I am not sure I understand the issue. I use Fireworks for my graphics and I can just hit Resize image and the new image has the new resolution. Fireworks is a mix of vector based and bitmap graphics. This only happens with vector elements obviously.
ORBZ said: I don't use the resolution-independence checkbox.
I don't use resolution-independence either. I simply quadruple the size of my images. If I have a 64x64 actor, I make a 128x128 image. It's less fuss. Arcade Action uses this method. Since the graphics were designed to be light, it wasn't an issue.
For Bumps, it would be an issue, as performance is a concern. Large background images hinder your game's performance. For a 320x480 screen, it's bumped up to 512x512. That's a large image.
In addition to performance, tiling might be an issue. You can't specify the size of your tiles, so I'm not sure if it will work properly on a retina display. If you don't use tiles, it should be OK.
Also, I'm concerned about what I read about indexed PNG files. Is there no performance saving with PNG-8 instead of PNG-24? That doesn't seem accurate to me. I think I'll have to test that.
Photics said: Also, I'm concerned about what I read about indexed PNG files. Is there no performance saving with PNG-8 instead of PNG-24? That doesn't seem accurate to me. I think I'll have to test that.
Wow, I'm shocked. There seems to be no difference in performance between PNG-24 or PNG-8. That's awful. I made a PNG-8 image that was 86 KB, compared to 831 KB of the larger PNG-24 image. It looks like I'll be going back and bumping up the quality of my artwork for my next game. If I'm not getting a performance increase, I might as well make it look better.
RandomTurkeys said: I always use GIF files in mine, considering it has the feature of transparent backgrounds, and the quality is good enough for my purposes
As mentioned in my book. Regardless if you pick GIF, TIFF, JPEG or other formats, GameSalad is going to convert it to PNG. Combine that information with the test mentioned above, you're basically throwing away quality by using GIF instead of PNG-24. A GIF (pronounced like the peanut butter) is limited to 256 colors.
So i import the new 64x64 image... and move the image in the actor and this is all we need to do for iPhone 4 retina?
Also i noticed Itunes has iOS4 games section how do we go about getting featured on there and how does apple know are apps have retina support?
I see no option in itunes connect for iPhone 4 unless i missed something.
And if we make the same game for iPhone/iPhone4 and iPad users have to buy twice? i'm seeing some universal apps buy once use on all devices, this should be made possible with GS?
utopiangames said: So i import the new 64x64 image... and move the image in the actor and this is all we need to do for iPhone 4 retina?
As mentioned above, I don't recommend that for Bumps. You'll probably want to enable resolution independence, or the larger images will cause problems for older devices - like poor performance and/or more crashing.
And if we make the same game for iPhone/iPhone4 and iPad users have to buy twice? i'm seeing some universal apps buy once use on all devices, this should be made possible with GS?
For Bumps, with higher resolution images, it should look great on the iPad - except for the ratio issue. The iPad is 4:3, but the iPhone is not.
I think universal apps are possible with GameSalad. By messing with the camera size, you can zoom the scene. You can also place buttons on the screen based on percentage location (using math) which makes the layout scalable.
The problem is with the touch points. If I put an iPad game on an iPod Touch, it can't handle it. Maybe Gendai Games can fix this, so we don't have to be so fussy about picking the right platform. Yet, then you miss out on additional sales. I think universal apps are overrated. I think you should make a different version of Bumps for the iPad. Make it special for that platform. Why not give people a reason to buy the game twice?
Microsoft didn't seem to mind when I bought Halo for the XBOX and again for the PC. Even though the game is almost identical, I don't really mind either. It was a good game.
utopiangames said: So apple know if its retina support (I'm looking at the iOS4 section on itunes).
I looked at the iOS4 section. I think there's more than just 74 apps with iOS4 support. I think that's just another featured section... games they picked that show off the new operating system.
Although, that question reminds me of an issue. Is "Resolution Independence" an iOS4 feature? If so... YOU SHOULD NOT USE IT ...because if you do, you'll anger players when they update and can no longer play. Not all of the iPhone / iPod Touch devices have or support iOS4.
Here's my suggestion for Bumps. I mentioned it before...
1) Work on the iPad. Make something special for them. Give them a reason to buy the game twice. You need to do this or Apple may reject your app anyway. The iPad version can't simply be a bigger iPhone version or they might not approve it.
