Imagemaps or Imagebuttons?

[LiveTurkey]

Which do you guys prefer? Does it make a difference?

At first I started building my game using image maps. That way the game is much smaller since you only need two images per scene. The ground and the hover.

However imagebuttons do seem to provide more flexibility, especially if you plan on adding content. For example if you want to add a interactable character into a classroom setting, you don't have to change the entire ground and hover image. You just add an imagebutton of that character.

Any thoughts? I want to start commissioning art shortly and I don't know if I should go the imagemap route or the imagebutton route.

[Sleepy]

It depends on what you want to do, really. I use image buttons primarily but that's because a ) I find them easier to edit and code for b ) my game is a point-and-click game so I have a lot of different sorts of interaction points and things are often added or removed.

If you have something like a navigation map or something that's going to be operating off a single area anyway, image maps is probably better. If you know you're going to have multiple or spread out interaction points, probably image buttons.

[Imperf3kt]

There may be only two images to imagemaps, but imagebuttons have the advantage of a smaller overall filesize.
You can also reuse some imagebuttons for several uses. For example, a blank "button" that you code the text over. You now have an infinite number of buttons without having to draw every single one.

I pretty much use imagebuttons for the same reasons as Sleepy - ease of use, ease of changing my mind without having to redraw the entire image / recode the hotspots. It is also far easier to move an imagebutton 3 pixels left, than it is to redraw a ground image and the hover image needed in image maps.

[trooper6]

For everything Sleepy and Imperf3kt said, imagebutton are better. You can also give imagebuttons transforms and have the wiggle or zoom when you hover over them. You can focus mask True on them so they don't detect the transparent areas, so you can have oddly shaped (or even just circular shaped) imagebuttons.

imagebutton > imagemap