2x2 masks only?

[Deist]

I've started creating a game using the 640x480 res.
Not a real complain here, but I'm still wondering: while drawing the walk-behind areas can be done pixel perfect (for obvious reasons), how come it is only possible to draw hotspots/walkpath/regions in 2x2 pixel instead of at a 1 pixel precision as well? If I'm correct, the masks are stored as bitmap anyway, so there's no limitation due to storing vector coords or stuff like this.

Is it a limitation introduced on purpose, eg. to reduce the "pixel hunting puzzles" trend or sth? 

[Ryan Timothy B]

Actually I believe it's all stored as an array.

I'm not sure why hotspots are 2x2 pixels, probably because it's not as important to have 100% pixel perfect placement for a hotspot, and there's also no point in beefing up a games size just for that.

But the walkpaths I know are 2x2 mostly because of the path finding algorithm having twice as much to calculate if it were single pixels.

[Calin Leafshade]

probably 4 times as much infact.

[Deist]

Ok, that's the kind of reason I was expecting. Thanks for clarifying it for me guys!

[Ryan Timothy B]

probably 4 times as much infact.

Argh, you're right.  I was thinking of angles and straight lines.  I guess that path finding algorithm does calculate "around" and check each grid area.  Doh.

[monkey0506]

Well the walkpaths having 2x2 pixels would seem rather silly since the pathfinder scales it down to 1/3.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Well the walkpaths having 2x2 pixels would seem rather silly since the pathfinder scales it down to 1/3.

But the walkpaths ARE 2x2.... ?  Me confused. 

[Pumaman]

Walk-behinds are pixel-perfect for obvious reasons.

The other types of area mask are stored at half-resolution to reduce memory usage and improve performance, since they don't need to be accurate to the pixel level (unless as you say you're really going for it with a pixel hunting puzzle!)