The new iPhone 5 has a resolution of 640x1136 :blink:
We know that each new SDK ALWAYS shows the screen at its native resolution (no auto-zoom), so what is going to happen? How can Retina graphics be used for that reslution? We know if we don't use integer zooms (x2, x3) we have bad stretching :blink:
It seems Apple likes to tease developers :rant:
You dont tried android and it's 117 different resolutions? If designed property, then there a no issues.
Also there should been letterboxed if running in old retina resolutions, elsewise you could just add a nice border art. So it's not really a big issue, its a small one this time. You knew its was happens.
In your game, rapids rider, nothing problem with black border me thinks (just like iPad version).
My own game... It's happy to detect and use that resoulution.
Yes it should work. A value to get the dpi might be usefull, now.
I just discovered the new resoulution require xCode 4.5 to been used. If you do that, then you cant use arm6 anymore (which howover have wrong default settings from glbasic), and hence its would not support iPhone 3g and below devices at all.
In my game I dedicated to require iOS 4.3 and supporting the new iPhone 5. If I which I could add a another app with lecacy support, but its would not been the first version.
So you need to dedicate you want to fully support iPhone 5 or the app will been letterboxed auto.
Apple are silently removing possibility to develop for legacy devices with the updates to iOS and XCode. I can't say I blame them, as there are now too many different variants for devs to support. However, if they continue down this route they will alienate users and devs and the prices of apps will rise as apps take more and more resources and time to develop for.
In XCode 4.2 you can make and debug apps from 4.3.3 to 5.0. (from 3.2 to 4.33 installing a legacy module) Why make the life harder to developers with new XCode versions dropping support? There are many people using 4.3.3 or 5.0/5.1 in their devices.
And the versions question: Why change iOS version to 6.0 if last version is 5.1.1? Moving faster to drop support of old devices? They wiped Google Maps and added twitter. Very useful :zzz:. iPad 1 is not eligible for 6.0, if I remember correctly.
Lowest support is ios 4.3 in xcode 4.5. Is just the devices Appls no longer sold on long time, that got removed support (those that using arm6).
I have still not updated to iOS 6, but compiled fine to my current devices.
For my game it's more important to support iPhone 5 resoulution than doing legacy support.
Apple is about making money just like all other companies. Ofcourse they need to remove the old hardware so people buy the new ones. How else to keep the treadmill going? :-)
My iPad1 are NOW OBSOLETED.... new resolution EVERY new screen... :blink:
Thanks Apple!!!! :rant:
Maybe my next device are MORE FREE! like Android Tablet.... :whistle:
WE ARE LIVING DAYS OF MUNDIAL CRISIS, NOT ALL PEOPLE CAN CHANGE/REPLACE/BUY A NEW IDEVICE EVERY 10 MONTHS!!!!! :rant:
PS Sorry for my OT comment... the policies of Apple not are for me....
Agree with Moru. People get pissed of by apple´s acts but, it is expected.
One thing though, is the speed they unsupport older hardwares.
Such usually forces developers to always buy the latest hardware (very expensive) as buying a second or third generation may not give you enough time before its dropped.
Of course it is my own opinion, I never owned anything apple.
Couple years ago I thought to buy a cheap second/third gen mini mac for developing (cheaper then first gen I mean, couse even that is expensive). The one I had in mind was kind of dropped on the last update, the update that got Crivens pissed of last year.
Also, brazil has the highest price on apple wordwide, whatever apple thing here costs 3x what it costs in the US. So my second hand mini mac third gen would have come to my hand on the price of a first gen one. You can imagine how I would feel if in an year such was dropped.
I then realized that I can´t actually afford iphone/pad development while pushing game coding on a side project/hobby.
If ever I come up with a game that sells enough on other platforms then I will try i-things (understand that is my solo pocket condition).
I don´t know much of the apple store, but it seems to me not only the hardware goes unsupported but whatever app you developed for that becomes old too, in a way apple requires you to, every now and then, update your game should you want to have it selling on their store. I guess not paying the dev 100$ also leads to not having your app for sale too (overall is not that bad, as it cuts off a bit of the flood?).
I take a game has a maximum 2 years of potential sales (a bit reduced these days though) so I agree with spacefractal, should you want to go i-thing way, always target the latest hardware as that will give a chance for your game to live and earn longer.
edit: Sorry to hear that Hark0, but I think other ipads will have even a shorter life then ipad1. Parts of the world are sure going through crisis and so are the companies too, so I guess Apple has to push money-money instead of laying of but I tend to think they would do it anyways(the money money part :)).
