Evil Window Dog blog

A Pixel Perfect Camera for Unity

petrakeas — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 18:05:42 +0300

Lately, we’ve been working on our upcoming pixel-art 2D game, The Last Priestess. It’s actually an old project that we started building 3 years ago on Cocos 2D. At that time we were targeting iPhone 4/4S which meant that there would be a single resolution on which the game would run. Now, we are using Unity and we are targeting both iOS and Android. This means thousands of possible resolutions. “Why is this a problem?”, you may ask…well, let me introduce you to our little friend!

Texture filtering

In non-pixel art 2D games, a sprite can be rendered in any screen resolution using bilinear filtering. When the sprite is rendered on screen, the screen pixels get their color values by interpolating between the actual texture color values. This produces a smooth result.

If bilinear filtering is used in a pixel-art game, the result gets quite blurry. I will pause here to mention that retro games that used pixel art back in the day were meant to be viewed blurry! The artists took advantage of the gaussian blur that the CRT phosphors offered for free to reduce the ‘blockiness’ of the sprites (take a look here). In order to view those retro games the way they are suppoded to, CRT-shaders have been developed, but this a story for another post. Left: How pixelart games are rendered today Right: How they use to look back in 90s

Nowadays, we want our new pixel-art games to look really sharp and blocky! This is why, nearest neighbor filtering (aka point filtering) is used to render sprites. With this technique, when a texture is sampled, the color value of the nearest texture pixel is returned. Another way to think about that is that each texture pixel gets rendered to multiple screen pixels.

The problem

But how may screen pixels is a texture pixel going to be rendered into? This is where the problem begins to unfold!

Let’s imagine that we have a 4x4 pixels sprite that is being rendered on an 32x32 screen area. Each sprite pixel will render to an 8x8 region. In a less ideal scenario, the screen region could be 38X38, resulting in a 9.5x9.5 screen area (because 38/4 = 9.5). Since we render on non integer pixel lengths, this actually means that the region will sometimes be 9x9 or 10x10. Thus, some texture pixels will appear slightly bigger than others. Even worse, when a sprite moves (translates) the same sprite pixel could change between 10 and 9, creating a shimmering artifact.

The solution

We want the screen resolution to be a multiple of our texture’s size. However, we can’t control the resolution because each device has its own native resolution. What we can do is scale up or down our sprite so that each texture pixel renders to an integer number of screen pixels. Another way to think about this is that we will zoom in or out of our 2D world a bit, in order to match a pixel-perfect ratio.

The perfect candidate to apply this solution in Unity would be the orthographic camera. So, we created a simple script that adjusts the camera’s size in order to achieve a pixel perfect result.

Pixel Perfect Camera script

Using our Pixel Perfect Camera script, you can set the ideal camera width or height in units (Yep, you can set the camera width if you want!). If you enable the pixel perfect mode, the script will set the camera’s size to the closest pixel perfect size to the one you have set.

HTML5 demo

Below you can take a look at a live demo, that makes use of some of our upcoming game’s assets at your browser. In the demo you can toggle the pixel perfect mode of the script and adjust the camera size. When pixel perfect is disabled you can notice the following artifacts:

Shimmering artifacts in the falling word
Distorted geometry of the pixelated grid
Small details in the background, like windows, appear to change size

When pixel perfect mode is enabled, the camera size snaps in specific values. The artifacts disapper in these pixel-perfect sizes.

Get the add-on

Even though some other solutions exist in the Unity Asset store, our approach is simpler and has a few more features that were important for us. This is why we would like to share it with you with no charge!

UPDATE: In order to continue the support and development of Pixel Perfect Camera further, we decided to put a price tag on the addon.

You can download our script from the Unity Asset store. We hope you find it useful!

Linkpack is now available!

stelabouras — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 10:20:34 +0200

We are really excited to announce that Linkpack is now available on the App Store!

Linkpack helps you save web pages directly from your favorite browser (desktop or mobile) into your Dropbox account, so you can view and categorize them the way you want to. You can easily track your reading progress, listen to your saved articles and share folders of links (called Linkpacks) with the world.

With Linkpack your links are always in sync between the app and your Dropbox account, meaning you can use your Mac or PC to organize them as files and folders. You can also add links using the iOS or the Chrome extensions.

Read your links using Readability view and let Linkpack track your progress, so that you can continue from where you left off. You can even enable narration and have the content read back to you while you are on the move.

Finally, if you want to share a Linkpack with the world, the app will generate a unique URL that displays all the links in a beautiful page!

