Hi All,

I am currently producing a 2d game for IOS and Android versions. My graphics designer said that she can do either PSD or AI files for the graphics. She also mentioned that she never did graphics for IOS version. My understanding was we can use PSD files for both IOS and Android versions.

My questions are

(1) Can I use the PSD files that she provides and use them for IOS version? Or do we need to make any changes?

(2) Which format provides high quality graphics? PSD, AI or anything else?

(3) The game will be developed in Unity. So PSD files will be able to use for Unity?

Thanks for all the replies...

Games do not typically use those formats on any platform. Photoshop and Illustrator documents are not typically supported directly, neither are jpeg or png formats typically directly supported. The images are usually exported to a hardware-friendly format by a tool or by artists.

Unity has some support for extracting the data from those formats and creating textures out of them, but it is generally more common to export out exactly the content you need.

You can use the PSD files in your project, and Unity's automatic extraction tools will probably extract out what you are looking for. But they might not, they might incorrectly combine layers or mess up advanced Photoshop data. You can use the automatic extraction in Unity, it just isn't the typically preferred method.

So which format should I ask the designer to give me for the graphic assets? I am pretty sure that we will be using Unity for the coding. So please suggest me the best suitable format for Unity.

We use PNGs with Unity where I work. Unity will convert those to whatever iOS/Android uses (you can pick the exact format to use in Unity's asset inspector) when you build the IPA/APK.

Get the PSDs for sure, as they're basically the originals.

Anyone with photoshop can export out the image in a format you need, but you might also want the artist to do it for you. If you won't have someone in that capacity, also ask for exported PNG or JPG at lossless quality at the sizes you need. Those exports are in addition to the PSD files.

Unity can probably extract the information from the PSD files as well, but sometimes it extracts it wrong.


When you build your project Unity will process those files into the device-specific formats needed for the mobile device. That happens behind your back so you typically don't need to worry about how it happens.

Why not opt for AI?

You can always scale them to any size. Export them for the format you want and use them in your game.

Do you have Adobe Illustrator?

If you don't have that, either buy it, get a trial, or use http://image.online-convert.com/ (you won't be able to edit!)