Add pixel_size property to Sprite node

[KoBeWi]

Closes #23145

Works as an alias for scale, as changing one updates the other.

[isaacremnant]

I was really confused by the term "pixel size" for a second, wouldn't "image size" be better?

[groud]

Honestly I don't think this feature is needed. It's a one liner in GDscript, so I don't think it is worth the bloat in the sprite properties.

[KoBeWi]

Well, the PR is there. Related issue could be closed whether it's merged or not.

Although if by any chance it's going to be merged, I guess it should use another way to detect size change, other than subscribing to notification. I just didn't know how to do it properly, so any advice is welcome >.>

[reduz]

I also don't think this is very useful, you know the pixel size when you create the art and in Godot most 2D games are pixel perfect anyway.

[akien-mga]

I'm also unsure how useful this is. If you need pixel level precision, chances are that you don't want to scale at all, or scale only by powers of two, so abstracting the scale behind a "pixel size" seems misleading.

Can we know more about the use case? The feature request only says "add this", but not why.

[Jummit]

I'm also unsure how useful this is. If you need pixel level precision, chances are that you don't want to scale at all, or scale only by powers of two, so abstracting the scale behind a "pixel size" seems misleading.

Can we know more about the use case? The feature request only says "add this", but not why.

One issue I often face is that I have to resize my assets for Godot because they are too large, and resizing them with the scale would affect all the children. I think the better solution would be to add a local scale, that only scales one node. This could be used not only for sprites, but for all 2d nodes, which would be quite useful.

[timoschwarzer]

I like @Jummit's idea, something like 'Self Opacity' and 'Opacity' but for scaling.

[CedNaru]

I don't think it's an issue about scaling. A local scale variable would not change the root of the problem.
Before any scaling, the size of the Sprite IS the size of the texture.
In pixel perfect/low res game, it is mandatory in order to avoid blurriness/deformation. But in high res 2D game, textures can be treated like in 3D environnement where you change the size of your texture to adjust performance/art quality.
Even if the size change is a factor of two, it can be tedious to change all scaling factor for the involved Sprite2Ds.
To be clear. The goal is an option that let users define a prescaling size that doesn't change when the texture size change.
The solution may be to have an option to choose between "automatic sizing" which depend on the texture (default behaviour in current Godot) and "manual sizing" which depend on a width and height parameters.

"Pixel size" is a misleading name in my opinion even if I understand that KoBeWi chosed it because the distance unit in Godot 2D is the pixel.

[timoschwarzer]

@CedNaru Ah, you want something like a target size? Like "always render that Sprite at X by Y pixels, regardless of texture size"?

[CedNaru]

@timoschwarzer Exactly!
But "Always render" is not a good expression because it would still be affected by the scale factor.

[timoschwarzer]

I think that's what TextureRect does with stretch_mode, with the overhead/disadvantage of being a Control node.

[CedNaru]

TextureRect is a Control Node and it misses a lot of options that Sprite2D have.
Edit: You edited while I was commenting

[CedNaru]

A even simpler option would be to have a boolean like "Keep the same apparent size when changing texture".
It would change the scaling automatically in this case.
We lose a more explicit control with a width and height property but don't bloat the Sprite inspector.

[KoBeWi]

I could change the "sprite size" to a property that enforces certain size when set above 0, if that would be more useful.

[eon-s]

This sounds more like a Texture importing option than sprite property.

[CedNaru]

We are talking about enforcing the size of the sprite, not the size of the texture.
In the current version, you can partially control the size of the texture in the import options but it's only a max size limit.
Even if an import option for enforcing a specific texture size is added. It would mean that two different Sprites with the same texture can't have different target size.
On the other hand, the issue we discussed applies to all 2D nodes using textures, not only Sprite2D. So an import option would resolve globally this issue without the need to directly modify the source code of several nodes.

[akien-mga]

Reading the above discussion, it does seem like the original request from #23145 is not particularly useful. Some further use cases have been outlined which are not covered in this PR:

• The possibility to have a Sprite with a pre-defined size that will not change when changing the texture (thus auto-adjusting the scale if the texture changes). That's quite a corner case IMO, but also trivial to do with a tool script or a custom node extending Sprite. You can just export a fixed_size variable and set the scale to match it as needed.

• Allowing to scale / resize a texture without impacting the children of a Sprite node, as some kind of "Self Scale". IMO this could introduce a lot of complexity in all math and physics calculation that depend on the scale. If the use case is valid, this could likely be done via a texture import option to set a target texture size, so that the imported texture is resized during import and will then be used with its new target size.