Here are some sample Linkpacks, generated from the app:

Linkpack is free and available on the App Store now! 😊

Horizon 2.0 launch aftermath

stelabouras — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 15:16:00 +0300

As you might know, Horizon 2.0 was released four days ago on the App Store. We have yet received numerous emails, tweets and reviews revealing how much you love this update and the new features we have added to the app. We really want to thank you for that!

While we are already working on the 2.0.1 update and we are getting ready for the Android release, we thought to take a moment and share with you three really good news that happened lately!

Horizon 2.0 on the App Store

Horizon update is now featured across the App Store in over 100 countries in various places.

We are really honored to be part of the ’Split Second Video’ App Store collection, among apps like Vine and Instagram!

Horizon 2.0 has been also featured in the ‘Best New Apps’ section in the front-page of the App Store and also with a unique banner in the Photos & Videos category across the world.

We are really excited & humbled by this! Getting showcased by Apple is always a way of knowing that we are doing the right thing, and also that we are providing you with be possible experience out there.

FbStart: Accelerate

The news do not end there though! We are really excited to announce that we have been chosen by Facebook in its FbStart Accelerate track! But what does that mean essentially?

FbStart will give us the opportunity to use a large number of services (from prototyping and design, to testing and customer care), which will allow us to continuously improve our product even faster!

The Summit 2014 @ Dublin

Last but not least, we have one more announcement to make! We will be exhibiting Horizon during ’The Summit’ in November this year at Dublin, Ireland!

’The Summit’ is one of the world’s most influential and international tech events out there, with attendees coming from companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Dropbox.

If you happen to be visiting 'The Summit’, come and join us! We will be more that happy to chat with any of you in person!

Horizon 2.0 is here!

stelabouras — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 13:09:00 +0300

The 14th of July is here, and this can only mean one thing: Horizon 2.0!

So go ahead and unlock the screen of your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad and open Horizon. You will be greeted by our updated tutorial, which will guide you through the new features of the 2.0 update!

While Photo Mode, 2K and 60 / 120 FPS video recording are the highlighted features of this update, we have made quite a lot of changes almost everywhere!

You can read the full Horizon 2.0 change-log below. We went ahead and highlighted the most important changes for you.

Photo mode! Tap the photo button or swipe anywhere on the screen to switch to photo mode!
You can also take photos while capturing your video!
60 FPS (720p) support for iPhone 5/5S, iPad 2/Mini/Mini Retina/Air users!
2K resolution & 120 FPS / 720p (Slow Motion) support for iPhone 5S devices!
Lossless zoom with the all new ‘Crisp’ resolutions at iPhone 5S.
New Locked mode: Auto. This mode chooses the best locked orientation automagically!
A lot of interface changes that introduce you to the new features!
The leveling modes have been renamed and revamped: Meet Flex, Rotate and Locked mode!
You can now select modes in a much smarter way while capturing.
Toggle flash on/off even while recording.
The library button now takes you directly to your last captured photo or video.
Do you want to massively delete photos and videos from the photo library? Tap the ‘Select’ button, then simply swipe to select your items!
The filters have been updated, now working both on video & photo modes.
The produced photos and videos have correct metadata.
Metadata are now saved correctly with your photos & videos to your photo library
Bug fixes and performance improvements

Oh, and one more thing…

We have a whole new dedicated website just for Horizon on horizon.camera!

You can visit Horizon.camera now, and learn more about Horizon, read User Reviews, the Press coverage and the awards and also play with the interactive demo!

And don’t forget: If you enjoy using Horizon, please take a minute to leave a nice review or rating in the App Store. If you’ve reviewed or rated a previous version of Horizon please resubmit it as ratings are reset with each new update.

Thank you for your support!

Introducing: 60 & 120 FPS, 2K recording and more!

stelabouras — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 16:52:00 +0300

You might have thought by now that the upcoming Horizon 2.0 is all about the Photo Mode, but this is just the peak of the iceberg as far as new features are concerned!

Beginning with the 2.0 update you will have the option to shoot horizontal videos in 60 & 120 FPS as well as capture your moments in a staggering 2K resolution!

Our goal is to make the selection of these new modes as fast and as streamlined as possible, so with just one tap you will be able to choose between them (as shown in the screenshot below) and get the result you want without messing around in the Settings!

The 60 FPS mode produces videos with more natural movement whereas the 120 FPS gives you the ability to add slow motion your creations!

