Need help and suggestion about my BG

uswin · Sat 16/10/2010 11:40:57

hi guys, i hope i started a new topic in the right place.

I have a 640x400 PNG Background which i used in my game, it is a photo image
and here is the link :

And here is my issue. Is there any way to compress my PNG BG so that it won't blow away my ags game size ? , since using this 1 image only, has already created more than 1 MB crm room file and almost 3MB of compiled folder. Thanks. really appreciate it.

cat · Sat 16/10/2010 11:59:50

Maybe you can try saving it as jpg. Its a lossy format but its appropriate for fotos. I tried it and the picture was only 1/3 of the original's size.

I don't know, however, how AGS handles jpg...

uswin · Sat 16/10/2010 12:07:35

thanks for your quick reply, i'm afraid that ags handle JPEG and PNG in the same way, so the game file size will be the same no matter what kind of image type you use.

Anian · Sat 16/10/2010 13:16:36

That may be so, but still, the file size won't grow as much with every room, there are other informations and data in the compiled file.

Btw. snice you did put it in the Critics lounge

, might be my crappy temp graphic card, but I think you could do with a bit of levels adjustments in Photoshop onda that photo.
And on a personal note, what do you mean by "photorealistic image"? Did you draw this?

uswin · Sat 16/10/2010 16:39:56

Thanks, but i have already put all of the photo inside ags, and it around 300 rooms and the compiled folder is around 306 MB. I know, you can compressed the folder using 7zip, but it only compressed the file down to around 240MB. well thanks anyway for the suggestion.

cat · Sat 16/10/2010 17:42:59

Maybe you can ask a moderator to move this to the technical forums, there are more AGS pros that may help you. Here are more art people that don't know about those performance tweeks.

Btw, have you played the oracle? According to the games db it is 800x600 with photo bgs but still only 75mb download. And it contains lots of screens.

Calin Leafshade · Sat 16/10/2010 18:04:07

Rooms are always compressed using RLE I believe.

RLE however is practically useless at compressing photographs due to the number of colours and lack of continuous data.

JPEG uses RLE but only after quantizing the image into blocks which the AGS engine cannot do. (or it would completely ruin pixel art)

So i'm afraid you will just have to bear the high file size but this is 2010.. no one cares about file size anymore.

GarageGothic · Sat 16/10/2010 18:20:33

I was working on a plugin to support the PGF file format, but it won't be suitable for use in an in-development game until I have the specs for the custom resource file format set in stone.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Sat 16/10/2010 23:31:15

Moving this to General as it's not an AGS-specific question nor is it an art/feedback question.

uswin · Sun 17/10/2010 03:57:00

Quote from: Calin Leafshade on Sat 16/10/2010 18:04:07
Rooms are always compressed using RLE I believe.

RLE however is practically useless at compressing photographs due to the number of colours and lack of continuous data.

JPEG uses RLE but only after quantizing the image into blocks which the AGS engine cannot do. (or it would completely ruin pixel art)

So i'm afraid you will just have to bear the high file size but this is 2010.. no one cares about file size anymore.

I'm sorry calin, but in my country (indonesia) internet speed has always been a problem for common user. The average internet speed in my country is around 512 kbps (and a lot of downtime/unstable)

Quote from: cat on Sat 16/10/2010 17:42:59
Maybe you can ask a moderator to move this to the technical forums, there are more AGS pros that may help you. Here are more art people that don't know about those performance tweeks.

Btw, have you played the oracle? According to the games db it is 800x600 with photo bgs but still only 75mb download. And it contains lots of screens.

Yeah, i have played oracle,i will look into this.

Quote from: GarageGothic on Sat 16/10/2010 18:20:33
I was working on a plugin to support the PGF file format, but it won't be suitable for use in an in-development game until I have the specs for the custom resource file format set in stone.

GarageGothic, i really looking forward for your plugin. It seems very promising. Please let us know if you have some progress about your plugin.

Quote from: ProgZmax on Sat 16/10/2010 23:31:15
Moving this to General as it's not an AGS-specific question nor is it an art/feedback question.

Thanks ProgZmax, i have a feeling that i posted in the wrong section before, but had no idea where to start.

Phemar · Sun 17/10/2010 22:54:46

Quote from: uswin on Sun 17/10/2010 03:57:00
I'm sorry calin, but in my country (indonesia) internet speed has always been a problem for common user. The average internet speed in my country is around 512 kbps (and a lot of downtime/unstable)

That's not slow... at least as far as I'm concerned. I used to have a 4mb line but recently downgraded to 512, and while downloads are a little slower it's not too much of a problem. I can still stream youtube fine