stjuuv

Uh, no...because 25bpp is totally uncompressed data - which would just be plain silly. With lossless compression you should be able to easily get 15bpp - perhaps better. 8bpp (or one byte per pixel) is probably a reasonable compromise for good lossy compression without any visible loss in quality. I already covered that in my original post as well. Your estimate of 15 bits per pixel for lossless compression is pretty much the same as my estimate of 2 bytes per pixel, and it would still add up to about 25 GB of raw image data. If you are optimistic enough to expect a 1 byte per pixel average compression rate (which would, in my opinion, indicate a rather dull and colorless world, which I don't think will be the case) it would still add up to more than 10 GB of raw background image data without any other game content, which is likely to take a considerable amount of space as well, now that we are going for orchestrated soundtracks etc etc. That is more than 1 (closer to 1,5) dual-layer DVD worth of data just for the images, and is still something that would need to be taken into account when starting to distribute the game. I personally think the image data might be more than 2 dual-layer DVDs in itself, plus everything else. That will raise the question of whether it is desirable to distribute the total game on 3+ DVDs, or consider using other options for physical media.

Does anyone have an idea of how much does it cost for publishers to order large batches of blu-ray discs or several DVDs with their "gone gold" game? Given that the flash memory prices are continuously dropping, then by spring of 2014 could it be feasible to use custom cased 64GB flash drives for distribution? uh...2bpp (bits per pixel) would mean 3.2GB, but that would probably mean image quality lower than a typical JPG file - Lossy compression is fine, as long as you don't go too low ... 8bpp would give us considerable space savings as well as image quality that would be VERY hard to distinguish from the original uncompressed one.One other thing - we don't really need 32bpp for the original image - if the alpha channel is only used for transparency, it can essentially be just a monochrome map - meaning that the background only needs 25bpp. I was using "bytes per pixel" not "bits per pixel" as units. Your value of 32 bits per pixel would therefore be the same as 4 bytes per pixel, and the numbers would work out the same as mine (close to 50GB of background image data), as long as we agree on the estimated amount of maps and sizes. Going to 25 bits per pixel would give a saving of about 20%, but would still keep the (relatively) lossless image total of tens of gigabytes. Going by your figure of 25 bits per pixel, a 100MB image would be about 5800x5800 pixels or roughly 3 by 3 screen areas at a resolution of 2560x1440. Looking at BG2 (which I am playing right now), that is hardly a large area, especially at the native resolutions of BG2. Most of the larger maps should be around 6 by 6 screen areas, meaning they should be around 4 times larger than your estimate, and a single background would land at about 400MB.

There's a lot of different estimates on the total size of the background images here, and a lot of them don't even elaborate on most of the assumptions they are making. Fortunately a few of the posters have already explained this as well, but everything depends on the amount of pixels you are expecting that the game backgrounds have in total, and the compression that can be applied to those images. From this thread and a few other sources, it seems to me that lossless compression could get the file sizes down to about 4 bytes per pixel. Adding some lossy compression as well might maybe get the sizes down to even 2 bytes per pixel, but that is contestable. Another question is the total amount of visible "screenfulls" of background images we are talking about. I would offer a ballpark figure of about 100 maps made up from 6 by 6 screens, so a total of 3600 about screenfulls of background images. That is quite a lot, but I am factoring in some larger exploration areas as well, which might not be as time-consuming production-wise as detailed city areas or complex indoors locations, but will nevertheless take up space on the disk. So, using a native resolution of 2560x1440 pixels, we get a total background data of about 13 gigapixels. Using a 4 bpp compression, that translates to about 50 GB of image data, and using a more optimistic 2 bpp compression, about 25 GB of image data. For a game that is likely released in 2014, I don't think that size (plus all the rest of the game data) should be a problem for anybody. The kickstarter was for not only a PST/BG/IWD style game, but also a good-looking game, and you can't expect a game that has good-looking (by modern standards) game with 2D-environments to be less than a DVD in size anyway.

So given that the minimum resolution for BG was 640x480, and for PE they are talking about a minimum of 1920x1080, that makes almost a 7-fold difference in the number of pixels. That would make the static background of the same map around 110 MB in size. That makes it unlikely, in my opinion, that they will go for any higher resolutions, like 2560x1600, without upsampling (hopefully not) or increasing view area. Supporting the same map at the same view area and full background quality at WQXGA resolutions would mean another 2x increase in file size, and 220 MB for a single map static background, without any of the effects and props would be quite something.