I experience some uncomfortable behaviour when launching google cardboard app on some smartphones.
On Nexus 5, the experience is ok and i get a nice 3D effect when looking inside the cardboard but on Samsung S3 and Sony Xperia S the experience is very uncomfortable.
I did a comparison of the images produced by both phones and here is the result :
(source: numix.fr)
As you can see, on the top image (Nexus 5) the image produced by the 2 cameras is slightly different resulting in a convincing VR experience.
On some other phones (Samsung S3, Sony Xperia S) i have a huge difference between the left and right image, resulting in a very uncomfortable VR : its impossible to see the objects in 3D.
I can't figure out why there is such difference between phones.
For info, My Nexus 5 is on Android 5.1.1, Samsung Galaxy S3 is on 4.1.1 and Sony Xperia is on 4.1.2.
It seems the "viewer" is not configured correctly in the Cardboard app of the S3 and Xperia. Try to switch the viewer in the cardboard app.
What you see is what happens if the app tries to display a larger (physical) image than the screen can bound. You can probably see it better when you actually start a demo.
I am able reproduce the same (messed up) result on my Note 4 when I create a viewer with an excessive "Screen to lens distance" (e.g. 50mm) and "Inter-lens distance" (e.g. 100mm) with the Viewer Profile Generator:
https://www.google.com/get/cardboard/viewerprofilegenerator/
You might try to play with the generator to find some settings that work.
I'm not sure if the screen size of those devices is sufficient in first place. If it is, and the viewer is also correct, then maybe the app has somehow false assumptions about the physical screen size (or the ppi value).
Related
I have a kha app that runs perfecly on an iPad2 (1024/768px).
When I run the same project on a later iPad Mini with 2048/1516. My coordinates are all half the size, which kinda makes sense.
So when I double all the sizes of my objects and GFX it will work on the iPad mini, but will be too big for iPad2.
I looked into a backbuffer and a renderTarget as explained here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV1PTo5XSCA
There is also the windowSize option in khafile, which seems to do nothing.
Surface x and y coodinates always seem to come in in real screen coodrdinates of the device.
What is the best way to write a resolution independent app?
Perfect would be a way that is either retina or non-retina, depending on the device, where the code stays the same.
According to https://github.com/Kode/Kha/wiki/Screen-Size-and-Scaling there's automated scaling for some targets. If you need other targets you have to manually scale everything to fit the screen.
The page mentions using this class for the task: https://github.com/Kode/Kha/blob/master/Sources/kha/Scaler.hx
Also you could take a look at how Wyngine does it:
https://github.com/laxa88/wyngine/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=scale & https://github.com/laxa88/wyngine/blob/master/Wyngine.hx
You replied (to my comment) that scaling wasn't enough. So far it was enough for all of my games with the right display settings, but if you really need retina sized graphics you always have the option of using multiple graphics sets. Eg:
a set for retina resultion (eg iPad 3)
a default resolution (eg iPad 2) set at half retina size
a low res set for cheap android devices?
At startup of your app you check the screen size. You use that to choose the internal game size and the graphics set that fits the actual screen resolution the best. The internal game size as well as all X/Y positions for the selected graphics set can be calculated by applying the graphics sets scale factor to the raw base values.
Finally you use Scale.scale() to scale your game from the internal game size to fit devices like the iPad pro 12" and the wide variety of Android devices.
That approach is common with a lot of game engines, google should find you links like https://v-play.net/doc/vplay-different-screen-sizes/ that also explain screen ratios and how those can be handled.
I'm working on my first winjs app for windows 8.1. So I'm a newbie in this topic, so please forgive me if I ask something obvious.
My problem is the resolution of the target machine (DELL Latitude E7440 with touch screen) is 1920x1080, but when I run the app, it runs in 1370x771. Which is a bit confusing for me.
So my question is, how can I tell the app to run in the same resolution as the OS runs.
Strange thing I discovered: If I set the "Change the size of apps text, and other items on the screen (...)" settings from larger to default in the display settings then suddenly my app runs in the desired full hd resolution. But I don't wanna depend on this setting.
I know I could use ViewBox control, but all of the graphics and everything is designed for full hd resolution, so ViewBox would simply scale it down, this solution sounds a bit ridiculous considering I have a full hd laptop, and full hd design as well...
This app is only for this particular machine, so I don't have to deal with different resolutions.
Any tip/suggestion is highly appreciated.
Windows abstracts the physical device resolution specifically so you don't have to think about scaling issues. Just do your work against the resolution that's reported from the API. This is done because a high pixel density display can result in UI that's too small to be usable, e.g. touch targets that get too small for fingers. Most of the time, then, a 1920x1080 display that's on a smaller physical device (e.g. 13" or smaller screens) gets a 140% scaling factor applied, hence it reports something closer to 1366x768.
Generally speaking, then, if you write responsive CSS for layout then you really don't need to worry about scaling at all with the exception of providing raster graphics that can work at the 100%, 140%, and 180% scaling plateaus (and 240% on Windows Phone 8.1).
For more details refer to my free ebook from Microsoft Press, Programming Windows Store Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, 2nd Edition, which you can also read (free) within the Microsoft Press Guided Tour app in the Store. Page 42 (Chapter 1) has a short overview on Views and Resolution Scaling; the Branding Your App section on page 113 talks about sizes of logo/splashscreen images for different resolutions, and then Chapter 8, "Layout and Views" (starting on page 421) goes into all the details, especially "Screen Resolution, Pixel Density, and Scaling" on page 437.
