@adent42 said:
You have to provide 3x and 2x images for ALL of your art.
...
How does that sound?
Sounds great for the interim. Will the creator be able to deal with it? Meaning, referencing images. Droplists will show the filename plus the @Xx extension, text attributes probably just the name, etc?
PhilipCCEncounter Bay, South AustraliaMemberPosts: 1,390
@Socks>;
This is confusing enough and now it is getting funny.
I didn't say this, Hopscotch did!
I wonder, adent42, would it be possible to give us a third option to the resolution independence? One where WE supply the images in the 1x, 2x and 3x format? Just like one does in the native and traitor tools?
PhilipCCEncounter Bay, South AustraliaMemberPosts: 1,390
edited September 2014
@adent42 said:
As for the self service option, here is my proposal:
Move RI to a publishing time checkbox, so you don't have to decide at game creation time.
If you don't have any @#x images and enable RI, we would scale the images, just like we do now.
If, per chance, you were to include images for the 3x and 2x scales in the gameproj/images directory yourself and enabled the RI checkbox, the publishing server could just ignore converting the images.
Does this also mean that if we don't enable the RI checkbox at publishing time, the GS Publishing server will just leave our images alone, that is, at the resolution we created them.
If that's the case then this proposal is fine with me.
I'll set my stage to be 1536 x 2048, make all my actors x4 as I do now, and only build for the iPads… and " f " the iPhone6s. >:)
Kudos to you all for trying to work this out. Brain numbing for me, I will wait until it is all resolved by my betters but thanks for your brain powers!
@adent42 said:
As for the self service option, here is my proposal:
Move RI to a publishing time checkbox, so you don't have to decide at game creation time.
If you don't have any @#x images and enable RI, we would scale the images, just like we do now.
If, per chance, you were to include images for the 3x and 2x scales in the gameproj/images directory yourself and enabled the RI checkbox, the publishing server could just ignore converting the images.
Now here's the trade-off, if y'all are okay with this plan. You have to provide 3x and 2x images for ALL of your art. Our image loader does not "fall back" and there is good reason for this related to our upcoming graphics rework. So if you miss an image for a given scale factor, we will just show a blank actor.
Until we can add similar support in the tool, this will be officially an "unsupported" feature (anything that edits the gameproj but doesn't use the tool is unsupported). It will just be something advanced users can try to play with / tweak.
How does that sound?
I think that is a great solution for now. Still trying to wrap my head around the Inge sizes for 3x. I currently design my artwork based on a 2048x1536 template against the iPad project type in gs. Are you saying we should tweak that to 2208x1536 then manually crop it to 2208x1242 for 3x and again to 2048x1536 for 2x?
norhing like thinking about resolutions to keep you awake during a 2am feeding session:)
@adent42 said:
Sorry, I didn't mean a full 3027 image of 3x. The idea would be to use images closer to the 2048 scale (notice that if you build a single image that would full screen on both iPhone6+ and iPad Retina it would be 2208x1536).
. . . . .
Starting resolution = 2208
iPhone 6+ = fine.
iPad Retina = compromised image quality.
. . . . .
Starting resolution = 2048
iPhone 6 = compromised image quality.
iPad Retina = fine.
. . . . .
I'd say the second (2048) option is better as any compromise in image quality will be much less noticeable on the much smaller and much more pixel dense iPhone6+.
@adent42 said:
As for the self service option, here is my proposal:
Move RI to a publishing time checkbox, so you don't have to decide at game creation time.
If you don't have any @#x images and enable RI, we would scale the images, just like we do now.
If, per chance, you were to include images for the 3x and 2x scales in the gameproj/images directory yourself and enabled the RI checkbox, the publishing server could just ignore converting the images.
Now here's the trade-off, if y'all are okay with this plan. You have to provide 3x and 2x images for ALL of your art. Our image loader does not "fall back" and there is good reason for this related to our upcoming graphics rework. So if you miss an image for a given scale factor, we will just show a blank actor.
Until we can add similar support in the tool, this will be officially an "unsupported" feature (anything that edits the gameproj but doesn't use the tool is unsupported). It will just be something advanced users can try to play with / tweak.
How does that sound?
That's a great idea, especially for files that are converting poorly, it should of course be an option like you say, as a lot of new users might prefer all that stuff to be handled automatically.
Besides, it is only 20.55 (8.55pm for old timers) on Wednesday 24 Sept here in South Australia. We are way ahead of you by 14.5 hours ! We even know what you are going to say next, because we already passed it!
It is 06.25 in Texas… go to bed. No wonder you can't think straight!
I need you guys to sort this out. ASAP, please.
