scene optimization and .res and .scn file format question

MillowDoe

Hi! I'm very new to Godot and coding in general so please be patient with me.
I started a small 2d dress up game this weekend and its been working fine so far.
However, I have this message showing up and it got me worried.

Most of the pieces of clothing are basically Sprite2d with a collision stored as a .tscn file and I suspect that's the main reason this is showing up.
My question is: Should I change the .tscn resources to .res or .scn? and how can I decide which format to use? does it depends on what is the resource used for?

I'm a bit confused on what's the difference between the formats and I don't really get them.

Tomcat

MillowDoe My question is: Should I change the .tscn resources to .res or .scn? and how can I decide which format to use?

TSCN file format

The TSCN (text scene) file format represents a single scene tree inside Godot. Unlike binary SCN files, TSCN files have the advantage of being mostly human-readable and easy for version control systems to manage.

Save the .tscn scene as a .scn file and see how much smaller it becomes.

does it depends on what is the resource used for?

No.

However, I have this message showing up and it got me worried.

This message appears when Godot determines that the scene is taking up too much disk space. You can disable this warning in the editor settings.

MillowDoe for example the resolution for all the clothing and base body are 1656 x 3000.

What is your target resolution? 4K? Do you expect many players to have monitors with that resolution?

DaveTheCoder

Why is the binary image data embedded in the .tscn file? Sprite2D textures are normally in separate image files (.jpg, .png, .svg, etc.), and referenced in the .tscn file as external resources. That keeps the .tscn files small.

For example, this is the relevant code generated in a .tscn file for a texture:

...
[ext_resource type="Texture2D" uid="uid://jk4esamjqqta" path="res://icon.svg" id="1_8lvey"]
...
[node name="DefaultSprite" type="Sprite2D" parent="Target"]
texture = ExtResource("1_8lvey")
...

MillowDoe

DaveTheCoder I'm... not sure?
In the .tscn file it shows the same kind of code

The .tscn I'm having the warning "dressup.tscn" shows the sprites in the scenes like this:

[ext_resource type="Texture2D" uid="uid://d0o30qw3ji2yv" path="res://bg.png" id="1_odahq"]

and the subresources like this

[ext_resource type="PackedScene" uid="uid://c5ailoi5g6hw8" path="res://skirt_red.tscn" id="38_mp4j3"]

I'm not sure what should I do or look to verify why is this happening. Maybe I set up the sprite wrong? or maybe I'm using an image file that's too big? for example the resolution for all the clothing and base body are 1656 x 3000.
I just don't really know I'm so confused.

MillowDoe

Tomcat My target res would be around HD to 2K, nothing really big. I'm used to work on big res when doing art.

Tomcat

MillowDoe My target res would be around HD to 2K

Then you definitely don’t need 1656 x 3000. That’s an excessive size that won’t be utilized.

It takes up a lot of space — players will be downloading extra data that won’t provide any improvement in quality.
An image that’s too large may look significantly worse when scaled down — fine lines that look good at a large size may disappear

I'm used to work on big res when doing art.

It makes sense to work with the size that players will actually see. When developing games, it’s important to choose the right image quality and size. What’s excessive isn’t healthy. Co zanadto, to nie zdrowo.

MillowDoe

Tomcat
I reduced the size of my sprites and changed the scenes to .scn and saved a lot of space!
I wanted to add that I discovered that most of my buttons had themes override options enabled, so I switched to using a theme once I learned about it and the warning stopped showing!

Thanks for all the guidance and advice!