How to reduce your project's size, without losing quality!

[Third333strike]

Okay well, we all have projects we are working on.

During my time making Fallen Shadows, I realized the game was getting a bit bigger than I expected.

There is two main sources of information when making your game. Images and Audio.

In this tutoiral I will explain how to reduce both of these file types.

I always save my images as*.png's, as they are the best looking, and smallest filesize that I know of.

When I use GIMP, I always compress as much as possible.

Recently, I came across a program called PNGOUTWin.

If you download this program, it will take batch files of images, and "cut" any extra data out, thus reducing all of your images from 20-80% more.

This is lossless quality, your images will still look the same.

Reducing Image Size

Step 1 - Download - PNGOUTWin.

Step 2 - Choose files to shrink

Next, If you have any MP3's in your project, you may want to think about converting them to OGG's.

Reducing Music Size

Step 1 - Download - MP3 WAV WMA OGG Converter

Step 2 - Convert all your MP3's to OGG's



Links -

http://www.ardfry.com/pngoutwin/

http://www.audio-converter.com/

 

[Devon Jacobs]

If I may add to this. You may also export and delete any default music, images, tilesets, etc. that you will not use in it to provide more room for other things you might need instead. Although this is a small portion of space it will provide useful and less clutter.

 

[Third333strike]

That is if you are going to include the RTP in your games download. I am including the RTP into my game, but only becuase I have not had the time to take the select few things from the RTP I am using, and put them into my project. But yes, very good point.

 

[zeldrak]

this is a very useful tutorial, especially for "epic" sized games. This will most surely prove useful on my game.

 

[Third333strike]

this is a very useful tutorial, especially for "epic" sized games. This will most surely prove useful on my game.

Awsome, glad that this helped somebody

 

[Sailerius]

Huh, I didn't even think about ogg conversion... about how much smaller than mp3s are they?

 

[Third333strike]

Alot smaller. Definitly worth it.

 

[Ciel-chan]

Really? MP3's and OGG are almost similar in file size when I looked. I still prefer OGG because it loops smoothly compared to MP3's. You might also want to say that you could reduce the quality of your music. I don't think full quality music is helping a game become popular if the lower quality sounds similar. 22050 Hz isn't as good as 44100 Hz, but it's still acceptable, no?
I like the idea the extra PNG. It'll really come in handy now.

 

[antifarea]

About mp3 size reduction, your best bet is this:

STEP 1: Download the wavepad, it's free. Second you have to open an existing mp3 that you want to use in the game. What you do is that you check the chart and see where it repeats. then you stop it there before it repeats.

STEP 2: After that you highlight everything and right click and select "copy". Then you close that file, and select to create a new file. Do it under the quality of 32000 khz (trust me they lower the size and still doesn't kill the quality like in 22'something quality)...

STEP 3: Once you have started the new file, right click and select "paste". After the program has done pasting the data, the music will play... don't bother listening to it, just go to "save". And then select the extension after that to .mp3 and give it the name. I usually use the original file name of the song but only add an "-" in the end. You will be surprised how you can transform a 5mb mp3 into a 1.something mb easily, with slight difference in quality, and size.

EXTRA STEP: Now... if you really wanna assasinate half the size of the mp3 that you just created... then you will go to the program, highlight the data of the file just like you did before and then you will select the "improve speed 50%"... this is self explanatory. Although the mp3s will sound really fast when you play the file, you just import it on the rmxp and then when selecting the music for the place or whatever, you just lower the pitch/speed ratio -50%... and there won't be problems with the speed. Also to end my post, doing this extra step will lower the quality a little more... I don't do so, cause it doesn't sound that great.

 

[Ciel-chan]

Aww .. 22050 isn't as good as 32000? Shoot. I already know how to convert MP3 to OGG, I just wondered why it's smaller, because they are identical in filesize. MP3 doesn't work well for me so OGG wins anyways. Sorry if my question above was kinda meaningless. Goldwave/Audacity is useful too for those that would want something different though.