Edited: because of my bad time calculation math. Maybe it's been a long day here too.
@adent42 said:
As for the self service option, here is my proposal:
Move RI to a publishing time checkbox, so you don't have to decide at game creation time.
Many of us would likely continue to work with iPad retina (2x) based gfx for the time being (a part from all the drawbacks already discussed with the upcoming GS autoscaling there is also no requirement from Apple to use @3x images in our projects at this time, even for Iphone 6+). The RI checkbox in the creator would still serve a good purpose since it automatically sets the actor sizes to half the size of the imported images. Another advantage by having our 2x images (as currently is) in the project is that the gs viewer (on device) would use those retina images thus the RAM usage can be supervised without building an adhoc every time.
If you don't have any @#x images and enable RI, we would scale the images, just like we do now.
I suggest only doing the check for the existence of @2x images (more about that below). If no such files are found in our images folder (if we have not manually supplied them), and RI is enabled, then build the app as you want with your automatic process that creates @2x and @3x images.
If, per chance, you were to include images for the 3x and 2x scales in the gameproj/images directory yourself and enabled the RI checkbox, the publishing server could just ignore converting the images.
Since there currently is no requirement from Apple for @3x images it would make sense if you would only perform checks for the existence of the @2x images. If there are no @3x images then build the app without them. If the user has provided @3x images then sure, build the app with them also included. The only current device that would use 3x images is the iPhone 6+ but if it does not find any @3x images it will use our @2x images instead. Yes, I am fully aware that some up scaling would be made from iPad Retina based graphics on iPhone6+ but my belief is that it would still look next to perfect on the smaller iPhone6+ screen. No need for bloating the app size by including @3x images at this time (let us have the choice to use the @3x assets or not - since Apple gives us that choise)
The situation may (or may not) change when Apple introduce new iPad models.
In practice however major changes like demanding developers to use a new set of retina assets (@3x in this case) for all apps is not something that happens overnight.
A little look at what happened previously;
iPad 3 ("The new iPad") with retina display was released on the 16th of March 2012.
It was not until the 1st of May 2013 that it became a requirement from Apple for developers to use retina graphics.
Now here's the trade-off, if y'all are okay with this plan. You have to provide 3x and 2x images for ALL of your art. Our image loader does not "fall back" and there is good reason for this related to our upcoming graphics rework. So if you miss an image for a given scale factor, we will just show a blank actor.
That would be no problem.
This is how I personally would suggest approaching that situation (as a user).
Use the current 2x assets (that at this time are not named with @2x suffix) in the project until the project is close to release. This will make it possible to test easily using 2x retina images on the device using the gs viewer (not requiring an adhoc every time - basically how it currently works)
Make a copy of the project and batch rename all images, adding the @2x suffix to the file names.
Scale down the same images for another set of the same images for non-retina devices (thus still making it possible to support iPad Mini and iPad 2 that only has 512 MB of RAM and would not be able to handle 2x retina images).
Optional / should not be a requirement: Add our own scaled @3x images.
Until we can add similar support in the tool, this will be officially an "unsupported" feature (anything that edits the gameproj but doesn't use the tool is unsupported). It will just be something advanced users can try to play with / tweak.
>
Adding in our images@2x (and optional images@3x) to our projects "images" folder - no problem!
I'm still trying to wrap my head around these @3x graphic assets. I can't wait for my 6+ to arrive tomorrow so I can actually do some real world testing! I am having trouble envisioning how having a @3x graphic will squeeze into the ipad project. Will it be skewed?
If we were making an iPhone only project, no problem. But with the universal builds the graphics will be different ratios even with cropping.
@jonmulcahy said:
I'm still trying to wrap my head around these 3x graphic assets. I can't wait for my 6+ to arrive tomorrow so I can actually do some real world testing! I am having trouble envisioning how having a 3x graphic will squeeze into the ipad project. Will it be skewed?
If we were making an iPhone only project, no problem. But with the universal builds the graphics will be different ratios even with cropping.
The iPad will not use your 3x graphics. Only the iPhone 6 Plus will, no other device. So all devices but the iPhone 6 plus will ignore the 3x image files completely but you will see a MASSIVE file size increase for the project by including 3x files.
@MarcMySalad said:
The iPad will not use your 3x graphics. Only the iPhone 6 Plus will, no other device. So all devices but the iPhone 6 plus will ignore the 3x image files completely but you will see a MASSIVE file size increase for the project by including 3x files.
Right, but I'm using the iPad project as a starting point, so the background actor is 1024x768 (1.33 ratio) and uses the @2x graphics on an iPad/iPhone5. The image is just cropped a bit on each side.
