Stretch vs 32 in BYOND Discussion

ID:134002
 
Aug 16 2007, 6:57 am
by default the map's icon-size is set to 0, when i first started hosting my game on the defaut 4.0 interface everyone was complaining because the graphics were all blurry. I know you can just click on icon and select 32x32 but most people are too noobile to find this on their own. also in my opinion it should be set to 32 anyway for easier backwards compatibilty. also also ive noticed that if you play with certrain stretch ratios (higher and/or lower then 32) the icons will have black spots all over if you turn the OpenGL off
#1 Aug 16 2007, 7:45 am
In the next release, users' preferences on icon stretching will save. If you're worried no one will find that, you can always use 32×32 by default in your project by giving the map a specific size in your skin.

As for the artifacts that show up when OpenGL is turned off, that's natural. There will definitely be some graphical issues there when icons are stretched, because stretching is imperfect. The blurriness people mention is because OpenGL is doing anti-aliasing to make up for those imperfections.

Lummox JR
#2 Aug 16 2007, 7:47 am
In response to Lummox JR (#1)
yea i know you can set it to 32, but you have to update the game to 4.0 to do that, running any older games will just be stretched, but if it saves preferences that should work
#3 Aug 16 2007, 8:19 am
In response to Falacy (#2)
Falacy wrote:
yea i know you can set it to 32, but you have to update the game to 4.0 to do that, running any older games will just be stretched, but if it saves preferences that should work

The default skin in the next release will save:

  • Window size
  • Icon size (but not text mode)
  • Splitter positions

    Lummox JR
#4 Aug 16 2007, 2:59 pm
In response to Lummox JR (#3)
doesnt it already save window size on the default window? and good about that splitter size, i was gona sugest that
#5 Aug 16 2007, 5:35 pm
In response to Lummox JR (#1)
Is there a plan in the works to have a pixelated scaling method? By that, I mean, a simulated resolution change, instead of blurring or averaging border pixels?
#6 Aug 17 2007, 3:54 am
In response to Ter13 (#5)
Ter13 wrote:
Is there a plan in the works to have a pixelated scaling method? By that, I mean, a simulated resolution change, instead of blurring or averaging border pixels?

No such thing. You can't arbitrarily divide up pixels however you like. The closest thing is antialiasing, which is - guess what! - blurry.

What could be done is to resize without doing any interpolation or antialiasing at all, using GL_NEAREST. In fact I (naively) suggested that at one point. But it turns out that this looks horrible if the map size in pixels isn't an exact multiple of 32. And if the map size is a multiple of 32 then you don't have the blurriness problem anyway...

The bottom line is, this is a fundamental limitation of computer monitors, not BYOND. The "workaround" is to do exactly what every other 2D game in the world does - make sure that each image pixel is perfectly lined up to each screen pixel, i.e. set the map width so that each tile is 32 pixels wide.
#7 Aug 17 2007, 2:27 pm
In response to Crispy (#6)
Oh... Okay, you misunderstood what I said a bit, but I misunderstood what BYOND was doing. I'd never make a map screen NOT a multiple of 16 or 32 anyhow, so no problems there.

And yes, I was talking about using GL_NEAREST, as that's the setting I always used for running old-school games in DOSBox, which does sometimes use different scaling methods when in multiples of 2^x.

Anyway, thanks Crispy.
#8 Aug 17 2007, 4:14 pm
In response to Ter13 (#5)
Go to

File > Options and Messages

then go to

Client > Preferences

uncheck the Use OpenGL box.

This will still stretch the icons but they wont be "blurry"


It will be like they were stretched in MSPaint vs OpenGL which stretches them like they're in Photoshop
#9 Aug 17 2007, 4:58 pm
In response to IceFire2050 (#8)
Egads no! SDL is no substitute for OpenGL!

That will reduce the blitting speed!
#10 Aug 17 2007, 5:27 pm
In response to Ter13 (#9)
1. The fallback is not SDL. I believe it's BitBlt, just like 3.0 used to use.

2. Yes it will be slower, and it will lack some features (e.g. partial transparency). But it should be no slower than 3.0 was, so if you don't need the features then there's no problem with doing it.