2) When Gendai Games improves the performance of the engine, revisit your app and see what you can add. If you get better performance, maybe you can simply quadruple your image sizes, like I did with my game. That should make iPhone 4 users happy, without angering your base.
I'm still thinking that you might have missed some optimization tricks. Since your game doesn't scroll, are you slicing the backgrounds to reduce image and memory requirements?
As mentioned in My Book, There is a huge difference in a 513x513 image and a 512x512 image. If your backgrounds are 320x480, you're essentially creating a 512x512 image.
DPI in a raster image has no impact on the layout or number of pixels, except when printing. For example, if you have an image that is 300 x 300 pixels, and its DPI is set to 300, all it means is when printed the image will show up as 1 inch square. If you changed the DPI to 150, the image would still only have 300 x 300 pixels, but it would take up 2 inches when printed. In both cases, when the image is displayed on a ANY monitor, it will always take up the same space since monitors use pixels (unless its being scaled to do a print preview).
Basically he can set the DPI to 10,000 and it will do nothing except when he prints it! hehe
Photics said: 2) When Gendai Games improves the performance of the engine, revisit your app and see what you can add. If you get better performance, maybe you can simply quadruple your image sizes, like I did with my game. That should make iPhone 4 users happy, without angering your base.
I would definitely not do this. If you just loaded it all up with high res art (even with a performance update from Gendai, it will be displaying high res on the old devices and they have nowhere near the capability to handle all that ram usage, theres no way it will run it) I'd stick with Resolution Independence.
TymeMaster said: DPI in a raster image has no impact on the layout or number of pixels, except when printing. For example, if you have an image that is 300 x 300 pixels, and its DPI is set to 300, all it means is when printed the image will show up as 1 inch square. If you changed the DPI to 150, the image would still only have 300 x 300 pixels, but it would take up 2 inches when printed. In both cases, when the image is displayed on a ANY monitor, it will always take up the same space since monitors use pixels (unless its being scaled to do a print preview).
Basically he can set the DPI to 10,000 and it will do nothing except when he prints it! hehe
something I pointed out long ago....but GS likes its images set at 72 when really it shouldn't pay any attention to dpi, I have always considered it a bug.
chosenonestudios said: I would definitely not do this.
If resolution independence works, that's good. If not, I think larger images could work. That way, the zoom feature would look a lot better on the older hardware, instead of blurry backgrounds. All players would get some form of increased resolution.
Yodapollo said: In addition to Pause, we’re working on an entirely refactored scenegraph, as well as newly-optimized sound and asset managers. What this means to you, and more importantly to the people playing your games, is a dramatic improvement in performance. We’re talking better frame rates, better memory management, fewer crashes, fewer slowdowns. It’s big box of better.
It seems like Bumps could be optimized with slices, improved engine performance and perhaps some other GameSalad tricks.
If my 8 GB iPod Touch can play 3D games, it should be able to handle Bumps at higher resolution.
Photics said: If resolution independence works, that's good. If not, I think larger images could work. That way, the zoom feature would look a lot better on the older hardware, instead of blurry backgrounds. All players would get some form of increased resolution.
It seems like Bumps could be optimized with slices, improved engine performance and perhaps some other GameSalad tricks.
If my 8 GB iPod Touch can play 3D games, it should be able to handle Bumps at higher resolution.
Your way would work, except that the only thing the old hardware would be doing is loading the massive images into the RAM, after you've done that you'd have no RAM left for the game.
Your ipod can handle 3D at 320x480, but not 960x640. Also your 3D game isn't built in a bloated engine like GS. The only thing your doing is eating you memory, for no real dramatic effect, except you will save some space, and the zoom will look better. I guarantee Bumps cannot be built using 960x640 res and still run on 2nd Gen hardware.
Darren, you thought you were having problems running bumps on old hardware before? Wait till you put high res assets in and see it crash.
Also Resolution Independence does work. Its really bloated though because all the images that come out are 24bit PNG's and you need to make sure everything is a power of 4.
chosenonestudios said: Also your 3D game isn't built in a bloated engine like GS.