Now when I load this up on an iPhone6+, it attempts to use the @3x graphics in that same actor, so it's trying to squeeze a 2208x1242 image (1.78 ratio) into a 2048x1536 space (1.33 ratio). The image's height is going to be scaled down to 2048 while the width will be scaled up to 1536. This is going to skew/stretch the image, and warp the graphic.
If you had an iPhone only project you'd be ok as the screen ratio is the same. but throw the iPad into the mix and we have a problem. I'm having trouble thinking how the current implementation of universal apps can cope with this new screen resolution.
@johnmulcahy How are you handling the situation for iphone 5? It should be basically the same principle when doing universal build and including iphone 6 plus.
@MarcMySalad said:
johnmulcahy How are you handling the situation for iphone 5? It should be basically the same principle when doing universal build and including iphone 6 plus.
It's different with the iPhone5. That still uses the same image assets, the 2048x1536 image, it just scales down and crops the edges:
The iPhone6's @3x graphics are a different ratio than the ipad project's 2048x1536, so the images will get skewed. What will happen is the @3x image will be scale down like in the image below, but then stretched sideways to fix the actor.
adent42Key Master, Head Chef, Executive Chef, Member, PROPosts: 3,159
edited September 2014
@jonmulcahy I would actually build the game using overscan instead of stretch.
You start by building your game for iPad, but keeping in mind that important game play should be in a "safe" zone in the middle of the screen.
Then I'd build my UI so that if it's sitting in the corners of the screen, it will detect screen size and move the UI elements (via a Set Attribute action). So if the screen has a smaller apsect ratio than the Gameplay aspect ration, I'd adjust it's position accordingly.
So the image will never be stretched, it will just be cropped, but you design the game so that nothing important happens in the potentially cropped areas.
I'd use 2048 images (to keep in a lower power of 2 limit) and just be okay with the image stretching a bit on iPhone 6+
@adent42 said:
jonmulcahy I would actually build the game using overscan instead of stretch.
You start by building your game for iPad, but keeping in mind that important game play should be in a "safe" zone in the middle of the screen.
Then I'd build my UI so that if it's sitting in the corners of the screen, it will detect screen size and move the UI elements (via a Set Attribute action). So if the screen has a smaller apsect ratio than the Gameplay aspect ration, I'd adjust it's position accordingly.
So the image will never be stretched, it will just be cropped, but you design the game so that nothing important happens in the potentially cropped areas.
I'd use 2048 images (to keep in a lower power of 2 limit) and just be okay with the image stretching a bit on iPhone 6+
yea that's what I do now, but I'm concerned with the stretching on the 6+. I'll wait till I get my 6+ tomorrow and see how bad it is.
I suppose if we used the iPhone6+ as the project type it remove the stretching situation and crop from the top/bottom for the iPad projects. That might be the way to go.
So I haven't downloaded the Release Candidate 12.5 yet, do the tables work fine with this version now? Also has anyone published a app to Apple with this version yet? If so is your app live, and without issues?
@adent42 said:
jonmulcahy I would actually build the game using overscan instead of stretch.
You start by building your game for iPad, but keeping in mind that important game play should be in a "safe" zone in the middle of the screen.
Then I'd build my UI so that if it's sitting in the corners of the screen, it will detect screen size and move the UI elements (via a Set Attribute action). So if the screen has a smaller apsect ratio than the Gameplay aspect ration, I'd adjust it's position accordingly.
So the image will never be stretched, it will just be cropped, but you design the game so that nothing important happens in the potentially cropped areas.
I'd use 2048 images (to keep in a lower power of 2 limit) and just be okay with the image stretching a bit on iPhone 6+
I use stretch along with increasing the aspect ratio of camera to make my games work with anything so I don't lose valuable screen area, seems like Gamesalad could have something like this built in.
Comments
Sounds great for the interim. Will the creator be able to deal with it? Meaning, referencing images. Droplists will show the filename plus the @Xx extension, text attributes probably just the name, etc?
MESSAGING, X-PLATFORM LEADERBOARDS, OFFLINE-TIMER, ANALYTICS and BACK-END CONTROL for your GameSalad projects
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@Socks>;
This is confusing enough and now it is getting funny.
I didn't say this, Hopscotch did!
Anyway, I think it's a good idea.
Sounds reasonable to me. So a standard RI project now without the @x would just use the maximum size already in the project?
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Does this also mean that if we don't enable the RI checkbox at publishing time, the GS Publishing server will just leave our images alone, that is, at the resolution we created them.
If that's the case then this proposal is fine with me.