I wanted to update my rpn calculator app. I had iOS 6 on. So I needed the new xcode. And that disabled support to upload an app to my 1st gen ipod.
Where is the dislike button?
In the end, the update will be iOS4.3 only :(
OT, but there is a trend underway.
I've stopped bothering with IOS, since about half of my clients have thrown out or literally given away their iPads and switched to Android tablets for their business; due to Apple's constraints placed on software distribution - Which is just great for me. Now my Unity and GLB projects have one less headache to worry about.
Well, last ios update got some apple machines off the game, people got pissed.
I´d like to state that I never mean the i-phone/pad support is not important or brings problems only.
There are people here that worked hard to make this happen, and I praise their marvelous work and the extra platform we can benefit.
There are people making money on that, benefiting from such.
There are people updating the ios support on a constant measure.
I mean no bad for those and the work they did to make it happen.
The opposite, It is a most important feat into GLB to support such.
My only problem is a self problem, I can´t afford.
I do intend to jump into i-things as soon as it is possible walletwise.
Huge thanks to those that made it happen and continue to make it happen, IOS support, IMHO, is hugely important for GLB. :good:
Out of interest does anyone else's app store in iOS6 really suck? I have my 3GS jailbroken so it's still on iOS5 (because I moved to Cyprus, and even though I'd been out of contract for like a year I couldn't get it sorted in time to be properly unlocked). No problem there.
But my iPod 4G has now been updated to iOS6 and it totally sucks in the app store. The search option is a massive pain and is slow as hell to scroll (one app per page? seriously?), and will then fully crash after a while. Nice.
It's interesting as my sales are up since the 5 came out (for what it's worth), but I can't see why with the app store in the way it is (even if perfect the one app per page on search is seriously naff)...
Cheers
Android is no different. glBasic does not support 2.1 and below, which is around same area with the old generation iPhones (if not newer). So there is really no reason to support them, only if you do a SD version of the game with xCode 4.2. Howover some might choice to sell both as a SD version (xCode 4.2) and a HD version (xCode 4.5). In that way all devices could been supported. Howover its require you have xCode 4.2, which still can been downloaded (dont use Internet Explorer in the Apple dev console). Its a little bit of mess, but its a way to doing that.
I have not tested iOS6 yet.
Quote from: erico on 2012-Sep-24
My only problem is a self problem, I can´t afford.
One idea would be to get an iPod Touch 4th gen. They are much cheaper than a new iPhone and are currently discounted in many places because the 5th gen iPod Touch is soon to be released. The 4th gen can be upgraded to iOS6. Also, because the iPhone 5 is the new thing that Apple fans want the iPhone 4 is currently much cheaper. You might be able to get one for less than an iPod Touch.
Bur wouldn´t that mean that it will get older soon? I mean, buying a 2nd gen cheaper hardware, it could get discontinued in 1 or 2 years?
Maybe buying a first gen every 2 generations or 3 could be better?
Quote from: erico on 2012-Sep-30
Bur wouldn´t that mean that it will get older soon? I mean, buying a 2nd gen cheaper hardware, it could get discontinued in 1 or 2 years?
Maybe buying a first gen every 2 generations or 3 could be better?
Good point. Its just that a new gen device is
very expensive for what it is. For example, the cost of the cheapest new gen iPod Touch in Canada would also cover buying a Nexus 7 with $40 left over to spend on apps. That's crazy. Personally, if I was planning on buying a new device mainly for testing and support I would look for a 4th gen device with iOS6. Actually I'd get an iPhone 4S since they're so cheap with contracts now the iPhone 5 is here.
It's might been cheap with contract, but you property paid around same in the end (but often easier, I did that with 4s). You could also get the iPod version rather than iPhone 5.
I did not test for 5 in my game, but seen and hope its was pretty easy to upgrade Xcode 4.5 and let its create a launch image (black one). Then it's should been supported just like iPad 3 retina worked out of the box.
My game is still on waiting. I personally perfer newer generation support than old generation. The first two is quite very old and you can still support iPad 1, dispute not support iOS 6.
It's worse on android actually if you ask me.
On another hand, such forced discontinuity of older hardware could have an impact on the flooded appstore.
