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[ressurectionx]

I want to know what the ideal size is for the artwork on the XBox.  It doesn't have to be exact, but a general idea is good.

Basically, I want to know what is the absolutely smallest we can make the pictures where it won't sacrifice the quality our eyes can see.  

Or to put it another way, what is the absolute largest we can make the images where there is any benefit to having them that large.  



I know that my images are oftentimes MUCH larger than what we need on the box.  


Please discuss this and get back to me on it quickly.  Many steps I need to take to wrap up all the emulators depends on this step being done first.

Thanks everyone,
~Rx

[ressurectionx]

I don't use HD myself, so even though many of my images are 675 pixels tall I don't get any freezes.  So it's good to know that from you right now.  


I'm thinking we may be able to go even smaller though.  Somebody else mentioned a size that they said was pretty much perfect for the Box a while back, but I can't remember what it was.

Excalibur also knows of a way to mass-convert the images to 8 bit which reduces filesize even more and I can't tell a difference in quality at all.

I figure in the end I can upload the large packs I have in case people want to do work on them down the road, but while doing the Xtras to FTP to the box I'd like to have these images optimized for the Box.





So.... now we know the maximum we can have the images.  Does anybody know how small we can go without loss of quality?

[pCeSlAyEr]

I use somewhere in the range of 200x275 and it looks pretty good on all of my HD sets. And my sets are not small by any standard...

The emulators have a weird habit of displaying the images kinda jaggy until you resize the overlay.

[Bomb Bloke]

Many games use 8-bit graphics, so certainly nothing is lost using 8-bit image formats for screenshots.

However, with box-art and stuff, it's obvious (at least to my young eyes) when the colour depth is lower then it should be. Not so obvious when it's displayed on a TV screen (distance + blurry makes up for a lot of lacking quality), but clear as day if the display device is good enough.

[ressurectionx]

Okay... so no 8 bit stuff if some people can tell the difference.

It seems like you guys agree that 200x275 is an optimum ratio for rectangle style boxes.  

What about square boxes?  250x250?

[ressurectionx]

Is there a hidden message there sbpaabck?

[ressurectionx]

Hey cbagy,

I know you have some input here.  Sorry for not taking you seriously about this back when you were talking about it a few months ago, but I wasn't ready to even think about it.  Now that I'm getting near the time to start putting all the packs together, I'd like to provide artwork packs that run smoothly and look great.  I know you have ideas about what is optimum and would love to hear them.

~Rx

[Pulsemasta]

I always go 250x250 pixels ... at about 300-350 I have issues.

[ressurectionx]

Cbagy said....

232x318 for rectangular artwork.
318x318 for square stuff.

He also gave a very compelling argument for this in a PM as well.  It's my inclination to agree with him on those ratios now.


I personally do not use HD, so I'm not sure if my large sizes would mess with it.  I imagine they would since a lot of my images are 675 pixels tall by whatever, and the square ones are 675x675.  I'm glad we're doing this because I think HD users would be crying when I released it large.  Currently when using SD on a lot of emulators there is slowdown with these sizes when going through the roms, but no crashes at all.

This conversion will reduce most of my file sizes by more than half.  I'll do a test run sometime today or tomorrow and let you guys know how it goes for SD.