Changing size could also change graphics automatically

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Bugala
Posts: 1178
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:11 pm

Changing size could also change graphics automatically

Post by Bugala »

As I have been wanting to make one game idea of mine to work in Classic Amigas as well, I started to make this system where you could choose which graphics you decide to use.

What I mean is, that if you are playing with HD resolution, then the game would be loading HD resolution graphics, and if you are using A500, then you could be using 320x256 graphics.

The reason for this is because basically I want the game to be in HD resolution. However, if graphics are in HD resolution, then even if someone would use A500 and autoscalelayer the size to 320x256, it would first of all probably take too much memory, as well as it would be too slow processing wise to scale from HD resolution to 320x256.

On top of this, native 320x256 would likely look better than the calculated ones.

While I am using A500 as an example, I dont expect my game to work on bare A500, I am just using A500 to illustrate the problem.


For this reason I have been thinking this system that while user can stretch and shrink the screensize for example if playing on window mode, he could also pick from menus, of which sized graphics he wishes to use. This is mainly to try and make it possible to play with minimum possible Classic Configuration, basically I am hoping it would make the game playable on 030 processor machine on 320x256 graphics, but dont know if it will work out or not.

Anyway, this still requires that the user actually chooses the graphics from menu, and I have to take this into account in my code, for example when choosing to what x and y something moves, i have to take into consideration the current graphic mode and lots of other things. And even after that there are still stuff that I am leaving out.

For example lets suppose someone is in HD resolution mode, but for some reason would be playing the game on background on window in 320x256 mode, then he decides to stretch it to 640x512. Now at this point he either has blocky pixels from 320x256 being stretched, or he has to go to menu and choose another set of graphics (640x512).
In best case this would work so that when user stretches the image, it would automatically change in to better resolution graphics if ones are available for that size (that includes images as well as all the moving objects).

All in all. My main point in this all is, that all this is doable by myself, but it is a lot of work. Hence it came to my mind if it would be possible to have something like this natively in Hollywood?

What I am after is that you would have this commandline command, something like "TurnGraphicsResolutionModeOn" as well as "TurnGraphicsResolutionModeOff", and after that Hollywood would automatically know to choose better graphics if ones are available.

System could be such that you would for example need to have same named graphics with different resolutions in same folder, so that Hollywood would recognise they are the replacement graphics in different resolutions.

You could for example have:
title320x256.img
title640x512.img
title1920x1080.img

And then if screen size gets changed, be it windows size changed, or screen resolution changed what ever, then Hollywood would always pick the closest graphics set to use.

This would also give one very big benefit. For suppose you made your game in HD resolution, and then you decide it needs to be redone in 8K resolution. Now thanks to this system, you wouldnt need to touch a single line of code, for all you would need to do, is to add another set of graphics, the 8K graphics, and Hollywood would automatically put them in use.


But is this doable even?
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airsoftsoftwair
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Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2010 2:33 pm
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Re: Changing size could also change graphics automatically

Post by airsoftsoftwair »

Sure, it's doable but it's currently not in the agenda because it's too special interest. The best idea is to implement this in script code by just using a list with brushes of different sizes and then return the correct brush for the needed size. Should be possible pretty easily in script code.
Bugala
Posts: 1178
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:11 pm

Re: Changing size could also change graphics automatically

Post by Bugala »

It sounds easy to do, but when you actually start doing it, you notice it isnt that easy, because it affects so many things. All of them are basically easy to do, but you need a lot of modifications to your code.

For example when you open a font, you have to take into consideration that that too needs to be in different size in different cases. Or the thing that you want something show up at location x 100, y100, well, 100,100 is very different location in 320x256 than in 1920x1080, hence you need to calculate all the locations too separately. All easy to do, just lot to take into consideration.

But good to know it is at least doable, although you are not planning to do it yet.
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