A lot of people won´t renew for many reasons and I suspect a bit of the flood will evaporate.
This is the beginning of the end for the casual dev for iOS. The number of games will being produced from here-on-in will reduce and prices will go up to cover the extra development costs/time. Apple has gone over the top of the mountain - it's downhill from now on.
Ian, I do suspect that too. But am not sure it is a downhill, they will probably be watching the store closely, and should it start weakening, they will sure make tough changes to fix it up.
How can they change the fact that the res will be too high for the majority of devs and that the cost for professional work will increase?
The res of the iPad is already higher than most desktop pcs can actually support. Apple can't afford to make it any higher on their next devices, so that leave basically improving CPU, camera and battery (and other insignificant things). Anything else tech-wise and you've already pushed way past normal indie devs. Users won't notice any significant difference in future apps to what they are seeing now, so there will be little need to update their next iOS devices. Apple cannot possibly continue with the momentum they have shown in recent years.
Apple can watch the shopfloor as closely as they like, but they are nearing saturation point for their current ranges of hardware. They'll have to come up with some different tech to bring in the cash in the near-future. There's plenty of scope for innovation though, so I don't see Apple falling off the mountain just yet.
Quote from: Ian Price on 2012-Sep-30
How can they change the fact that the res will be too high for the majority of devs and that the cost for professional work will increase?
Altough I agree with the statment on the post, I don´t on this fact. Let me argue...
The cost for professional work (artwise) is already too high for the majority of devs.
No wonder the majority of indie games uses alternatives into visuals, hardly an indie attempts photorealistic 3d on a prod.
Pixel art is dominat on indies and is resolution independent. Vector art is resolution independent and is almost a trademark on Flash games.
You can also use clay, paper, photographies, etc.
Now here comes the strange part, back before year 2k, most of the image processing/art tools were made to deal things on a pixel level. This way, resolution adds to the work on a fashion we are used, more resolution, a lot more work. But after 2k, most tools became especialized into dealing chunks of image, in such a way, that today is more expensive for me to output grafics on low resolution then the opposite.
A good example could be Greedy Mouse, from spacefractal.
The original clay art is actually res independent.
By being able to use high resolution pictures, things will look more realistic (finger prints and all that), but actual post processing of those photos are a lot easier and faster. Photoshop can make this work really fast, easier to mask and select, easier to path around things should you need it and etc.
Now if you scale that down to 320x240, everything will bust, it will be a mess of pixels that won´t ressemble much the original, you will end up having to do a lot more work post processing these and you will end up having to retouch things on a pixel level. (ie, back to dpaint). No auto masks, no paths will actually work out of the box.
Low resolutions (below 800x600) also suffers from typo arts, as the majority of fonts won´t scale cool to a 5 pixel tall font, you will have to design your font for that size and it will have to be a manual labor too if you want it readable.
I´m not sure I was clear on the above statements but I don´t see, in anyway, resolution raising prices of art dev.
It could hold true to the big studios, the ones that have the cash to buy this art in the first place.
But then again, they already work with outputs way above the ipad3 resolution and part of their work, is to accomodate the assets to the final machine.
So, if resolution is higher and processors are faster, they have less work doing this convertion, so more resolution, less work to do.
For example, take the transformers movie, you get the base models from the movie, and convert/reconstruct it to something your target machine will hold.
If your target machine is a gameboy advance, you are going to be busted accomodating such there, if it is a ps3, you will have a loooot less work.
But either way, past or future, high res or not an indie won´t be able to cope with the original price of doing transformer´s art.
In the end, the resolution opens up possibilities of more art styles and makes processing easy. Anything low res implies on a lot of manual labor on a pixel level.
Here in the publicity industry, it has been a couple years I have been avoiding work with low resolution assets(lower then 1kx1k) as it ends up costing more to produce then a 7kx7k image. It holds specially true for image processing work, less for 3d, but 3d is so expensive in the first place, that it also makes no difference in the end.
QuotePixel art is dominat on indies and is resolution independent
Sorry, but it's not. The higher the res, the more work is required.
Whether you see it or not, increasing the resolution DOES increase the work required to make the scene look prettier. Yes, vector art is res independent, as is 3D to a degree, but you still have to ensure that the textures look good at a higher res and therefore more work goes into them.