That's the point. If they optimize the engine, then a 960x640 image shouldn't kill it. And actually, it should be two images. 1024x128 and 1024x512. Right now it's probably a 320x480 image, which is basically a 512x512 image. With a slight boost in power and slicing, the graphics can be improved for all users.
Photics said: Well, that's why I posted. You might be going through unnecessary torment, unless the larger images are crippling performance on older hardware.
I used larger graphics (for a 640x960 screen) and I tested on a slow iPod Touch. The graphics looked great, even though they weren't optimized. I think it's better to let the device do the scaling, as I'm not sure what Gendai Games is doing.
Aside from the larger graphics, my game is ridiculously optimized though. If I tried to pull this stunt with some of my older games, I'm thinking it might crash.
synthesis said: The problem is...on a 3G or iPod 2G...you have 40 MB of Ram to work with. If you fill that up with high-res graphics...there isn't anything left to run a game in.
You can't use 4 times the graphics load in an old device. Its hard enough making it work with 40MB of RAM...so if your image load quadruples on a 3G...its game over before you even get out of the level selector.
Right now...the resolution independence doesn't work... You are either forced to publish to either 4G or 3G...not both.
And this doesn't take into account that our app download file is 3 times bigger than it should be...which means it will be virtually impossible to build a game that cannot be downloaded outside of a Wi-Fi or through iTunes on a PC...since it will be hard as hell to stay under the 20MB quota for wireless downloads.
chosenonestudios said: This was already posted and this proves why that wont work.
It won't work now, not for Bumps, but if Gendai Games cleans up GameSalad - with better performance and memory management - I think it could be possible.
Photics said: It won't work now, but if Gendai Games cleans up GameSalad - with better performance and memory management - I think it could be possible.
I disagree, the GS GE only uses 15 mgb, even if it used less than a mgb, (which is nigh impossible) it would still be impossible to run Bumps on Second Gen hardware with high res assets, as it barely runs now. I see how it could be used in some instances, I.E. your arcade game, but games that are pushing the limit right now cant use this tactic.
chosenonestudios said: I disagree, the GS GE only uses 15 mgb, even if it used less than a mgb, (which is nigh impossible) it would still be impossible to run Bumps on Second Gen hardware with high res assets, as it barely runs now. I see how it could be used in some instances, I.E. your arcade game, but games that are pushing the limit right now cant use this tactic.
Look at the facts...
-- GameSalad doesn't manage memory properly, as it doesn't always release the memory. For example, delete an actor, does the memory usage drop?
-- I don't think Bumps is using splicing. If the background is already treated as a 512x512, it's not that far of a jump to replace it with two images, one 1024x512 image and one 1024x128. That's roughly 1 meg.
-- GameSalad performance can be improved. If an update improves the performance, the game should run better on older hardware.
Also, I think the problem could be resolved artistically. With Arcade Action, I used particles instead of a large background. There are 100-200 particles in the scene and I still get good frame rates. That idea might not work for Bumps, but if the game is designed with Background optimization in mind, then performance could be improved. That's why I think a sequel in the future is a better idea. I think it makes sense to wait and see if Gendai Games can catch up.
I use 128x128 (or other powers of 2) because that's what's best optimized for the iPhone.
You can have many instances of the same image on screen at once and they don't consume a lot of memory. What consumes a lot of memory and CPU is the "movable" checkbox under physics. Turn that off on objects that don't need to move and everything is much faster.
Well i will do the extreme levels 1.2 and then move onto iPad and i hope have no problems with people not being able to play.
Makes you wonder how high we could of gone if we had lower 1/5 from people having trouble but we will be back bigger and better as GS improves performance.
Comments
For Bumps, it would be an issue, as performance is a concern. Large background images hinder your game's performance. For a 320x480 screen, it's bumped up to 512x512. That's a large image.
In addition to performance, tiling might be an issue. You can't specify the size of your tiles, so I'm not sure if it will work properly on a retina display. If you don't use tiles, it should be OK.
Also, I'm concerned about what I read about indexed PNG files. Is there no performance saving with PNG-8 instead of PNG-24? That doesn't seem accurate to me. I think I'll have to test that.
I have an actor 32x32.
So i import the new 64x64 image... and move the image in the actor and this is all we need to do for iPhone 4 retina?
Also i noticed Itunes has iOS4 games section how do we go about getting featured on there and how does apple know are apps have retina support?
