Consistent Game Developmentacross all Platforms

Mobile Game Developmentwith

StarlingDaniel Sperl

Daniel Sperl

Austria, 1981 Media Design, 1999

Flox, 2012 Gamua, 2009

Starling, 2011 Sparrow, 2010

Photo Play, 2004

iOS Games & Apps, 2009

Topics

• Starling 1.5

• Development for Mobile Devices:

• Performance

• Screen Resolutions

• Memory

• Outlook

What is Starling?

• A pure AS3 library for Adobe Flash

• Recreates the display list architecture ...

• ... on the GPU (through Stage3D)

• Deploy to:Browser / Desktop / iOS / Android

A very talented bird, if I may say so.

Who uses Starling?

Angry Birds (Rovio) Ruby Blast (Zynga) Incredipede

Nyrthos Infectonator:Survivors

Snailboy

Starling 1.5

Starling 1.5

• Currently Available as Release Candidate

• Includes many internal improvements

• Update highly recommended!

Starling 1.5

• Automatic Profile Selection

• More reliable Context Loss handling

• Significantly reduced Start-up Time

• Atlas Textures support Rotation

• SystemUtil class

• …

Features

Developing for Mobile

• Limited Performance (GPU + CPU)

• Multiple Resolutions

• Limited Memory

Performance

tinyurl.com/starling-performance

Screen Resolutions

tinyurl.com/starling-resolutions

Memory

• Mobile Devices have limited RAM

• Mobile Devices have huge Resolutions

• 2D Games need lots of Textures

Watch your Memory Footprint!

MemoryDo not Embed Textures

// Avoid:![Embed(source=“assets/textures/hero.png")]private static var Hero:Class;!var texture:Texture = Texture.fromBitmap(new Hero());

• Embedded Textures are in Memory twice: Class Memory + Texture Memory

• Better: use Starling's AssetManager

MemoryUse the AssetManager

var appDir:File = File.applicationDirectory;var assets:AssetManager = new AssetManager(); assets.enqueue(appDir.resolvePath("assets/textures"));assets.loadQueue(...);!var texture:Texture = assets.getTexture("hero");

• Takes care of Context Loss

• Optimized for minimal Memory Footprint

MemoryUse RectangleTextures

// init Starling like this:!... = new Starling(Game, stage, null, null, "auto", "auto");

• Standard Textures always allocate MipMaps

• RectangleTextures do not!

• Starling defaults to RectangleTextures with profiles "baseline" + "baselineExtended"

MemoryUse ATF Textures

# Usage example:png2atf -c -r -i texture.png -o texture.atf

• Stored compressed in GPU Memory

• Reduced Image Quality

• Easy to create via Adobe ATF Tools

MemoryUse Bitmap Fonts

assets.enqueue(appDir.resolvePath("assets/fonts"));assets.loadQueue(...);!var tf:TextField = new TextField(200, 80, "Hello World", "My-Font", BitmapFont.NATIVE_SIZE);

• Requires only Memory forFont Texture

• Faster to change text + render

MemoryOptimize your Texture Atlas

• Trim transparent Borders

• Activate Rotation

• Use a Tool like TexturePacker

MemoryUse Adobe Scout

• Analyzes TextureMemory Usage

• Shows every single Object Allocation

MemorySummary

• Use the AssetManager

• Use RectangleTextures (profile: auto)

• Use ATF Textures

• Use Bitmap Fonts

• Optimize your Texture Atlases

• Use Adobe Scout

Outlook

• Ongoing Support by Adobe

• Collaborating with Adoberegarding AIR Priorities

• Collaborating with the Starling Community regarding Starling Priorities

• Flash is not dead™ =)

That's it, folks!

Questions?