Even vector art will still need more work doing to it, to ensure that the final results fill the scene and don't look barren. Vector art scales nicely, but it can look empty if images get too large.
Plasticine art isn't the norm, and I doubt it will become it, but I'll give you that one - little if any extra work is required.
And generally, you won't see a game done in ALL vectors, or ALL 3D or ALL pixel art. There are usually elements of other art types in one project.
Its depend in art used and how dealing with different resoulutions.
The clay art is still limit how high resoulution we could take from the camera (most was taking from a mobile camera). So we still have a limit on max resoulution, but its a quite high limit. Actuelly its was NOT very much more work doing that in first time. So we could do Retina graphics here (max resoulution here is around Mac Retina). Photoart dosent increase very much in work time and we also did some tradeoffs as well.
In Jungool (a none glbasic game, where I did the music for the game) we originally did pixel art for 3gs resoulution, just around time we got the first iPad and iPhone 4. Here Lobo (the graphics artist here) said its would take far to long time to redraw in higher resoulution and he is not fan of a software upscaling. Howover we did found a 150$ upscaling software. The software was named "Genius Fractal" (hehe, yes we launched about the title as well due my nickname), but today its named "Perfect Resize 7 Pro"). that software upscaled very good, and only required some cleanup. I'm glad we did that because its did look a lots better on iPad actuelly, even is just upscaled (but still far better than internal Photoshop did). Howovere you might see seome artifact, but that is due PVR compression.
Also a real vector game should allways been scaled correct in all resoulutions. See example games Sokurah (tardis.dk) have been created.
8 and 16 style graphics also dosent require much more work. They dont need retina art at all. Here screenratio can been a issue instead.
More common problem is more screen ratio, which can been quite annoying to support them all (4:3, 16:9, 3:2 etc). Here titel and other static screen can been quite annoying.
Quoteand only required some cleanup.
It still required some extra work.
Quote8 and 16 style graphics also dosent require much more work. They dont need retina art at all. Here screenratio can been a issue instead.
That will depend if you want chunky pixels or not. I personally love chunky pixels, and they're fine on a phone, but maybe not so good on a tablet/iPad. It depends on the game.
I do agree that the screen ratio is a real PITA though - odd scaling can really feck up a screen, no matter how good the art or how it was originally created.
But its only one, mightbeen two hours (compared its would take one/ two week to redraw a level, which did not use tiles), so cleanup was fast to do and still look nice....
Super Mega Worm works excellent on iPad, so chuncky pixels works nice. I love them too. Here screen ration scaling can been a more issue than resoulution issues itself.
Yeah, I know what you mean with regards to cleaning rather than redrawing, but the point still stands - having multiple devices, offering multiple resolutions (and now multiple screen ratios) costs devs time and money. I'm sure the better apps do recoup their dev costs, but I know many don't and haven't. But this generally is not just about the graphics, but the game subject matter/content/portrayal etc. etc. Failure can come to anyone at anytime, no matter how much time/effort or money is poured into the project.
Incidently, my current game is nice and chunky and looks great (IMHO) scaled up on my TouchPad. :)
Quote from: Ian Price on 2012-Oct-02
QuotePixel art is dominat on indies and is resolution independent
Sorry, but it's not. The higher the res, the more work is required.
It actually is: If you can see the pixels, more work required.
It has a bit to do with the DPI too, but what I mean, is that you can tell 2 pixels together on a 14" monitor 320x240, you quite can´t tell on a 14" monitor on 2k x 2k.
So, working with high resolution and density (as ipad3), on a production level, is faster and easier. Many things are quite automatic, and many other fine tunnings not necessary. Programs like gimp and photoshop are made to have tools to deal group of pixels, hardly individuals. Ex. masking a high resolution sprite is something that can be perfecly done in seconds with a magic wand, masking an 800x800 sprite will require you to manually draw a vector path if you want anything good, anything lower and paths don´t work either, you have to place pixels individually.
Quote from: Ian Price on 2012-Oct-02
Whether you see it or not, increasing the resolution DOES increase the work required to make the scene look prettier. Yes, vector art is res independent, as is 3D to a degree, but you still have to ensure that the textures look good at a higher res and therefore more work goes into them.
It dosen´t, the increase in detail you get won´t load the work.