I see no option in itunes connect for iPhone 4 unless i missed something.
And if we make the same game for iPhone/iPhone4 and iPad users have to buy twice? i'm seeing some universal apps buy once use on all devices, this should be made possible with GS?
Darren.
I think universal apps are possible with GameSalad. By messing with the camera size, you can zoom the scene. You can also place buttons on the screen based on percentage location (using math) which makes the layout scalable.
The problem is with the touch points. If I put an iPad game on an iPod Touch, it can't handle it. Maybe Gendai Games can fix this, so we don't have to be so fussy about picking the right platform. Yet, then you miss out on additional sales. I think universal apps are overrated. I think you should make a different version of Bumps for the iPad. Make it special for that platform. Why not give people a reason to buy the game twice?
Microsoft didn't seem to mind when I bought Halo for the XBOX and again for the PC. Even though the game is almost identical, I don't really mind either. It was a good game.
So apple know if its retina support (I'm looking at the iOS4 section on itunes).
Darren.
Although, that question reminds me of an issue. Is "Resolution Independence" an iOS4 feature? If so... YOU SHOULD NOT USE IT ...because if you do, you'll anger players when they update and can no longer play. Not all of the iPhone / iPod Touch devices have or support iOS4.
Here's my suggestion for Bumps. I mentioned it before...
1) Work on the iPad. Make something special for them. Give them a reason to buy the game twice. You need to do this or Apple may reject your app anyway. The iPad version can't simply be a bigger iPhone version or they might not approve it.
2) When Gendai Games improves the performance of the engine, revisit your app and see what you can add. If you get better performance, maybe you can simply quadruple your image sizes, like I did with my game. That should make iPhone 4 users happy, without angering your base.
I'm still thinking that you might have missed some optimization tricks. Since your game doesn't scroll, are you slicing the backgrounds to reduce image and memory requirements?
As mentioned in My Book, There is a huge difference in a 513x513 image and a 512x512 image. If your backgrounds are 320x480, you're essentially creating a 512x512 image.
No the biggest image we have is 480x320 and we do use scroll (camera pan) at the intro and tutorial.
Yes looking at an iPad now on ebay, sold out in all my local shops.
Let ya know when i get one.
Thanks for all your help.
Darren.
Basically he can set the DPI to 10,000 and it will do nothing except when he prints it! hehe
If my 8 GB iPod Touch can play 3D games, it should be able to handle Bumps at higher resolution.
Your ipod can handle 3D at 320x480, but not 960x640. Also your 3D game isn't built in a bloated engine like GS. The only thing your doing is eating you memory, for no real dramatic effect, except you will save some space, and the zoom will look better. I guarantee Bumps cannot be built using 960x640 res and still run on 2nd Gen hardware.
Darren, you thought you were having problems running bumps on old hardware before? Wait till you put high res assets in and see it crash.
Also Resolution Independence does work. Its really bloated though because all the images that come out are 24bit PNG's and you need to make sure everything is a power of 4.
-- GameSalad doesn't manage memory properly, as it doesn't always release the memory. For example, delete an actor, does the memory usage drop?
-- I don't think Bumps is using splicing. If the background is already treated as a 512x512, it's not that far of a jump to replace it with two images, one 1024x512 image and one 1024x128. That's roughly 1 meg.
-- GameSalad performance can be improved. If an update improves the performance, the game should run better on older hardware.
Also, I think the problem could be resolved artistically. With Arcade Action, I used particles instead of a large background. There are 100-200 particles in the scene and I still get good frame rates. That idea might not work for Bumps, but if the game is designed with Background optimization in mind, then performance could be improved. That's why I think a sequel in the future is a better idea. I think it makes sense to wait and see if Gendai Games can catch up.
I use 128x128 (or other powers of 2) because that's what's best optimized for the iPhone.
You can have many instances of the same image on screen at once and they don't consume a lot of memory. What consumes a lot of memory and CPU is the "movable" checkbox under physics. Turn that off on objects that don't need to move and everything is much faster.
Well i will do the extreme levels 1.2 and then move onto iPad and i hope have no problems with people not being able to play.
Makes you wonder how high we could of gone if we had lower 1/5 from people having trouble but we will be back bigger and better as GS improves performance.
Darren.