Gamesalad not displaying a smooth gradient fill image (ie. for sky background)?

ParkGames

Require a smooth sky background for my game. My current sky image is an 8 bit png with aprox 163 colours at 960x640 @72 dpi with a smooth gradient fill from the top (light blue) to bottom of screen (white). This image displays perfectly smooth in the creator and on ipod touch when through the Photos App, but once run in game on the ipod, the smooth gradient fill displays as a horizontal banding stripes.

I have tried various bit depths & colour counts but all result in the same output. Looking at the import .png within my Gamesalad project file shows the image perfectly yet, in game it seems to show less colours.

Does Gamesalad not support the full range of colour?

Rob2

You need to force 32 bit rendering by including alpha/transparency. The easiest way is just to knock a little whole in your image somewhere (add a window strip !) or make a pixel have a bit of transparency!! It sounds crazy but is currently the only way without completely altering the look of your gradient.

jonmulcahy

Also, it's a iOS issue, not just GS. All sdks have the problem.

ParkGames

You need to force 32 bit rendering by including alpha/transparency. The easiest way is just to knock a little whole in your image somewhere (add a window strip !) or make a pixel have a bit of transparency!! It sounds crazy but is currently the only way without completely altering the look of your gradient.

Works perfectly! Crazy workaround but effective. Thanks Rob2.

ParkGames

Also, it's a iOS issue, not just GS. All sdks have the problem.

Maybe GS could introduce a check box for an actor, eg. "32bit Color Render"?

Rob2

@ParkGames - Absolutely, there are many trivial items/bugs like that that need sorting.

Other SDKs sorted the problem many moons ago.

ParkGames

Agree, the most common bug I have at the moment is when selecting/deselecting the Actor Visible check box will cause GS to completely crash, this also happens after about 1 hour of use when it seems GS just gets full and stops.

Also why no custom shape collision detection?

GS is still a great program and allows you create games very quickly.

BlackSheepTeam

Hello, I've the same issue on a gradient image, but we create PNG in Illustrator, how car export with smooth gradient? I see the problem is the GS processing, one PNG with smooth gradient on video is perfect on iPad on iPhone if I put inside like a normal Image, but if I put inside a GS project and than export the IMG is like a 256 Colors 16Bit is amazing! is like a Sega Megadrive! so any body have a idea? THX

Socks

Hello, I've the same issue on a gradient image, but we create PNG in Illustrator, how car export with smooth gradient? I see the problem is the GS processing, one PNG with smooth gradient on video is perfect on iPad on iPhone if I put inside like a normal Image, but if I put inside a GS project and than export the IMG is like a 256 Colors 16Bit is amazing! is like a Sega Megadrive! so any body have a idea? THX

Rob2 answered your question above, you need to force GS to read the file as 32bit (24bit + alpha).

All you need to do is make 1 pixel, anywhere on your gradient, at least partially transparent, so that could be a single pixel in the corner of your image being 5% transparent, impossible to detect by eye, but enough to force GS to read the file as 32bit - and for your gradient to appear smooth on iOS/iPad/iPhone.

BlackSheepTeam

Rob2 answered your question above, you need to force GS to read the file as 32bit (24bit + alpha).

All you need to do is make 1 pixel, anywhere on your gradient, at least partially transparent, so that could be a single pixel in the corner of your image being 5% transparent, impossible to detect by eye, but enough to force GS to read the file as 32bit - and for your gradient to appear smooth on iOS/iPad/iPhone.

Sorry, but i have difficult to understand this passage, now i try to do one PX 5% trasparent in oder LV on my Ai project, after exporting a PNG-24 with trasparent and interlaced, after mounth on GS pj have the same problem, where i do wrong?

BlackSheepTeam

OOOOOOOH YEAH!!! for all is more simple to a create over Layer 1x1px with alpha at 5% create all you want on illustrator and in the end select all and do alpha at 99% is only one point less is invisible but not for GSCreator every gradient result very very smooth!! MUAHAHAHAH MUAHAHAHA Thx for all