors. If it is an older no retina device the GS ill display images that have been scaled down during publishing. The purpose of this is nothing more than to save RAM and CPU usage on the older devices. You can actually just load high res image into your actors and publish without RI but what will happen is the older devices will have to load the larger images into the RAM eating up valuable space.

    If you scale your image down and uncheck RI on your project your Retina devices will simply not be using the High Res Display. It will still look fine and everything just not quite as crisp.

    Why are you wanting to manually scale the images yourself?
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  • gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
    Because I'm a rookie haha. I've been working on the game for almost a year now and only recently looked into this resolution independence. At this point I would have to almost completely re-render every graphic which would take a very long time to do. So I figured (before reading your post), that I could simply re-import some of the graphics at double the size and simply scale it down by half. This would thereby allow at least some of the more important graphics to look good.
  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    It would look odd to be honest. You can do that but you need to scale the actor to half the image size. not the actual image. But I would not recommend only doing some of the art in high res. It would likely be dead obvious on the newer devices.
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  • gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
    If I wanted to just test to see what the game would look like WITH resolution independence on, could I do that (and just save it as a different file)? OR, will it potentially screw up my project and I won't be able to revert back to the original. And thank you as always btw!
  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    I would definitely save a copy before you make any major changes but if you don't have high res art in and check RI it will be blurry as hell on non retina devices.
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  • gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
    So if I SAVE AS (a different copy), it's not going to screw my image library up, will it? Super afraid of that. The game is nearly done and I'd hate to screw anything up.
  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    No you really should have been doing a save as at least daily just to have a backup unless something gets corrupted with your rules or whatnot. I have Seen entire projects forced to start from scratch because they had no backups of previous version. Its less common now a days but non the less it does still show its head occasionally.

    So no Doing a Save As will not affect your project. It just gives you an extra copy to try something out on before screwing up your main project file.
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  • gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
    Call me crazy, but I just did a test. I have Resolution Independence turned off (not checked). I have two images side by side (of the same image). One of them was created at 512x512 and the other at 256x256. I placed the 256 one in the scene. Then I took the 512 one and inside the actor shrunk it down by half-thus making it 256x256. Looked at it and it appears that the 512 image (imported at 512 but shrunk by half to 256) looks infinitely crisper. To me this just seems like GS is displaying retina display without me having to hit that check box. Am I nuts?!
    BTW- by now you must all want to strangle me. Hehe. Apologies. If you want to move on, no sweat. In my opinion you've all answered my question. That all said, I'm baffled by this test that seems to show me that it's displaying it at retina quality (at least on my device's gs viewer app). Thanks again as always and all of your phenomenal patience.
  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    No Thats how Retina Works. Resolution independence is not for show high res images on retina devices. its so you can show low res images on Non-retina devices instead of having to eat up 4 times the RAM when you force it load a 512 image for a 256 actor.

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  • gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
    BINGO! That's exactly what I was asking. Apologies for not making that clear. I don't have itentions for making the game for anything below iphone 4- so i'm good. I know that's a huge financial mistake but it is what it is. The amount of timers and spawns i have would kill a 3gs anyways. THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR CLARIFYING! This post is ANSWERED for me! You're a saint tenrdrmer- thanks for your patience!
  • SearleSamaSearleSama Member Posts: 108
    Another question is, why would you not want to use resolution independence?
  • SearleSamaSearleSama Member Posts: 108
    especially since it resizes the actors for you. :-)
  • gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
    SearleSama, for me, it's because I'm almost done with the game and would have to re-create over 300 graphics. So instead of doing that I'm just redoing the particular graphics that really stand out (titles, main character, etc.) Everything else flies by so quick that you can't even see them. But yes, you are correct- for the average joe, you would OBVIOUSLY want to use resolution independence. Thanks!
  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    The amount of timers and spawns i have would kill a 3gs anyways.
    You'd be surprised at how much that device can take. And again. Its gonna be dead obvious to most users if only some of your art is High Res. Even going the route your talking. I think Your way better off leaving it be if your not going to replace them all. And you have no way of limiting the app to iPhone4 and up. Not even by iOS version as the 3GS has iOS6
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  • gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
    I will take that advice into consideration. Thank you as always!
  • SingleSparqSingleSparq Member Posts: 1,339
    Sometimes a blurry background can be an neat effect - making your hi-resloution 'front' objects look awesome
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  • gamesfuagamesfua Member Posts: 723
    Yep SingleSparq I meant to do that ;) It actually does look pretty neat i have to say. It almost makes it look more crisp believe it or not.
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