 

[KDawg08]

I recommend using Total Audio Converter, choose the folder of songs or single songs u want to shrink, put them into ogg format at the highest settings, and change the quality tab to "0" and it still sounds wonderfull, I'll upload a couple in a few minutes when mine finishes (ALL UNDER 1.6MB) most are under 1mb and still have the original sound quality.

 

[Glitchfinder]

Aww .. 22050 isn't as good as 32000? Shoot. I already know how to convert MP3 to OGG, I just wondered why it's smaller, because they are identical in filesize. MP3 doesn't work well for me so OGG wins anyways. Sorry if my question above was kinda meaningless. Goldwave/Audacity is useful too for those that would want something different though.

It depends on the original MP3. It could be anywhere from an absolutely monstrous uncompressed file to a horrid microsized file. I'm guessing his MP3s are leaning toward the uncompressed side of the spectrum.

 

[SorcerGamble2]

i have actually convertedd ogg to mp3 for a smaller size... i usually go with 22,000 and 64kbps... (not sure of the lingo but the numbers are right) ... this makes for a smaller mp3 than the average ogg even.  i always listen to the converted music to see if it is acceptable and up the ante a bit if i'm losing noticeable quality... i try to keep tracks at 1.5 mb or less, preferably less than 1 mb each.  current project hovering at 80mb for music and about 10mb for SE.  Graphics take up a lot more... So i am VERY interested to see if this PNG shrinking program helps or not.

Also, i convert all .wav files to mp3 ... not very usefull if you don't have a lot of sound efx, but some wav files are way oversized and this deffinitely helps if your games uses alot of SE.

(EDIT)  the PNG shrinker works pretty well, i am seeing shrinkage of anywhere from 10-25 percent with an average probably around 17 percent, so its deffinitely worth doing if you're concerned about size at all.

(RE-EDIT) hmm... when you re-import the shrunken PNG's into your project RMXP re-ups the file size a bit... a person might be able to get around this by shrinking them right in the original folder, not sure.  Also, since RMXP creates self-archiving .exe file and seems to do a pretty good job of that, i don't know that this actually helps, as it may simply reduce those files less when archiving them.

One thing that deffinitely does help with PNG graphics though... if any of your files havn't been reduced to 256 colors .... a 1mb file can come down to about 1/3 of a mb using a freeware program like InfranView.

 

[QuantumMindGames]

Sorry for the necropost - sifting through tutorials and noticed that nobody mentioned that you can open up a .png in a program like photoshop, or better yet, Paint.NET - which is 100% free, and save as .jpg, with the option of how much you reduce the quality. You can shave off around 2/3 of the size just by converting to JPEG at 100% quality. Or, depending on how picky you are, if you want even smaller filesize with no drop in quality that is visible to the naked eye, you can lower the jpg's quality to 95, 90, I've even used 75% with no difference in quality (not a very complex, high-def style picture though, but i dont see why some smaller rpg maker files can't be reduced to this and still look the same)

PNG = 93.2 KB

JPG 100% Quality = 28.0 KB


I recommend downloading Paint.NET for this, it's what I used for these examples. Sorry about the eerie eye posted all over.


EDIT: if anyone wants to try it, optimizing the file reduction by using the png shrinker and then trying this process might work better.

 

[Zekallinos]

But JPG doesn't support transparency. Reason 1 why it can't be used for most ressources. Reason number 2 : It's loosy. Meaning it's going to make pixelart horrible.

The only use is for panoramas, fogs and such, and I'm sure mot people already use JPG in that case.

 

[Zeriab]

JPGs does deserve a mention (I thought they already were)
If they are mentioned then they should be compared with PNGs.
PNGs the best choice during development since its lossless where as JPG is a lossy compression. (Of course JPGs shouldn't be converted to PNGs. The artifacts introduced by JPGs does not fare well as PNGs).
When it comes to the distribution phase one could consider converting PNGs to JPGs excluding any transparent pictures and pixel art.
If and only if the JPG version is significantly smaller and the artifacts introduced are not noticeable should it be used over the PNG version.

If unsure always pick the safe option, i.e. the .png file.

*hugs*
- Zeriab