General questions about graphics and sprites
Cap
Member Posts: 225
Hello,
I have some general questions about graphics, sprites and GameSalad...
a, What program do you use for graphics and sprites (Illustrator, PS, Pixen, Seashore, Acorn, GraphicConverter, etc.), and do you use vector or bitmap?
b, What minimum size do you generally create your graphics or sprites before you scale down (with iPhone & iPad in mind)?
c, speaking of a platformer, how many sprites would you use for the animation, e.g. walking left. 8, 15, 30? Which tool to animate sprites?
d, Which format is the best one with GameSalad in mind? PNG?
e, How much can you shrink the size of your graphics, and what tool to use for this?
f, Instead of drawing sprites: 8 or 9 years ago I used to create meshes with Meshwork and created sprites out of them using PovRay. Does someone here still do something like this? Which tool to use nowadays?
Sorry if I cover questions that were asked before. I searched the forums, but the answers weren't always clear to me.
Thanks for help!
I have some general questions about graphics, sprites and GameSalad...
a, What program do you use for graphics and sprites (Illustrator, PS, Pixen, Seashore, Acorn, GraphicConverter, etc.), and do you use vector or bitmap?
b, What minimum size do you generally create your graphics or sprites before you scale down (with iPhone & iPad in mind)?
c, speaking of a platformer, how many sprites would you use for the animation, e.g. walking left. 8, 15, 30? Which tool to animate sprites?
d, Which format is the best one with GameSalad in mind? PNG?
e, How much can you shrink the size of your graphics, and what tool to use for this?
f, Instead of drawing sprites: 8 or 9 years ago I used to create meshes with Meshwork and created sprites out of them using PovRay. Does someone here still do something like this? Which tool to use nowadays?
Sorry if I cover questions that were asked before. I searched the forums, but the answers weren't always clear to me.
Thanks for help!
Comments
d) Your files need to be PNG.
e) Photoshop
All of your graphics need to be saved as .png files. If your graphic does not have any transparency, you should try to use PNG-8, which will discard the transparency info and make a smaller file. If the graphic does need transparency, save it as PNG-24.
All files need to be saved at 72 dpi. Which is the default. PNG removes any dpi data anyway, just make sure that when you are creating the graphics, that your original graphic is set to 72dpi.
The iPhone/Touch/iPad have tighter pixel densities than your monitor or laptop screen. So things will appear smaller and sharper on the device itself.
Because of that, be aware that things the player will interact with need to be slightly bigger. Plus the player is using their finger instead of a precise mouse cursor. A 32x32 pixel icon is fine for your computer monitor, but it will be too tiny on an iPhone. As a rule of thumb, I try to make anything that the player has to click on be at least 50x50 pixels.
That goes for fonts as well. Be aware that they will appear even smaller on a device.
e. your eyes should tell you when you have got it wrong, but avoid more than one sizing operation and make sure you keep copies of any original source files untouched.
don't forget png is a lossy format so repetitive saving to/or modification of the same png file will loose quality.
b. allot to do with personal preference but for a 57x57 icon I would probably start anywhere between 300 and 600square depending on content.
f. used to be 3D Studio but these days could be Cheetah, Maya, Bonzai...nothing to stop you still using povray, I did my first 3d with it eons ago...the results can be stunning