Usually, you are working with even higher resolution references and layouts, you get more from your sources preserved. For example, it takes more time to make a minecraft good looking pixel tiles then to add photorealistic high res images. You will have to deal every pixel, hours, while on photo, a simple levels and making it tileable is enough, 10 seconds, and both actions can be fully automatized.
If you are creating your art straight on the computer with no references at all, you still benefit 100% of the ´group´ focus most of the art programs have, everything will be masked and perfectly antialiased etc. Not to count procedural generated details.
Things also reflect on animation, you won´t be able to convert anything into low resolution, you will have to draw each frame labourly.
On higher hes, you can rotate and deform freely, you can create esqueletons, keyframe animation, etc.
Quote from: Ian Price on 2012-Oct-02
Plasticine art isn't the norm, and I doubt it will become it, but I'll give you that one - little if any extra work is required.
Just like picture too, there is a minimun little post production work, now, use 320x240 pics as originals, and try to make the game on that same resolution.
There will be a a lot of extra work.
A higher resolution/depth also permits you to do a fast cheap job and you won´t spot the failures, you can´t hide those on low res.
Another example, suppose you take a picture of a girl with a fuzzy hair and you want to cut the girl off the pic and compose on a different scenario in game.
If the source is at ipad3 res, it will be easy and fast to cut it, the more work will come in cleaning up the image, like pimples and dirt.
If your source is at 800x600, there won´t be pimples to clean, but you won´t be able to accuretly cut her off, and the fuzzy hair would require an army of hercules to get it ok looking in a 6 month timescale. It gets to the point it is faster and cheaper to photograph again. On another side, a real picture won´t scale ok to 800x600 ipad3 size, as details will get mixed on the interpolation and some will look as garbage so requiring you to post process it further and pixel work harder.
Pixelart work in x10 resolution does take much more time to paint. Jungool is a great example which have a lots of pixel artwork, iPad retina wont been happens. Clay artwork in retina did not took much more time. It's all depend how to deal with them and artwork used.
Same issue exist on android as well.
Also some artist perfer to work in double resoulation than final target.
QuoteIt actually is: If you can see the pixels, more work required.
You're telling me that doing 320x240 pixel art takes longer and more effort than 1024x768? Sorry, but I don't see it. It might be less work with digital imagery (eg paintshop/photoshop etc.) but not hand-drawn proper pixel art (and not scanned imagery either).
Still, time will tell. If in two years the price of the average iOS game hasn't increased (by at least double) and the number of games being released hasn't declined I'll happily say I was wrong.
If you are doing pure pixel art only, then high resolution means more space to cover, therefore more work.
Higher resolution permits you do work with scanned/photos/render and many more styles/sources.
If your final output is 320x240, or even 1024x768, on at least a half a4 size, you will have to retouch those files on a pixel level.
Anything pixel level is time consuming and can´t be automatized.
You can´t quite squash a 3d rendered sprite into that resolution without coming with a mess of pictures, or at best case, it is going to look like those cheap protography style games on the gameboy advance.
Most of the gfx on Hit The Deck was a pain to fit in 1024x768 and caused more work then it took to actually build the gfx on a 4kx4k resolution.
The players part on the board was hand drawn and scanned, but at 1024x768, it looks poorly done and I had to redraw it with vectors and pretty much recreate it.
If the final output was to be ipad3 res, I could have used the original hand draw and spared 3 days of extra work. Should there be a 320x240 resolution, the game would fail as the design would hardly incorporate that res for the amount of info needed on screen. It would still be possible to do, but making everything 320x240 and looking good would require a complete redraw.
Another point, is that assets on a 320x240 level won´t scale ok, it will be good on 640x480 but it will be destroyed on a 400x300 resolution, thus requiring a full redraw.
Assets on 3kx3k should you rezise to 2.5k x 2.5k won´t suffer visual loss. It is the same for transformations, rotation, morphs etc.
edit: I see the reasons behind the idea that more resolution means more work, I had that opinion too, but work dosen´t permit me to think that way anymore. The main reason are the tools, that today, are waay focused on processing bunch of pixels and doing a lot automatic, making high res dwelling easy. Pixel art tools never really evolved much over what a dpaint could already offer.
edit2: on your last paragraph, I do believe the price of app will rise and the flood will get lower, but that won´t have much to do with the price of art.
Also there should been letterboxed if operating in old retina solutions, elsewise you could just add a awesome boundary art. So it's not really a big problem, its a little one now. You realized its was happens.