Retro Affect Blog

Image Atlas Packer

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:38:16 -0700

It's that time again! The time where we open our tool box for a little show and tell...and share. This time around, it's an image packer. An "image atlas packer" is a short script that takes numerous small images and places them nicely into one large image. For game development, it saves space, reduces loading times and keeps your image files organized. Our friends over at Wolfire have a wonderful blog post explaining them a bit more thoroughly.

While there are numerous packers that can be found online, our difficulty was in finding any that could handle large numbers of images in multiple directories. Thus, our own atlas packer was born!

As is, our little script will start in the base directory and load all the .PNGs into an atlas. If that atlas is filled, it creates a new one. Then, it will try fitting the rest of the images in all previous atlases before finding a spot in the new one. That way, each atlas is packed as tight as possible. Atlases are named based on the folder that their images are from.

Below, I'll walk you through how to get it working and how to change its settings.
Click "read more" to get started!

First things first: you'll need to download Python and its image library, PIL. As a side note, this was programmed and tested with version 2.5. Once you have those downloaded, get out image packer! You can download that here.

In it, I've included a small directory of images that you can try it out on. Note that your savePath is empty. In the command prompt, navigate to where the atlasExport.py is located, run it annnnd you're done!

Return to the savePath to look at your brand new collection of image atlases. You'll notice that the script also exports an XML document that contains each image's location data. You may need to tweak how that data is exported depending on your engine.

You can change the size of the atlas (line 65), format of the images you want to pack (line 67), the load directory (line 10) and the save directory (line 13) fairly easily with no experience in Python. As a small disclaimer, this was whipped together in a few days to work specifically with our engine. I encourage you to request features, comment with your own variations, and report any errors, but any changes to the script will happen in my free time.

A huge thank you to "S W" from ActiveState Code for supplying the packing logic, and the random images from my Google search for the test images.

Download the RA Image Atlas Packer

Snap-a-shot Contest #2

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:58:45 -0700

Behold! Our second Snap-a-shot contest. In honor of E3, this theme is all about video games. Snap a picture of your favorite video game(s) and post it to Facebook, Twitter or RetroAffect.com to enter.

Prizes:
- The first 15 people to upload a photo of their favorite game(s) receive a Snapshot Concept Art Card and an automatic entry into our raffles.
- The top 5 most creative/hilarious/awesome photos uploaded before 11:59 EST on Sunday, June 20, 2010 also receive a Snapshot Concept Art Card and an automatic entry into our raffles! Look at who won our outdoor-themed Snap-a-shot.

Remember that these art cards are also automatic entries into future raffles with larger prizes. The more you get, the more chances you have to win!

Good luck!

*Pictures deemed NSFW are void.

Retro Affect Goes to School

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:08:33 -0700

Last Friday, Dave and I were asked to speak with a computer science course at Inter-Lakes High School. We gave them a brief history of how we managed to stumble to where we are today, and explained things that they can do in order to make video games for a living. Half way through, we were unfortunately interrupted by a fire drill...it's been awhile since I've had to leave a building single file.

Inter-Lakes High School, Class of 2010

I had a phone call when we got to the parking lot, and took it a little ways away from the class so I wouldn't disturb anyone. A teacher actually came over and yelled at me to get in with the rest of my class. I even had to serve a detention, lame. Okay, I made the detention part up.

If you're a high school student (or early in college) reading our blog, then you probably already have a good grasp on the indie scene and know how to get started. In case you don't, I encourage any aspiring game developers to take a look at various middleware programs like Gamemaker, Flash, Unity...maybe some readers could comment on any tools they use too.

Also, get yourself to a traditional university after high school. I know those "game design degree in two years!" programs sound perfect (I almost pursued one myself), but you'll be much more versatile with a degree in computer science or the arts.

And as always, shoot us an email anytime with questions you have about making games. We love our jobs, and we love to help.

One more thing! Get your cameras ready, the next Snap-A-Shot Contest is a mere blog post away...

Boston Postmortem Postmortem

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:35:28 -0700

I attended the Boston IGDA Chapter meeting last night (known as the Boston Postmortem). It was great to see such a large group of enthusiastic developers (which later informed, was the smallest group they've seen in awhile).

