2d platform game with zoom in and out

Question

I am using AndEngine, and I wish to create a 2d platform game like worms, where I can zoom out to see the whole world and zoom into single character, so I can select it.

I do not want to use the zoom camera, because I do not want scaling. I want the user to see the platform crystal clear.

The only thing I thought about, is making N levels of ZOOM, where each zoom level has it's own set of tiles - very problematic solution, or doing it the other way around - making a huge tiles and sprites, and scaling them down - which still feel a little awkward to me. What is the right way to implement such a thing???

Thanks!!!

Answer 1

Well, why does the things you said feel awkward? It's the way to go.

You can create the assets for the closest zoom level for the best quality. When zooming out, you will see scaling (down), but that usually looks ok. In my game I simply create full HD textures and thanks to that, my game looks ok on all mobile devices.

You can also use LOD (level-of-detail) techniques to change the graphics when the zoom level reaches certain threshold. This is not implemented in AndEngine, but you should be able to write the code yourself. The LOD techniques can involve blending between the high detail and low detail graphics, so you won't see a "jump" in the quality.

Answer 2

If you are going to have set zooms then mipmapping is probably the best way to go. By using mipmaps you won't have to worry about needlessly filling in information as you change levels of detail as it is all pre-calculated.

Usually what you do is make a large texture and using a procedure you create yourself you can then halve the size of the texture and from the original source texture you sample the texture data and apply some sort of convolution method to build up a new texture of half the original size. From there you halve the size again and take the new texture you created to make a new texture again. Once this is done and you're happy with how many LOD textures you have you don't need to ever do this again.

Mipmapping is actually used a lot because it has advantages in both visual and performance area's. You won't have to worry about making a algorithm which expensive but gives you a great visual output because it will only need to be done once.