For the 120 FPS slow motion videos we added an extra functionality in Horizon’s build-in video library: Tap & hold for slow motion playback! You will now have the power to slow time while your video is playing, just by tapping & holding your finger on the screen. Release it and your video goes back to normal playback speed.

As for the 2K option, we now let you capture horizontal videos in 2592x1936 resolution at 30 FPS, which isn’t even available in the default Camera app!

For iPhone5S users we have yet another ace upon our sleeves: Crisp modes! Crisp modes take the full 2592x1936 stream from your camera and use it to produce 720p & 1080p videos, resulting in a much more cleaner, or as we prefer to say crispier, output.

All those new modes are available on Apple devices that can support them hardware-wise. The 120 FPS and 2K recording modes are available only on iPhone5S and 60 FPS recording can be found at iPad Mini, iPad Air, iPad Mini Retina, iPhone 5, iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S.

Start shooting horizontally now!

Introducing: Photo Mode

stelabouras — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 13:45:00 +0300

With just one week away from the launch of the first huge update of Horizon, let’s start talking about the cool new features.

With the new 2.0 version you can switch between Video and Photo modes just by tapping on the appropriate button or by swiping your finger anywhere on the screen.

Photo mode allows you to shoot beautiful full resolution horizontal photos, but wait; there’s more! You can also capture horizontal photos while shooting your video. Just tap on the photo button while recording!

Photo Mode and photo capturing while recording will be supported by any device that Horizon already runs on, available for the back as well as the front cameras!

Oh, and we also have a Vine video for it:

Last but not least, you might want to pick Horizon now, as we have dropped its price from $1.99 to $0.99 (-50%) in order for you to be among the first to experience the power of the Photo Mode!

Start shooting horizontally now!

Announcing Horizon 2.0 launch date

stelabouras — Wed, 02 Jul 2014 14:18:16 +0300

We’ve been quite busy the past few months. After the last update back in April, we took a step back and read all of your feature requests since launch. It was quite apparent that most of you wanted cool & powerful new functionality to be added to Horizon, and hey, that was exactly what we wanted too!

So we set out to work on an update that would integrate all those new features and yet more, some of which aren’t even available on the default Camera app! We also had to rewrite most of the ‘backend’ logic of the app to make it faster and more reliable, with tighter integration to the latest iOS libraries.

After two months of hard work, we are finally there. We call this update ‘Horizon 2.0’ due to the extensive list of the new features and we will launch it exactly six months (time does run fast, huh?) after the initial release of Horizon: July 14th, 2014.

This update will be free for all of our existing users as a thank you note for your ongoing support!

In the following days we will introduce you to every single change built in Horizon 2.0, so stay tuned!

Till then, mark the date: 14th of July 2014.

Extreme Horizon experiment: iPhone on Spinning Car Wheel

stelabouras — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 19:59:00 +0300

As we are getting even closer to the release date of the next major Horizon update, we decided to create a small experiment.

We all know by now that Horizon shoots perfect horizontal videos, even if you rotate your device while shooting! We wanted to stress Horizon’s capabilities by using it under extreme circumstances.

Experiment Setup

We attached an iPhone on the front wheel of a car using duct tape and some wires, placed its front face camera at the center of the wheel and took it for a ride! Car’s top speed reached up to 50 km/h (31 mph).

Also, by making use of AirPlay, we were able to monitor the iPhone camera feed on our Macbook in real time.

Analysis

So, what is the conclusion of this simple yet exciting experiment?

Horizon was able to maintain the orientation of the video, but after a while it had to deal with something called centrifugal force.

This bad fella confused the iPhone’s device motion algorithms into thinking that the gravity vector was constantly changing, so the iPhone couldn’t figure out the real gravity vector.

Moreover, the lines of the resulting video look curved and create a cool wobbling effect.

This is because of the iPhone’s “Rolling shutter” camera: when an iPhone captures a picture, it scans the camera input top to bottom and this takes time. Because the rotation speed of the camera is close to the scanning speed, straight lines turn to curved ones!

Result

We are working on an updated version of the experiment that will probably produce better results under this extreme situation!

Here’s the short clip of our little experiment in Vine and also the video that was recorded by Horizon from the front wheel.

We will be back with more experiments soon! Till then stay tuned for the upcoming Horizon update for iOS!

Subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and stay up to day with all of our upcoming releases and experiments!

Horizon, an Amazing Video App

stelabouras — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 14:49:04 +0300

Horizon is now 50% off as part of the App Store’s “Amazing Photo & Video Apps” promotion, alongside apps like Spark Camera, Waterlogue, LetterGlow and Fragment!

This is a limited time offer, so hurry and get Horizon now!