I have 2 android tablets - 1 samsung and 1 micromax tablet, samsung has 800 x 1280 pixels, 10.1 inches (~149 ppi pixel density) and micromax has 600 x 1024 pixels, 10.1 inches (~118 ppi pixel density).
I want their assets to be seprate but both are picking from mdpi, How can I do it?
Is it possible to use something like drawable-w600-mdpi and drawable-w800-mdpi?
No. Have a look at the Providing Resources page over at Android Developers. In Table 1 you can find all admissible qualifiers. Personally, I would suggest you let the OS handle the layout and choosing the right resource. However, with the new format of specifying resources 'wdp' respectively 'hdp', you might be able to get what you want as the tablets feature different sizes.
However, unless you have a very good reason to do so, I wouldn't do it. Often when you think you need to do something that is discouraged, there is a flaw in your design or the requirements can be met in an easier, more standard, way.
Update:
As by the comments, your problem is probably related to the devices not correctly communicating their DPI and, therefore, Android not choosing the correct resource. An Android Developer blog I recently read details the problem and shows a few examples on how to use the new numeric selectors tied to screen width and height to resolve some of those problems.
Now that the new Macbook Pro is coming out with a Retina Display, there are a lot of resources out there on how to make Mac apps and now even websites "Retina Display Friendly". Even Google is updating Chrome for Retina Display...
Why is this necessary at all? From what I understand, Retina Display is just a higher resolution screen. Right?
I thought when you develop gui's for desktop software and develop websites, you are developing something that is supposed to work and scale properly with virtually any resolution... When you resize an app's window, or display it on a higher or lower resolution display, it is supposed to scale and display properly.
So why are these people coming out with guides on how to make something look good on a Retina Display? Shouldn't it already look fine by default? Is there something about Retina Display that I'm not understanding?
And for the record, I'm not talking about iPhone 4 Retina Display. Most iOS dev's make their apps with fixed position elements since they know the screen's won't change size/shape. So I understand the importance of developing an app to look good on the iPhone 4/s vs 3g/s.
With the Retina display apps don't actually scale like they're being resized, all the controls are resized to be twice as big. If an app would be scaled normally, not by scaling all the controls, etc. you wouldn't see anything, because everything would be too small. It's the same difference between a Retina and a lower-resolution display as on the iPhone 3GS / iPhone 4.
An example:
These images are actually the same size, just the pixel densities differ.
And here's how it looks not properly scaled (using some app to disable proper scaling):
http://cloudmancer.com/images/trueretina.jpg
I thought when you develop gui's for desktop software and develop websites, you are developing something that is supposed to work and scale properly with virtually any resolution... When you resize an app's window, or display it on a higher or lower resolution display, it is supposed to scale and display properly (StackOverflow, for example, uses a 960px-wide container).
From a web developer standpoint, you are often asked to develop fixed-width websites (ranging from normally 940 to 1000 pixels wide), and they don't get to scale at all. There are a lot of websites like this and many apps just aren't designed to increase in size.
Also, apps that do grow in size usually expect that a bigger resolution also means a bigger screen, so they simply stretch the main application panels and are done with it.
Now, consider static elements, like a 150x50 button that says 'Click me'. This button is not intended to become bigger and is perfectly acceptable on a regular 1440x900 display. Now the retina screen comes in with its 2580x1800 resolution. The app sees the resolution change but it thinks "Hey, that user must have a huge screen" so it keeps the button the same size.
The problem that now occurs is that the button, because both resolutions apply to the same 13" screen, is now appearing to be a fraction of the size of the original button. Depending on your user vision, he might not be able to read the text on it, and might have a hard time clicking it, depending on the mouse settings.
To fix that problem, Apple and Microsoft used two different solutions:
Microsoft decided to tell the app the display had a 2580x1800 resolutions, but that the user wanted to have everything scaled to 200 dpi. This means that, if an app does not follow the guidelines, it will look smaller. Many apps simply ignore the DPI settings (though this might change with Windows 8);
Apple decided to report to apps that the resolution of the monitor was 1440x900, but that it could display higher-resolution elements if asked to; This means that apps existing before the new retina settings will appear to be the same size as before for the end-user (with added benefits like crisper text if they use the default Apple APIs), but that they can decide to provide high-DPI images that will look much better on the display.
Both solutions requires apps to be aware that the display is high-DPI ('retina'), but the way Apple handled it means the static websites and apps mentioned earlier will keep looking just fine, except they wont have super-crisp, high-resolution images to use. And, to opt-in to the retina features, they have to provide 200x200 images for a 100x100 canvas, for example, and Apple will take care of the rest.
I'm making an app but I don't wish to support retina display. The bad thing is that my app looks all pixelated. It's possible to deactivate the retina display feature ? So that my texture's proportions won't be doubled.
The scale property of UIScreen is read only and it's value is 2.0 in iphone 4, I would like it to be 1.0, so that my graphics in the iphone 4 looks exactly the same as older devices, without pixels.
The scale property of UIScreen is telling you that there are physically twice as many pixels in each direction on the retina screen.
You should not need to do anything special to get the app to appear the same on the retina display.
It will look slightly better if you provide #2x images though, and it may look more pixelated next to apps that are running at full resolution on the same device if the #2x images are not present.