Best Universal Build technique?
GreenfroggGames
Member Posts: 224
Just want to know which UB you think is the easiest/best to work with?
GreenfroggGames
Member Posts: 224
Just want to know which UB you think is the easiest/best to work with?
Comments
I use iPad as a building base with overscan.
For actors that need to be repositioned, i use this method @Lovejoy posted a long time ago.
forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/86157/my-universal-binary-overscan-secret-weapon/p1
It´s only one change attribute behaviour, and there´s no need to unlock any actors. Very simple.
Mental Donkey Games
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@MentalDonkeyGames But doesn't this method squeeze the actors together on smaller devices?
I´m not sure what you mean. I only use the code in UI actors (like health bars, menu/pause buttons, on screen controls etc...). So for example, if i put a health bar on the top of the screen with the repositioning code in it, it will always be on the top of the screen, no matter what device the game is played on.
When building your game, you need to consider how much will be cropped off when using overscan. For example: if i use the iPad setting, and i´m building a level in a platformer game, i don´t put anything important (like platforms, coins etc...) at the very bottom or top of the scene, because it will be cropped off when played on a widescreen device. The only exception is the UI elements, that will have the repositioning code, so they will be repositioned correctly on all devices.
Hope that made sense
Mental Donkey Games
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@MentalDonkeyGames I understand, just a bit annoying to lose all that space
Instead Just think of it as your gaining space on iPads
, most games are played on iPhones though you know!
@jay2dx good point sir
This happens on all devices. You are not losing space as that space doesn't exist on an iPhone. It's called aspect ratio. An iPad is like an old type tv 4:3 and an iPhone is a wide screen 16:9.
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My only issue with doing it for iPad is this optimizing your graphics to look best on an iPad when iPhones are going to be the far more used device. The iPad doesn't just have a different aspect ratio, it has a different resolution. This may be fine for most games, but pixel art games you are going to notice the distortion a little more of an iPad resolution being shrunk down to an iPhone.
I personally choose the device resolution that I think will be most used for my game and therefore want it to look the best on. So I pick the iPhone 6 screen size. Then I use overscan for iPad and detect when and iPad is being used then manually change the camera size so that it gets the entire width of view that the iPhone has and shows extra on the top and bottom. I just have to be smart when designing levels and menus to know that the iPad is going to show more above and below.
Overall I would rather have my graphics scale up when being used on the iPad (the less used device) and look exactly like I want them to on an iPhone, than be look perfect on the iPad and always be scaled down on an iPhone.
www.rossmanbrosgames.com
Agreed, since I think iphone is the biggest market that's how I had started. @GreenfroggGames as an alternative you can also do stretch and use device size detection to change the height of all characters if an ipad is being used (height x 0.74) so that nothing actually looks stretched.
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I started my project iphone 5 and i was going to release it universally stretched and i didnt know what to do with the graphics being stretched . But lucky for me i found bbenk method in the last day before publishing it worked really great and it was easy to implement. I will use the same method on my next game cause i cant do any level designing with the ipad resolution . The screen is just too big. Its as supafly mentioned i think
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@RossmanBrothersGames What do you do about android devices?
@supafly129 that's a good advice, thanks!
@Icebox I will check this out, thanks!
With how many different android devices there are I think stretch works best. The majority of phones and small tablets are going to be 16:9 anyway.
It does depend on the game though. If you had a game with a rotating camera or something stretch would not be good if it was play on a device with a significantly different aspect ratio.
For my game Jump Jack I used stretch and detected when the aspect ratio was 4:3 and not 16:9. Then I would have the game squish down the onscreen buttons so when they stretch out they still looked like circles and not ovals.
Technically with some good math a game could always use overscan and detect the exact aspect ratio and move on screen buttons and stuff accordingly. You would need to still make your menus and levels workable for changing ratios.
www.rossmanbrosgames.com