Automating iTunes Connect metadata management

petrakeas — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:24:00 +0200

While getting ready for the latest version of Horizon that supports seven more languages, we had to update our App Store related assets: app description, screenshots, keywords, “What’s New” section etc. Using iTunes Connect interface slowed down the process considerably and did now allow for an easy way to manage and localize all those assets.

This is why we developed and used itunesfs, short for “iTunes File System”. It is a command line tool, written in Python 3, that lets us work directly on our assets and organize them in a simple file hierarchy. It takes care of generating the final .itmsp package that can be uploaded to iTunes Connect.

This approach makes the task of localizing the assets extremely easy, as every language is located inside a folder containing the corresponding files. The task can be automated even further by incorporating the Transifex command line tools.

If you are overwhelmed by maintaining a localized iOS app, you can download itunefs package from PyPi or install it using pip:

$ pip3 install itunesfs

After organising your files in the asset folder, itunesfs is as simple as running this:

$ itunesfs <path to folder>

This tool can be improved even further by adding support for in app purchases, leaderboards etc. If you feel like contributing, here is the project’s repo on Github.

Spring update!

stelabouras — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 12:27:00 +0200

March is here at last and this is what is keeping us busy this period!

Horizon 1.2 update

We have just released the 1.2 update in the App Store, so go get it now!

Here are some highlights of the new version:

Multilingual support! Horizon now speaks seven more languages: French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Russian and German!
Tons of bug fixes
A new option for the ‘Disabled’ mode
64 bit support: Do you own an iPhone 5S, iPad Air or iPad Mini with Retina Display? Then this one is for you!
And did I mention that there are a lot of bug fixes? Oh, did I? OK!

Also, during the process of fully localizing our app (we ❤ Transifex), we localized the iTunes metadata as well (Title, Description, Keywords etc) and we developed & open sourced a way to easily organise and update your iTunes metadata from the console. We call our system iTunes File System (or itunesfs for shorts), is written in Python 3 and it’s ready to serve your needs: Github Repo. You can also find itunesfs on pip for an easier installation: sudo pip3 install itunesfs.

That said, we are even more excited for the 1.3 version of Horizon, that will include even more new features!

Android Version in the works

The Android build is going strong! We have already released a teaser image and we hope to have more screenshots, photos and videos from the Android development process really soon!

Till next time, people!

Horizon is FREE!

stelabouras — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 13:36:00 +0200

We are serious on making Vertical Videos a thing of the past. This is why we set Horizon free for a limited time. Go get it now and spread the word!

Horizon: 1 month later

stelabouras — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 12:26:00 +0200

What a month! To say that Horizon had a pretty good launch it would really be an understatement. As you may have read throughout the Web, Horizon was a top story in numerous technology websites and still, one month after its launch, we are really excited to read new reviews from major media outlets every day!

Horizon is also featured by Apple in various ways (Best New Apps, Promotional Banner, Twitter account), mentioned by famous technology personas such as John Gruber and Robert Scoble and even appeared in foreign mainstream media such as ABCNews, BBC and Spiegel!

We couldn’t be more excited and more humbled at the same time by this response.

As for our plans, we just released the updated version of Horizon mini-site, which now lists a lot of the quotes we received the past month.

We have also released the 1.1 update to the App Store, which includes a huge number of optimizations and fixes, making the app more stable and producing even smoother videos!

We also plan to release the 1.2 update the following weeks, which will feature even more improvements and we are already working on the Android release as well as the next “2.0” update of the app which will include exciting new features!

Now get out there and shoot horizontal videos!

Horizon's phenomenal launch!

stelabouras — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 17:59:00 +0200

Horizon already counts two days of life on the App Store and the reception was something we couldn’t even dream of! Horizon took over the App Stores around the world by storm!

All major media outlets throughout the world have covered its launch with raving reviews. Below you can find some of them:

Techcrunch: “I’ve been using the app for a good chunk of the morning, and it’s pretty solid.”

Engadget: “We just wish Apple and Google had bundled this as standard.“

Gizmodo: "Brilliant, Overdue App Forces Your Phone to Take Horizontal Videos”

TUAW: “Love the UI: it’s intuitive and easy”

The Next Web: “Horizon for iOS means no more vertical videos”

AppAdvice: “You owe it to yourself to check out the new Horizon app for iOS.”

After the first reviews came in, the word about Horizon spread on social media like wildfire! We weren’t even able to track all the tweets and posts about our app!

