Game Development, strange image effect while moving camera

Question

I'm developing Side Scroll 2D Game, using AndEngine

I'm using their SVG extension (I'm using vector graphic)

But I discovered strange and ugly effect, while moving my player (while camera is chasing player exactly, means while camera is changing its position)

Images of my sprites looks just different, they are like blurred or there is effect like those images would be moving (not changing their possition, just jittery effect, really hard to explain and call this effect properly) Hopefully this image may explain it a bit:

Its more or less, how does it look in the game, where:

a) "FIRST" image is showing square, while player is moving (CAMERA isn't) image looks as it should

b) "SECOND" the same image, but with this strange effect "which looks like image moving/blurring during camera moving [chasing player])

Friend of mine told me that it might be hardware problem:

"the blurring that you notice is actually a hardware problem. Some phones "smooth" the content on the screen to give a nicer feel to applications. I don't know if it's the screen or the graphics processor, but it doesn't occur on my wife's Samsung Captivate. It happens on my Atrix and Xoom though. It's really noticable on the Xoom due to the large screen size."

But seems there is way to prevent it, since I have tested many similar games, where camera is chasing player, and I could not notice such effect.

Is there a way to turn this off in code?

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I'm grateful for previous answers, unfortunately, still problem exist.

Till now, I have tried:

• casting (int) on setCenter method which is being executed on updateChaseEntity
• testing game using PNG images, instead of SVG extension and vector graphic
• different TextureOptions
• hardwareAcceleration

If someone have different idea, what may cause this strange effect, I would be really grateful for help - thank you.

Answer 1

When your player's just going to the right and camera begins chasing him, all other sprites except player are moving to the left. Try to print the absolute coordinates of your "blurring" sprite (or some of its anchor points) to the log. The X-coord of sprite should be decreasing linearly. If you notice it's increasing some times, it could be a reason of blur.

Hope this will help.

Answer 2

Best way to debug it, is try a different looking sprite. Maybe it is just the slow response time of your device display. I'm also an Andengine developer, and never seen such behavior.

Sometimes you fix jittering using FixedStepEngine, it might help.

If you can post your code maybe we can better help you.

Answer 3

I'm not familiar with this engine but I wonder why would you use vector graphics for pixelated art style. I'll be surprised if your character in the screenshot is really a vector art... maybe it's texture imported in SVG? I attempted back in the day to use flash a few times and I was making the same mistake... I'm not saying it's not possible but it's not intended to create pixel art with flash or any other vector software. There is a reason why most flash games have similar look.

Answer 4

Some devices (Xperia Play) bleed everywhere when trying to draw things that are moving quickly. For example a red icon on the application list leaves a blur behind it. You could try hardwareAcceleration in the manifest (on and off) to see if it makes a difference.

You'd probably get the same effect if you weren't using svg

Answer 5

It sounds like it's due to the camera moving in real increments, making the SVG components rest on non-integer bounds, and the SVG renderer making anti-aliasing come into effect to demonstrate this. Try moving the camera in integer increments by casting camera values to int.