I'll set my stage to be 1536 x 2048, make all my actors x4 as I do now, and only build for the iPads… and " f " the iPhone6s. >:)
(Oh, f=forget, haha!)
@AlchimiaStudios, the way I understood it,
if RI is checked and no @#x images are supplied then GS scales and creates the @#x images for you
if RI is checked and you supplied @#x images, then GS skips this step, but then we have to supply @#x versions for every image.
if RI is not checked, things stay as they are.
MESSAGING, X-PLATFORM LEADERBOARDS, OFFLINE-TIMER, ANALYTICS and BACK-END CONTROL for your GameSalad projects
www.APPFORMATIVE.com
Isn't Apple suppose to have another show in october and unveil a new iPad?
@BBEnk
Enough with the complications Apple. No more new resolutions… for a while. At least until we digest this lot.
I wouldn't mind a new Retina iMac though, with a 30 inch 4K monitor, hmmm!
I'll be so pissed if they introduce another resolution with the iPad Air/Mini 2.
www.appdore.com || appdore twitter || appdore facebook
Kudos to you all for trying to work this out. Brain numbing for me, I will wait until it is all resolved by my betters but thanks for your brain powers!
I think that is a great solution for now. Still trying to wrap my head around the Inge sizes for 3x. I currently design my artwork based on a 2048x1536 template against the iPad project type in gs. Are you saying we should tweak that to 2208x1536 then manually crop it to 2208x1242 for 3x and again to 2048x1536 for 2x?
norhing like thinking about resolutions to keep you awake during a 2am feeding session:)
Send and Receive Data using your own Server Tutorial! | Vote for A Long Way Home on Steam Greenlight! | Ten Years Left
. . . . .
Starting resolution = 2208
iPhone 6+ = fine.
iPad Retina = compromised image quality.
. . . . .
Starting resolution = 2048
iPhone 6 = compromised image quality.
iPad Retina = fine.
. . . . .
I'd say the second (2048) option is better as any compromise in image quality will be much less noticeable on the much smaller and much more pixel dense iPhone6+.
What is 'bed' ?
That's a great idea, especially for files that are converting poorly, it should of course be an option like you say, as a lot of new users might prefer all that stuff to be handled automatically.
Who has the bananas ?
Lol.
October the 14th, iPad Air 2, 1640 x 983 x 36.5 pixels.
October the 15th, suicide rates peak in Texas.
@Socks said:
We have no bananas today, hey!
Besides, it is only 20.55 (8.55pm for old timers) on Wednesday 24 Sept here in South Australia. We are way ahead of you by 14.5 hours ! We even know what you are going to say next, because we already passed it!
It is 06.25 in Texas… go to bed. No wonder you can't think straight!
I need you guys to sort this out. ASAP, please.
Edited: because of my bad time calculation math. Maybe it's been a long day here too.
Meh, might be waiting a while for an answer to see if the IDFA issue is fixed ****www.appreviewtimes.com****
Only been 2 days
A psychological acronym, "behaviour elicited distraction".
Get it? "Behaviour" ... GameSalad ... behaviours? Oh well.
MESSAGING, X-PLATFORM LEADERBOARDS, OFFLINE-TIMER, ANALYTICS and BACK-END CONTROL for your GameSalad projects
www.APPFORMATIVE.com
Many of us would likely continue to work with iPad retina (2x) based gfx for the time being (a part from all the drawbacks already discussed with the upcoming GS autoscaling there is also no requirement from Apple to use @3x images in our projects at this time, even for Iphone 6+). The RI checkbox in the creator would still serve a good purpose since it automatically sets the actor sizes to half the size of the imported images. Another advantage by having our 2x images (as currently is) in the project is that the gs viewer (on device) would use those retina images thus the RAM usage can be supervised without building an adhoc every time.
I suggest only doing the check for the existence of @2x images (more about that below). If no such files are found in our images folder (if we have not manually supplied them), and RI is enabled, then build the app as you want with your automatic process that creates @2x and @3x images.
Since there currently is no requirement from Apple for @3x images it would make sense if you would only perform checks for the existence of the @2x images. If there are no @3x images then build the app without them. If the user has provided @3x images then sure, build the app with them also included. The only current device that would use 3x images is the iPhone 6+ but if it does not find any @3x images it will use our @2x images instead. Yes, I am fully aware that some up scaling would be made from iPad Retina based graphics on iPhone6+ but my belief is that it would still look next to perfect on the smaller iPhone6+ screen. No need for bloating the app size by including @3x images at this time (let us have the choice to use the @3x assets or not - since Apple gives us that choise)
The situation may (or may not) change when Apple introduce new iPad models.
In practice however major changes like demanding developers to use a new set of retina assets (@3x in this case) for all apps is not something that happens overnight.
