jobel's Forum Posts

  • well if you like it why give up? That's like the most important thing I think about producing a game as an indie.. make something you like.. at least that's where it starts.

    I'd keep it super simple if you can. Especially where you are learning, everything is going to take way longer because you first have to learn the skills.. I've been in the same boat.

    I played your game.. but couldn't get by the spinning platform... so far there's really not much to it other than your standard "platformer" unless it was something I didn't see. You really have to think.. what makes "my" game different (than you average platformer). The difference can be tiny, which I think it needs to have some sort of identity...

    good luck

  • nice, pretty clever concept. Somehow the minimap should be more prominent since that is how you look ahead to future moves...

    this could easily be developed into a really cool mobile game.

    also add launch sfx variations.. the same sound over and over is not good.. even just a small variation on the sound would work wonders.

    good luck

  • looks great! I love this type of pixel art - the kind that has more shading. what is the resolution if you don't mind me asking?

  • looks great.. hope you can overcome any performance issues! good luck!

  • Ashley so if fillrate is the ultimate decider.. then do you get any benefit from using the same object over and over? (besides memory)

    i.e. a single 800x800 blue square vs. 10 duplicates of a single 80x80 square (snapped together to make it look like one big sqaure)

    I ran a test although I can't tell if it's the same performance or if I'm not looking at the correct info..

  • There are two sides to the GPU performance:

    1) reading from the source textures. Larger images involve more data to read so can be slower.

    2) writing pixels to the screen. A higher resolution involves writing more pixels. The rate the GPU can write pixels at is called the fillrate.

    Usually from what I've seen the bottleneck is 2). As in, the size of your source artwork doesn't matter that much, it's mostly about how much content is drawn. If you have a large source image and render it to a small, low-resolution display, you don't use much fillrate, because there weren't so many pixels written to, even if the source image is large. On the other hand, even a small source image drawn at a large size on a high-resolution display will use a lot of fillrate, since it has to fill a lot of pixels. So generally I focus on the fillrate side of performance.

    Look up mipmaps on wikipedia to learn more about them, but they also help make 1) less of a performance issue. The GPU stores images at 1/2 size, 1/4 size, 1/8 size etc. down to a single pixel with high-quality resizing. If you render a large source image at half the size, it will render from the 1/2 size source image that it automatically generated, which means there's even less concern about the size of the source image. The main reason to reduce the size of your source images is basically to reduce the overall memory usage.

    If you have any performance questions involving specific cases, it's best to measure them yourself.

    thanks ashley, that helps me understand better... so basically: stay away from large images as much as you can. And my challenge is to fill up my game's background smartly as possible. I read some of your other blog posts where you reference Rayman Legends' art etc... I guess I thought I was already being conservative...good to know.

  • The Scroll effect doesn't work on export. Only tested on NW.js...The image moves but does not repeat.

    edit: aaaand it looks like Somebody has jumped ship. Awesome.

    yikes.. yeah it always makes me nervous to use non-scirra plugins/effects..

  • nice!

  • sir LoLz

    eli0s

    cool work! I like it.. although I'm more interested in the glow onto other objects.. I like that best.. I agree with newt I think it's an overused effect in film especially..haha.. like JJ Abrams and his Lens Flare Trek

  • The main thing is that you don't end up with anything blurry on at least the majority of devices. Perhaps you can make a backup of the project and do some tests or experiments and see what is possible without ruining your main game.

    right, I'm just wondering if that gives you any benefit at all to upscale an image opposed to already having a large image in C2.. maybe not. And yes you'd have to make sure that no sprites were actually blurry at the highest resolution - that goes without saying.

    yeah I'm going to have to run some tests.. but I have no time for that right now.. way too many other things on my plate! but I will post it here when I find the answers...

    When Ashley said:

    If the resolution is less than half the design resolution, all your artwork will step down to the next mipmap level, and render from smaller automatically-generated high-quality renders of your source artwork too, helping save memory bandwidth.

    I assume this is part of the answer I am looking for... except I don't really understand it. Does memory bandwidth relate to draw calls? will this improve the lag-like effect I get when my player goes in front of one of these large background images on a laptop with an integrated HD4000 gpu? because what I am seeing on those laptops is not jank, I'm well versed at identifying jank. It's a graphics thing, I can see it drawing the screen and lagging behind.

  • megatronx not sure I understand.. but if I make a 800x800 nebula image, remove alpha channel and scale it down to 100x100 in PhotoShop, then in C2 resize it in the Layout View to 800x800 will that make any difference in memory usage/draw calls? or is that just making a giant fuzzy image at the same processing expense?

  • If the resolution is less than half the design resolution, all your artwork will step down to the next mipmap level, and render from smaller automatically-generated high-quality renders of your source artwork too, helping save memory bandwidth.

    Thanks! good to know..

    If in my game I have 4-5 background images that are 800x800 (with lots of transparency) and I make about 10-15 of each to spread around the layout (unbound). These draw calls (when the player is in front of them) are going to be way more taxing than say 50x50 of the same artwork correct? My question is how much? enough to warrant a resolution change?

    I know at my current resolution I can probably make my background art smaller than 800x800 (nebulas etc) and upscale it without losing too much. I just want to know if I'm heading down a bad path given NW.js issues described in this thread.

    Bottom line.. let's say I'm starting a new game today: hey guys! I'm making unbound layout, top-down space game. I plan to deploy with NW.js... Should I go with 1920x1080 or 240x135 game resolution? or are both doable?

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  • For ui just use Anchor.

    ah okay, that's another behavior I've never used. I'll look into it. thanks!

    It will all depend on the how small I can make the resolution and have it still look acceptable. Then finding out if that smaller size makes a performance difference. There are other optimizations that I could probably do..I just want to know about the art now.

  • too bad, I wish I could employ you, you have great game-art skills!

    but sometimes leaving the "entertainment" industry is good especially when you need more stability..

  • Made some career changes and really haven't had as much time to work on it.

    cool...I hope the new career is game or art related!