Being at the top spot in a lot of App Stores might feel really good, but at the same time it makes us realise the responsibility we have to every and each one of you to deliver an even better product in every future update!

We have collected your feedback and we have already mapped out some really cool new features for the next update, so stay tuned!

Horizon is here to stay! :)

Horizon is now available!

stelabouras — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 10:16:07 +0200

That’s it people, after months of development and preparation, our latest app, Horizon is out & about!

You can find Horizon on the App Store for -as a special 50% launch date discount- download it and start recording your horizontal videos now!

You can also check out our launch trailer and the updated website of our app and tell us what do you think on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or in the comments below!

We are really excited about this launch and we must thank every single one of you for your support!

Note: If you can’t find Horizon in your local App Store today (14/1), check back some hours later. Apple releases the app automatically based on your local timezone, so in the first hours the app will appear in some countries and gradually become available globally.

Mark the day: 14 Jan 14!

stelabouras — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 16:42:00 +0200

Horizon launch is just around the corner! In four days we will release our latest project to the App Store and change the way you shoot videos with your iOS device forever!

We will also unveil our launch trailer, the new Horizon website and lots of info from the development process!

So mark your calendars people, cause you don’t want to miss this launch!

Horizon Website is up & running!

stelabouras — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 14:43:33 +0200

Time to reveal Horizon website!

If you visit Horizon you will see an interactive demo of our application running inside your browser, where you will be able to directly compare the output video of our upcoming app with that of the default Camera application of iOS.

In the technical side of things, the mini-site makes a heavy use of HTML5 video, canvas and CSS3 3D transforms to make the experience as smooth as it can be.

As for the app itself, we are literally one step before launch & we just started editing the launch trailer!

If you want to follow our progress, enter your email at the Horizon website and you will always stay up to date with the latest scoop!

Shooting the launch trailer

stelabouras — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 16:13:00 +0200

As we get closer to Horizon launch, we thought it would be really cool to shoot a trailer for the app! But just like all of the other Evil Window Dog aspects, we decided to improve the overall process in order to give Horizon the trailer it deserves!

So we brought Stelios Stefanidis from RedTape Photography, a few friends and occupied a cafe in downtown Thessaloniki (One Sweet Day) for more than three hours!

Although it was our first time & we did a hell of a lot of retakes, we really enjoyed the whole process!

As you can see from the picture above, as well as those on our Facebook Page, we took several scenes that may or may not be used in the final trailer, but they will definitely appear one way or another!

Our next task is probably even trickier: The editing & production of the trailer will be begin right away, so stay tuned for more behind the scenes photos!

And the name is…

stelabouras — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 16:46:00 +0200

I guess it’s time to share with you what we have been working on the past few months.

We teased you a couple of times on our upcoming app and today we will unveil more information!

First up, its name!

Horizon

Horizon, is essentially a camera application for iOS devices, designed to capture horizontal videos. You won’t have to care on how you hold your Apple device; the resulting video will be just right!

Huh, what do you mean “just right”?

As we have already mentioned, Vertical Videos is a plague of our days.

Horizon, not only makes recording vertical videos practically impossible (really, you can try), it also allows users to record horizontal videos while tilting their device!

I want more!

Hold your horses, lad! We will reveal more really soon, till then the name & a screenshot of the interface will do, won’t they? :)

If you wanna know more about Horizon and be the first to catch the future updates & the upcoming release, sign up for our Horizon newsletter!

Vertical Videos, a Public Service Announcement

stelabouras — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 11:53:00 +0200

There is no delicate way of saying this: A plague is going around in the past few years and you may already be a victim of it.

If you own a smartphone then you probably suffer from the ’Vertical Videos Syndrome’ (VVS for shorts).

The problem started appearing with the release of iPhone 3GS and it spread like wild fire.

Since then, the majority of smartphone owners shoot videos while holding their phone in portrait mode, thus creating vertical videos, the worst type of video a human being can lay eyes on.

You may have already watched the following PSA which raises awareness for VVS, or even the ‘Turn Your Phone!’ song that was released this summer.

Quite a bit of an issue, huh?

Wait, it gets worse: VVS is only one of the problems caused by holding your phone wrong while shooting videos. What happens when you rotate your phone while shooting? Or shooting in an angle? Your video gets irrevocably destroyed.

As we are already victims of this very plague, we set out to fix the whole mess & we came up with a pretty elegant solution!

We are really excited about our upcoming product and we can’t wait to show you the result of our hard work!

Till then, note this: You shouldn’t have to care on how you hold your phone.

VVS can & will be stopped!

Transmission ended.