Comments on: 2D Sprite Animation in Android Addendum

By: Tim H

Tim H — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:01:26 +0000

Hi,
Romain Guy is saying this setting is ignored in all versions of Android, for decodeResource:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7068132/why-would-i-ever-not-use-bitmapfactorys-inpurgeable-option/7068403#7068403

By: Doomed

Doomed — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:33:41 +0000

I know this is a little off topic however i was really impressed with this site and as a graphic designer it was good to get a little insight into how sprites are processed. Its also 3:27am and ive had a few beers… However i was hoping to find some information or direction into specifications or tutorials for creating sprites in photoshop or any other software (Mac). I have been a print designer for 8 years and have just been offered a chance to develop games and apps for both Iphone and android but have no current knowledge of the file formats and specs required, any help would be greatly appreciated.
doomedink (at) hotmail (dot) com
cheers!

By: barbared

barbared — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:47:06 +0000

intresting post, but…….why you load the bitmap in the sprite class?
i mean. if yuo create a class to store all the bitmap, then load there the bitmap as needed and pass that class to all the the sprite instances you need on screen, if u have to use…let say, 200+ sprite animation of the same, yuo still have loaded only one bitmap for all the animation on screen.
sure, yuo still need to purge the bitmaps at the end anyway . (sry for the engRish )

By: Thorsten

Thorsten — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:55:36 +0000

Line three in Andre’s code should say:
BitmapFactory.Options.class.getField(“inPurgeable”).set(opts, true);

By: André

André — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 13:53:55 +0000

Wonderful tip! I wouldn’t have discovered this on my own…

But there are still a lot of Android 1.5 devices out there. Actually more than 25% users of my game Puzzle Blox are still on 1.5. So it’s quite important to me not to break backward compatibility.

Here’s the code I’m using:

BitmapFactory.Options opts = new BitmapFactory.Options(); 
try {
  BitmapFactory.class.getField("inPurgeable").set(opts, true);
} catch (Exception e) { 
  // inPurgeable is not supported on the current API level
}

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:42:23 +0000

Good tip, really helps!

By: DR

DR — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:26:29 +0000

API level 4 is Android 1.6 Donut and your right it won’t run on 1.5 devices. However you can run it in the 1.6 emulator and 1.6 should be released to commercial devices in the next few weeks meaning you can then deploy it to devices as normal.

By: Stephen Flockton

Stephen Flockton — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:38:20 +0000

By: honte

honte — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:17:32 +0000

Then, this means that this app won’t work in Android 1.5 devices? as seen in the doc : http://developer.android.com/intl/es/guide/appendix/api-levels.html#level4 , api level 4 means that the devices must run at least Android 2.0 Donut.