Need clarification on Resolution Independence
iPhoneDevForMe
Member Posts: 362
So after playing around with this for a little bit, I am a little confused as to exactly what will be happening here.
So lets make this simple and if anyone can confirm this is correct, that would be great!
1. I create a background image that is 960 x 640.
2. Add this image to my GS project.
3. Create new actor, and add image to actor.
4. Change size of actor to 480 x 320
5. It just works that way?
The video and wiki say that all of your actor's will be working in a 960 x 640 space, so should I be mapping out my actors in 960x640 space? For example if I want something to spawn in the dead center of the screen, am I spawning it at 240x160 or 480x320? If I did this, my games will look like they do in the video, where the "screen view" is in the bottom left corner, but all of my graphics are double the size?
Also, with these new Hi-Res features, should I be making my graphics at 8 bit? 326 ppi?
Any info will be great! Thanks in advance!
-Kyle
So lets make this simple and if anyone can confirm this is correct, that would be great!
1. I create a background image that is 960 x 640.
2. Add this image to my GS project.
3. Create new actor, and add image to actor.
4. Change size of actor to 480 x 320
5. It just works that way?
The video and wiki say that all of your actor's will be working in a 960 x 640 space, so should I be mapping out my actors in 960x640 space? For example if I want something to spawn in the dead center of the screen, am I spawning it at 240x160 or 480x320? If I did this, my games will look like they do in the video, where the "screen view" is in the bottom left corner, but all of my graphics are double the size?
Also, with these new Hi-Res features, should I be making my graphics at 8 bit? 326 ppi?
Any info will be great! Thanks in advance!
-Kyle
Comments
http://gamesalad.com/forums/topic.php?id=8390
I'm not sure it exactly answers your questions, but it may give you pause about doing 4G resolution right now.
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And just to confirm, that is 8-bit for each channel, not the entire image. 16 million colors per image.
Haha, maybe im just asking for too much!
Any one else have input from experience?
-Kyle
I was also having trouble getting sharp graphics on the 3G and the iPod 2G. I found that 2 things will cause this.
1) if you images aren't a multiple of 4...then you risk that the image will land on a split pixel. If using resolution independence...you must think in a scale of 4 when creating your art but still layout in a scale of 2 in GS. So in short...art creation should center around the 4G and layout and gameplay should focus on the 3G.
2) I have found that some 8 bit graphic originals resolve blurry regardless of what you do to it in GS. This tends to happen with small images containing small text. The solution I have found is to use 24 bit graphic exports from Photoshop if you have a problem with a specific graphic.
I think the resolution independence works well as far as I can tell. but there are 2 downsides right now.
1) The file size of the smaller images for the 3G and the iPod 2G are actually larger in file size than the originals for the 4G even though they should be much smaller. it appears that GS's png crusher is not very efficient.
2) The app bundle size is ENORMOUS. All those bloated graphics appear to wreak havoc on your file size...which can mean...if you have a fairly complex game...the download size for the app could be an issue.
The thread linked above goes into all this in more detail.
Hope this helps.
My advice is plan your art for the 4G. Then if the game is done and you aren't happy with the current state of GS and RI...then copy the art folder of your game project and spend a couple of hours downsizing everything in half...then re-import the graphics and publish without RI. This way you can always scale up in the future fairly easily if RI bundling improves.
Thanks for the info! That helps quite a bit!
The only question I have left is:
1. Basically I'm just adding graphics that are twice the size of each actor they will be placed on? So I would create a building that is 200x200 and make the graphic 400x400 or would both the actor and the graphic have to be 400x400 to get a building in hi res that is 200x200?
This might seem like a dumb question but I got confused when the wiki said the actors will be moving around in a 960x640 space, so I'm just making sure that it doesn't mean I will be creating an oversized game on GS that will automatically scale down to the screen size when played on the actual device.
Thanks a lot for responding!
- Kyle
Plan all your graphics on how you want it to look at 960x640
Then layout and design your game as you have in the past...around 480x320. Just make sure that your graphics are a multiple of 4 so when they scale down to 480x320...they will be a multiple of 2.
All you are doing is adding resolution to support the 4G...but the 4G gameplay grid will be scaled up from the 3G as a multiple of 2.
Make sense?
The graphics are scaling down to 3G and the gameplay is scaling up to 4G.
You have to make graphics in multiples of 4? That's nuts.
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Makes perfect sense!! Thanks alot!
Yes.
@ design...
Use 72 dpi. Just work around a new resolution (same ratio). The only reason you have to work in multiples of 4 is so that when it is half the size for display on the 3G devices...its a multiple of 2 (which should be how you work right now).