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MatchaTime
Participant
July 25, 2019
Answered

best dpi to work with for interactive media?

  • July 25, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 555 views

Greetings! I am an animator working on updating an interactive graphic novel, with our ultimate target being html5, mobile, and browser. For reference here's a link to a video recording of Ch1 of the old version of this project. CIA Operation Ajax - 1/10 - YouTube

We are still in early stages of development and currently working at 72dpi. Optimization is good, but the images are a little blurry so i did some research and found out 72dpi might be an outdated size to work at since most modern screens have much higher dpi. I tried working on a section of the comic at 120dpi and the images look good but then image sizes are too large to fit nicely with the texture resolution which is set at 1024x1024 (2048x2048 seemed too large and Animate would take too long or crash at this size). 

Anyway, Im curious to know if anyone has suggestions on which dpi is best to work at and if there is any tips on better optimization. would appreciate any kind of help. Thanks so much.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer ClayUUID

"DPI" is print terminology, for talking about images that are going to end up on a physical piece of paper. When applied to interactive media it's completely meaningless. All that matters for screen content is raw pixel resolution. You need to put "DPI" completely out of your head when dealing with non-print media.

Now, if you'd instead asked "What's the best bitmap resolution for interactive media?" ... well, this is like asking "What's the best shoe size?" The only meaningful answer is "Whatever size is the best fit for you."

Generally though, you should generate assets at whatever your native output resolution is going to be. If you don't have a native resolution—if your content can be scaled up—then you need to decide how much scaling up before blurring or pixelization becomes evident is acceptable to you. This is a judgment call. There is no one right answer.

1 reply

C
ClayUUIDCorrect answer
Legend
July 26, 2019

"DPI" is print terminology, for talking about images that are going to end up on a physical piece of paper. When applied to interactive media it's completely meaningless. All that matters for screen content is raw pixel resolution. You need to put "DPI" completely out of your head when dealing with non-print media.

Now, if you'd instead asked "What's the best bitmap resolution for interactive media?" ... well, this is like asking "What's the best shoe size?" The only meaningful answer is "Whatever size is the best fit for you."

Generally though, you should generate assets at whatever your native output resolution is going to be. If you don't have a native resolution—if your content can be scaled up—then you need to decide how much scaling up before blurring or pixelization becomes evident is acceptable to you. This is a judgment call. There is no one right answer.

    M
    MatchaTimeAuthor
    Participant
    July 26, 2019

    Thanks so much for your reply! Looks like we will need to do a bit more experimenting with what resolution is best to work at but this was really helpful.

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