What camera viewport width and height should I use with orthographic camera

Question

I am very beginner to game programming and Libgdx. I am really confused what camera viewport size should I use. In some articles i found that they used 480x800 which is same as target device size. In some articles I found the use meters as 5x5 meter.

So which method is better and how (if you can give some benefits). If I use meter unites for camera viewport then which is first mapped, width or height.

If i use 5x5 meter for 480x800 pixels device then visible area of world

height = 5 meter = 480px and
width = 800/480 * 5 = 8.33 meter
or
width = 5 meter = 800px and
height = 480/800 * 5 = 3 meter

Is it correct calculation of visible world size and which is used first or second.

I am confused when they start using meter for size everywhere instead of pixels. like actor size is 1x1 meter even it is only 64x64 px. It is really difficult to estimate position and size for me.

Please link any good article about camera and camera units.

Answer 1

Whatever dimensions you specify, they'll be mapped to the entire screen by default. If the aspect ratios don't match, the displayed graphics will be stretched. So if you set your camera to a 5x5 coordinate system on a non-square screen without changing the drawing area, it'll be heavily distorted. If you render it in a square desktop window, it'll be fine.

The advantage of using smaller coordinate systems is that it's easier to calculate with, and possibly more meaningful in the context of a game - e.g. you can think of them as meters, as you said. It's useful in cases where the content matters more than the exact positions on the screen - like drawing the game world.

Using larger coordinates which match the resolution of some devices can be more useful when you're drawing UI. You can see how large you should make each image, for example, if you target that resolution. (Scaling can cause distortions.)

But ultimately, it's a matter of preference. Personally, I like smaller coordinate systems more, so I recently coded my level select menu in a 20*12 system. (I did run into problems when rendering a BitmapFont though - they were not very well made for scaling like this.) Others might prefer to work with resolution-sized coordinates for gameplay rendering as well. What matters is that you should make sure you're not distorting the graphics too much by badly matching aspect ratios.

Answer 2

try 136 for Width and 204 for Height