Chris Allen from Infared5 presented their new SDK, Brass Monkey. With it, mobile devices, laptops, desktops, anything with a Wi-Fi connection can connect and exchange events. He demoed a pretty cool Star Wars game with an iPhone as a controller, and a drawing application with multiple phones connecting and interacting. A pretty interesting tool for any game developers out there. I encourage you to check it out at their website. Nothing is released yet, but Chris did mention an "Indie" price point for studios with 5 people or less.

Any developers out there should check out GameLoop too, a smaller, more intimate conference in Boston.

New Office!

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:47:13 -0700

It's been a bit of a ghost town around here, hasn't it? Here's our excuse: we moved! From the sunny deserts of Arizona to the vast forests of New Hampshire. We're just now settling in our new office and rearing to go on Snapshot once again.

Retro Affect is here

Development is in full swing, so expect some more screenshots, some more contests and perhaps even a video! We're incredibly excited with how it's coming along and can't wait to share it with you.

As a side note, we'll be attending Boston's IGDA meeting this upcoming Wednesday. So if you're in the Boston area, you should go too! I'll have a stack of Snapshot Art cards with me...

Ludum Dare 17 Results!

Wed, 12 May 2010 19:05:17 -0700

A few weeks ago we held a game jam in which some people participated in Ludum Dare 17. I ended up throwing myself into the competition when the theme was announced, and thus began another incredible journey of 48-hour game development. You can witness this journey from start to finish right here!

After the dust cleared and the voting was over, the top 20 games were posted. My game, Gaiadi, ended up getting first place overall! I'm a little surprised it turned out so well, and incredibly honored by the Ludum Dare community. You guys are freaking awesome and it's incredibly motivating to have something like Ludum Dare around. You never know what you're capable of until you have a deadline of 48 hours to make something awesome.

I encourage everyone to check out future Ludum Dares, and make awesome stuff. I intend to continue work on Gaiadi and I'll be attempting to make it into a full game sometime in the future, so stay tuned!

Retro Affect Fun

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:31:16 -0700

Some people ask us what we do when we're not working on Snapshot. I've been meaning to make a couple posts about the fun things we've been doing lately, but instead it's all going into one.

We play ping pong
Dave bought a ping pong table a few months ago. It wasn't too long before we heard that our friends over at Broken Bulb Studios had one as well. As game creators, a competition naturally ensued. Dave and I were pretty confident going into the tournament. Little did we know...we would be annihilated.

We play dodgeball...on trampolines
I was particularly excited about this one. We discovered an indoor trampoline facility nearby. Every Thursday since, we've gone to jump around and hang out with the Flashbang crew. I can safely tell you that a floor covered in trampolines is every single thing you except it to be and then some. Matthew Wegner snapped some photos of the awesome.

We play StarCraft 2
You should probably send us your SC2 identifier and we'll play some matches!

RAjam Wrap-Up

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:10:23 -0700

What a weekend. Over 15 people showed up, made some games, and ate some cake. There were some spectacular results. If you haven't checked out our RAjam Feed, you should probably do it now. There, you can find a great summary of all the different projects. We'll be posting some of the results in the coming weeks but in the meantime, enjoy some of the photos taken during the jam, courtesy of Matthew Wegner from Flashbang.

making our final presentations

What game from the jam do you want to play the most?

RAjam 2010

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 18:18:28 -0700

It's true! We're hosting another game jam. This time in conjunction with Ludum Dare, an online jam. We're expecting a decent sized crowd, and more than a few awesome games. Make sure you check out our RAjam page. There you can watch us work, chat us up, and keep an eye on our project's progression.

Postcard Delivery and igdaPHX...

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:23:01 -0700

All was a little quiet on the blogosphere last week wasn't it? Well the good news is that we've been quite busy with Snapshot, the bad news is...well, I guess the only bad news is that we haven't had a chance to write about it. For now, I wanted to let everyone know that our new post cards have arrived!

We'll get these sent out to our Birthday Contest winners as soon as we can. Did you miss out on our latest super-awesome post card? Fear not, I sense another Snap-a-shot contest in the near future...

One side note: our first Phoenix IGDA meeting last week was a success! We were privileged to meet over 40 of really cool developers from the area. If you're in the valley, make sure to check out www.igdaphx.org for more information about out fledging chapter.