A way to create flipped frames at loadtime yet?

[BrashMonkey]

Hi everyone,

I've been away from MMF for a while, but own MMF Developer and am excited to begin a project and export it for multiple java mobile devices and eventually flash as well.

I'm still concerned however about the needlessly nearly doubled filesize that will be created if there's no feature to create the flipped versions of frames durring loading instead of having them part of the game file to begin with.

I plan on making side scrolling games with robustly animated characters.. and also to use environment art that could be used while filpped as well.

Is ther a solution for this yey (that will work in java mobile)?

Thanks

[Francois]

Java mobile phones are not powerful enough to flip en entiere screen in runtime in real time.

[BrashMonkey]

Hi Francois

I dont mean flipping on the fly durring gameplay. (although many new phones actually are fast enough to do that now) and Not the whole screen...I'm talking about frames of animations for the active objects. I work in the mobile game industry and what all the professional game studios do to drastically reduce the filesize is to have the game create the required flipped images while its loading the level (or game)... this can make the loading process considerably longer, but the filesize is drastically smaller for most games...especially side scrollers.

What I suggest is an option in the active object animation editor that says something like (create opposite directions durring loadtime (or at start of the frame)

Does that make sense?

thanks

[James]

It's not a "doubled" filesize at all - the graphics are very small and compressed. We're talking a few KB extra for a substantial speed increase.

The large filesize of MMF2 Java applications comes from the MMF runtime which needs to be included with it.

[BrashMonkey]

Regardless of how much bigger the code is to the game, the fact remains, the ability to create the flipped version durring loading could allow anyone making a side-scroller to fit nearly DOUBLE the art. I'd call that substantial. It makes no differentce how small any particular png file is. Double the art that can fit in the same filesize means TWICE as smooth animation, or drastically more visual variety.

To put this another way, lets say you need to keep the filesize at a 512 k limit and the code takes 400k. I'd rather be able to put in the full 112 k worth of original art than have my art file space limit cut in half due to the "engine's" inability to flip at load-time.

So, to rephrase for the sake of accuracy. Double the filespace USED by the art. Sorry for the misleading writing, but its still critically important for making lower-end mobile games as competitave as possible with the pro companies out there that I can testify with absolute certainty are using this method.


Here's a true story to further illustrate the importance of this:

When I left one company (with extrememly high quality standards for mobile games and huge focus on these sorts of optimizations) and started working for a younger and less established company, I witnessed a poroducer nearly in tears trying to figure out which characters and enemies he could eliminate all together in order to make the ART filesize limit. I then looked at the art for the game and sure enough, the sprite-strips were TWICE as big because as they needed to be because they had not yet heard of the trick of creating the flipps at load-time. I explained the technique (which has been used by them for every game theve made since then.) Would telling the producer " Dont worr'y about all those nice enemies and characters, they're just a few bytes...no big loss" would have made him feel better?

[BrashMonkey]

Also.. What speed increase are you referring to? I assume you are just talking about the overall load-time since thats the only time the flipping would be done. But even at that, I cant imagine performing a simple horizontal flip of one of these tiny png files would take much longer than loading it, so if you compared loading the flipped frames VS flipping then while loading the originals, I doubt the difference is that big at all.

[dragonguy]

Java mobile phones are not powerful enough to flip en entiere screen in runtime in real time.

What do we live in? The 1970s?

[James]

No.. computers in the 1970 couldn't display graphics, let alone flip them.

[Francois]

Well actually they are. Sorry I was wrong.

[BrashMonkey]

And they're more than fast enough to create flipped versions of the ones they're loading. (even weak phones) Allowing for many games TWICE the artwork.

I hope doubling trhe visual quality of the products made with MMF for mobile devices is worthwhile incentive for implimenting this feature.

These are called "video" games after all.

In fact this is a feature I'd use all the time while making high end PC games as well.. No matter how powerful the system, the more art you can fit the better. This would make very art heavy PC games noticeably smaller file-sizes as well. (quicker download)