what do you think the creation process is for these levels (ipad)?

rooster

hi guys, I'm trying to pick apart how these levels would be created, specifically how the textures for the levels are done- they seem to have a border and an inside area texture but the transition between the two is fairly seamless:

http://www.touchgen.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/iblast-2.jpg
http://www.148apps.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Photo-Aug-18-2-53-19-AM.png
http://www.148apps.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Photo-Aug-18-2-50-24-AM.png

what are your opinions?

Ace-Angel

Most likely hand painted masks or fresnel.

Justin Meisse

looks like the border is a strip - you can see a little distortion on the curves. Perhaps it uses a mask and draws it on top of the tiling body texture. I've seen water done kind of similar - tiling water texture and the engine detects the shoreline and puts a trim strip along the border.

rooster

if it was painted into the terrain, wouldn't that mean every 'island' of level needs it's own texture? I can't see that being a viable way to develop an ipad game, the texture space requirement would be pretty high right?

Justin- I think you're probably right, I'm curious how the masking part is set up though. I was thinking of doing something similar using alpha but I hear alpha is a big drain on resources on ipad.

Frankie

Alpha-Testing

Contrary to the desktop, alpha-testing (or use of discard / clip operation in pixel shader) is very expensive on iOS. If you can replace your alpha-test shader with alpha-blend, do so. If you absolutely need to use alpha-testing, then you should keep areas of visible alpha-tested pixels to a minimum.

(I ripped that from the unity webpage)

rooster

using alpha to mask between materials on a polygon is different though right? but it will result in the polygon being drawn twice?

equil

i doubt it's as complex as my idea but i'd do it by using two uv sets and texture splatting.

Frankie

I'm not sure if it would be drawn twice or if that even matters, I mean wouldn't you just end up with a more expensive shader? It's not like it duplicates the polygons and offsets one then converts your shader into standard alpha blend and so renders the poly twice. Anway time for me to shut up and someone who actually knows what they are talking about to come in!

FWIW I think your game would run absoluty fine on an ipad (although maybe convert sprites to alpha blend?)

commander_keen

Looks like a flat polygon with a tiling texture and then a strip around the border with an alpha blended material above the polygon.