How do I organize sprites/atlases to keep file size low?

[BagelCakes]

I’m new to game development in general so I don’t know much about how things work. My aim is to make a 2D mobile game, so I want to keep file size to a minimum and I have a few questions on organization.

1. If I’m making a game that could potentially have hundreds of monsters, do all of the sprites for every single creature go in one atlas/how are things like this normally organized? Also, what would happen if I made them all separate atlases? Would that cause the game to become overwhelmingly huge in file size? What cases, if any, would I want to make a separate atlas?

2. Is it okay to import a sprite with a large resolution and then size it down or will that end up making the file size too large?

[britzl]

@BagelCakes

If I’m making a game that could potentially have hundreds of monsters, do all of the sprites for every single creature go in one atlas/how are things like this normally organized? Also, what would happen if I made them all separate atlases? Would that cause the game to become overwhelmingly huge in file size? What cases, if any, would I want to make a separate atlas?

You want to try and maximize the use of each atlas and have as few of them as you can. If you have several small atlases with unused space that will waste memory. Also the more atlases you draw from the more draw calls you will have too.

@BagelCakes

Is it okay to import a sprite with a large resolution and then size it down or will that end up making the file size too large?

Do not use larger images than needed. Make sure that the source images are of the correct size.