How do I Background Gradient Without Giant Sprites

Hi!

I want to do some effects on the background of my platform games... like, I don't want just to put a solid color.

I would like a gradient like this:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/191829622/22.jpg

But how can I achieve something like this, parallaxing at the background, without some huge, performance eaters, sprites?

Stretching a sprite works well with linear sampling.

What newt said above works well. In my game I use tiny sprites that are just 1x2-3 pixels in size and yet the gradient comes out very smooth.

An alternative would be drawing it with the Canvas plugin by R0j0hound.

Thanks for the Answers, newt and — !

I will try the stretch! For some reason, it didn't cross my mind. hehe

But, sorry, what about this Canvas Plugin? what exactly is its use?

And here it go another question... maybe Ashley can answer me that...

this stretch method will really give better performance to my game or just make the download faster? (I think a read an Ashley topic about that...)

So... if it just make the download faster, how can I achieve the results I want without impact that much the performance?

Using a stretched sprite should perform fine. If you're not sure, measure it.