Screen resolution tip

MoonDog · Fri 10/07/2015 14:12:44

Ok so since I never made a game with AGS before and I'm doing the artwork all
By myself I came to realize I made a mistake. I'm already far in the game but
My problem without thinking was I started with the smallest resolution size. Now I
Want to change it and was wondering what the best solution would be to make it a higher
Resolution size without having to start from scratch. Or would it be easier to just
Start all over? I don't really mind starting again since I know more now but maybe there's a
Quicker way.

Also if anyone has any tips on resizing pixel art properly as to not lose proportions and to match
The new higher screen resolution size. (PS I use photoshop for the artwork)

Mandle · Fri 10/07/2015 15:38:41

Quote from: MoonDog on Fri 10/07/2015 14:12:44
Ok so since I never made a game with AGS before and I'm doing the artwork all
By myself I came to realize I made a mistake. I'm already far in the game but
My problem without thinking was I started with the smallest resolution size. Now I
Want to change it and was wondering what the best solution would be to make it a higher
Resolution size without having to start from scratch. Or would it be easier to just
Start all over? I don't really mind starting again since I know more now but maybe there's a
Quicker way.

Also if anyone has any tips on resizing pixel art properly as to not lose proportions and to match
The new higher screen resolution size. (PS I use photoshop for the artwork)

I just wanted to say first that I have never seen this original a take on when to capitalize letters...

Your post is very haikuian in its poeticanism...

(Yeah, you need only use capital letters after each period (.) and not at each line-break, but I did love to see this original use of capitals nonetheless...)

As for your question: As I understand AGS you pretty much have to import everything all over again if you change the resolution mid-build. Changing the resolution mid-build is pretty much number one on the never-ever-do-this list in AGS as there is no engine support for it whatsoever...

As for resizing your graphics in PS: I will leave the answer to those wiser than myself...

I would just suggest forging on with your current resolution actually and completing your project, and then moving on to your next with the knowledge from your mistakes gained.

Going back to square one rarely works for anyone and they usually end up with nothing released at all...

MoonDog · Fri 10/07/2015 16:13:08

Haha yea I know my capital letters are everywhere but that's because my
when I start a new line on my phone it keeps putting caps-lock on everytime
and I just got tired of always turning it off again. As you can see, I'm on
the PC now.

guess il just finish it as is then. plus worked to hard on it already. Will
definitely remember my mistake next time tho.

Snarky · Fri 10/07/2015 16:27:32

Going with the lowest resolution (which isn't actually all that low, being the same resolution used for games like Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max) is usually not a mistake. Most great AGS games use 320x200 or 320x240 as their effective resolution.

If you change the resolution mid-project you'll need to reimport all your backgrounds, redraw all the walkable areas, walkbehinds, regions, and hotspots, and reset the room edges. And you'll also need to reimport all the sprites, probably fix a bunch of the programming logic, resize the GUIs, and so on. It's a massive undertaking for a game of any size. Not recommended.

Resizing an image in Photoshop is easy in principle (Image | Image size... ; and it maintains the aspect ratio by default), but you can't really upscale pixel art without getting artifacts (unless you simply double or triple the pixel size), so you would have to edit it manually anyway. And of course, if you simply do double the pixel size, it's not going to look like higher resolution, so what's the point?

Mandle · Fri 10/07/2015 23:22:21

Quote from: MoonDog on Fri 10/07/2015 16:13:08
Haha yea I know my capital letters are everywhere but that's because my
when I start a new line on my phone it keeps putting caps-lock on everytime
and I just got tired of always turning it off again. As you can see, I'm on
the PC now.

Ah, I'm actually disappointed by the prosaic explanation...

Mathias · Sat 11/07/2015 10:59:50

320x200 IS a very low resolution unless you're on a toaster theese days. However that doesn't make any game bad. As Snarky said, most of the classics where made on that resolution.

What I think you should consider is this - estimate the time of work to get a decent 320x200 background out there. Then try to make an equally good looking background in 800x600 or 1024x768. The effort required per background peice as well as all other objects and character animation raises to the top.

What I do when I work on a peice is always starting out with a four times bigger image than needed. For 320x200 I work with 1280x800 and then when I'm done I downsize the image to the correct resolution. This brings finer detail to the image than if I would have started working on 320x200 right away. If you raise your resolution you will have a lot more imagespace to cover and detail (especially since you have to redo basically everything you've done so far).

Will you be able to make your game look good and finish your game in a timely manner by raising your resolution?

MoonDog · Sat 11/07/2015 19:55:14

@Mandle, I'm not really sure what "prosaic" means since English isn't my first language. But I'll just take that as a neutral comment haha.
@Snark and @Mathias, What you guys just said kinda just intimated me with the amount of work required to redo everything

, but definitely going to stick to the classic look for now. Plus I'm not hoping for my first game to be perfect anyways and also its just a hobby. But will definitely remember to choose a more preferred resolution next time. And who knows, if this game turns out to actually be good I'll spend some time redoing it with better modifications.

Cassiebsg · Sun 12/07/2015 09:13:46

"prosaic" = form of poetic verses...

Snarky · Sun 12/07/2015 09:48:17

No, the opposite. "Prosaic" as in "prose", i.e. non-poetry. Also used in an extended sense to mean commonplace, matter-of-fact, dull, unimaginative.

Mandle was saying that he had imagined there was some mysterious, exciting explanation for the capitalization, and then it turned out to just be the smartphone doing it automatically, something much simpler and more boring than he had imagined. (I'm not sure whether he intended the double meaning that although the posts looked like poetry with that capitalization, they turned out to be just regular prose after all.)