Monday 27 May 2013

Fitting the game to in any screen resolution.

For my Beekyr Android game it all started as 720p as it would be a Flash game,  but then I realized that the game needed to work in 800x480  for my smartphone... After that, I realized I needed to make it work in more resolutions for the rest of all Android phones out there. I had to think a way to scale the game and assets.... Turned out that is wasn't that hard!
 
Basically, I had to work always with 720p in mind.

When the game loads I need to work out a conversion rate for the resolution. So first lines of code executed, even before the engine :

        public static const ORIGINAL_X:int= 1280;
        public static const ORIGINAL_Y:int = 720;
        public static var SCREEN_X:int;
        public static var SCREEN_Y:int;
      
        public static var REDUCTION_RATIO:Number;
    

   private function getReductionRatio():void
        {
           &nbspSCREEN_X = Capabilities.screenResolutionX;
           &nbspSCREEN_Y = Capabilities.screenResolutionY;
            var ratioX:Number = SCREEN_X / ORIGINAL_X;
            var ratioY:Number = SCREEN_Y / ORIGINAL_Y;

            if (ratioX < ratioY) {
                REDUCTION_RATIO = ratioX;
            }else {
                REDUCTION_RATIO = ratioY;  
            }
        }

Then apply this REDUCTION_RATIO variable to every loaded asset, positions,speeds and basically everything that involved pixels.

Examples:
params.height = size.w*REDUCTION_RATIO;
params.width = size.h*REDUCTION_RATIO;
_bulletSpeed = 38*REDUCTION_RATIO;


If using AssetManager, all the stretching will be done for you if you initialize it like this:
assetsManager = new AssetManager (1 / GameVars.REDUCTION_RATIO, false);

But if you are converting textures manually then convert them like this:
Texture.fromBitmap(bitmap,false,true,1/GameVars.REDUCTION_RATIO);
This will still use same amounts of Texture Memory in 720 than 480 or 320. If you have troubles with that , load different assets that are smaller and change the REDUCTION RATIO.

In my case, load / unload assets between stages, works well too.
I never reached 128MB of VRAM (more or less, the minimum memory these days: ipad1).

It takes time and real concentration to make it work well but when is done it works flawlessly.

Enjoy.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello, I'm working with citrus, and starling citrus engine, i want to know how configure to run on android

Unknown said...

Hi there,

to set up citrus is simple, just follow this tutorial from Lee Brimelow:
http://gotoandlearn.com/play.php?id=171

or check this tutorial:
http://citrusengine.com/getting-started-citrus-starling-box2d/