A little look at what happened previously;
iPad 3 ("The new iPad") with retina display was released on the 16th of March 2012.
It was not until the 1st of May 2013 that it became a requirement from Apple for developers to use retina graphics.
That would be no problem.
This is how I personally would suggest approaching that situation (as a user).
Use the current 2x assets (that at this time are not named with @2x suffix) in the project until the project is close to release. This will make it possible to test easily using 2x retina images on the device using the gs viewer (not requiring an adhoc every time - basically how it currently works)
Make a copy of the project and batch rename all images, adding the @2x suffix to the file names.
Scale down the same images for another set of the same images for non-retina devices (thus still making it possible to support iPad Mini and iPad 2 that only has 512 MB of RAM and would not be able to handle 2x retina images).
Optional / should not be a requirement: Add our own scaled @3x images.
>
Adding in our images@2x (and optional images@3x) to our projects "images" folder - no problem!
Very good, if taking the above into account
I'm still trying to wrap my head around these @3x graphic assets. I can't wait for my 6+ to arrive tomorrow so I can actually do some real world testing! I am having trouble envisioning how having a @3x graphic will squeeze into the ipad project. Will it be skewed?
If we were making an iPhone only project, no problem. But with the universal builds the graphics will be different ratios even with cropping.
Send and Receive Data using your own Server Tutorial! | Vote for A Long Way Home on Steam Greenlight! | Ten Years Left
The iPad will not use your 3x graphics. Only the iPhone 6 Plus will, no other device. So all devices but the iPhone 6 plus will ignore the 3x image files completely but you will see a MASSIVE file size increase for the project by including 3x files.
Right, but I'm using the iPad project as a starting point, so the background actor is 1024x768 (1.33 ratio) and uses the @2x graphics on an iPad/iPhone5. The image is just cropped a bit on each side.
Now when I load this up on an iPhone6+, it attempts to use the @3x graphics in that same actor, so it's trying to squeeze a 2208x1242 image (1.78 ratio) into a 2048x1536 space (1.33 ratio). The image's height is going to be scaled down to 2048 while the width will be scaled up to 1536. This is going to skew/stretch the image, and warp the graphic.
If you had an iPhone only project you'd be ok as the screen ratio is the same. but throw the iPad into the mix and we have a problem. I'm having trouble thinking how the current implementation of universal apps can cope with this new screen resolution.
@adent42, am I missing something?
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@johnmulcahy How are you handling the situation for iphone 5? It should be basically the same principle when doing universal build and including iphone 6 plus.
It's different with the iPhone5. That still uses the same image assets, the 2048x1536 image, it just scales down and crops the edges:
The iPhone6's @3x graphics are a different ratio than the ipad project's 2048x1536, so the images will get skewed. What will happen is the @3x image will be scale down like in the image below, but then stretched sideways to fix the actor.
Send and Receive Data using your own Server Tutorial! | Vote for A Long Way Home on Steam Greenlight! | Ten Years Left
@jonmulcahy I would actually build the game using overscan instead of stretch.
You start by building your game for iPad, but keeping in mind that important game play should be in a "safe" zone in the middle of the screen.
Then I'd build my UI so that if it's sitting in the corners of the screen, it will detect screen size and move the UI elements (via a Set Attribute action). So if the screen has a smaller apsect ratio than the Gameplay aspect ration, I'd adjust it's position accordingly.
So the image will never be stretched, it will just be cropped, but you design the game so that nothing important happens in the potentially cropped areas.
I'd use 2048 images (to keep in a lower power of 2 limit) and just be okay with the image stretching a bit on iPhone 6+
yea that's what I do now, but I'm concerned with the stretching on the 6+. I'll wait till I get my 6+ tomorrow and see how bad it is.
I suppose if we used the iPhone6+ as the project type it remove the stretching situation and crop from the top/bottom for the iPad projects. That might be the way to go.
Send and Receive Data using your own Server Tutorial! | Vote for A Long Way Home on Steam Greenlight! | Ten Years Left
So I haven't downloaded the Release Candidate 12.5 yet, do the tables work fine with this version now? Also has anyone published a app to Apple with this version yet? If so is your app live, and without issues?
Thanks
@adent42
I use stretch along with increasing the aspect ratio of camera to make my games work with anything so I don't lose valuable screen area, seems like Gamesalad could have something like this built in.
http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/72589/universal-builds-for-ios-and-android-and-anything-else-using-ipad-build-and-stretch-no-distortion#latest
@adent42 -- is there a chance that 0.12.6 will see the light of day - today?
I think is going to be the best compromise for image quality.