Help with camera for a 2D PS4 and PSVita game

Hi everybody , my team and I are working a o protoype of a game for both ps4 and ps vita . Programming wise everything is going great but a couple of days ago we decided to implement the real prototype level of the game (one with game design and not just some random platforms and enemies on screen) and then a bunch of questions popped up.
What is our base screen size?
How do we start designing the level if we dont have the correct measures of what the player is seeing on camera?

We are a bunch of noobs making a 2D platformer game on unity so we have no clue of what we are doing.Since we are aiming for 1080p resolution on PS4 (vita's screen resolution is 960x544) originally the main camera was set up to a size of 9.6 (with a pixels to units value of 100 the camera would be 1080 pixels height) . But I dont know if setting up the camera to have 1080 pixels in height is the right thing to do to output an 1080p image . In order to output a 1080p image on PS4 does my camera have to have 1080 pixels of height (in unity) or does the camera size does not influence the final resolution of the game when I make the build of the game and set it up to a certain base resolution (So , could I have a camera of size 5 and then on export settings set the base resolution to 1080p)?

And what screen size should we use as our base screen size to start creating levels , sould we use the vita screen as the base screen (960x544) or should we just design the level with a 1080p camera in mind ?

PSA : When I say base screen size I mean the base unit of size of our level (for examen , our level could be 3 screens width and 5 screens height).

 

Make it resolution independent. It's not difficult, and it's easily tested via the game window in unity. It being PS4 or Vita is entirely irrelevant.

Using unity units for everything is fine, things will scale to fit. As for the UI I suggest you use Unity UI and follow the learn tutorials for that, as it also supports resolution independence.

 

So should I set up a global (standart) pixels to units value and then tell the designers : "hey , use this (unity units) for all the measurements you have to do " ? And what about the camera size , should I stick to 9.6 or could I just set it to a different number (one that fits what the designers want to show on screen on a given time) and then unity would scale things up (or down) to fit the targe screen resolution(PS4 or Vita)?

 

Only the GUI generally matters, and if you follow the Learn tutorials for Unity's UI, you will be able to make a resolution *and* aspect-ratio independent gui. These are anchors, you generally anchor a UI element somewhere at the edges and it's local to that area so it doesn't actually matter.

So your health will be say, center-bottom or whatever and the score top right, and Unity takes care of all that from 4:3 right up to 16:9 or whatever.

Make the game first then worry about this, just make sure you do not use pixel measurements, but Unity units (in-editor scales, the default stuff).

In general *don't* set up a pixel->unity scale. Unity sprites have snapping capability (it's in the shader) and it will just generally work. Working with per-pixel stuff is kind of 5 years out of date at this point.

You might want it on steam, mobile, etc - pointless going down those routes. Just build it in editor. If artists need a specific size to work with, do some tests, get the gameplay down then you'll know

I've done a few titles in the past: The Other Brothers, Runner, and so on... and none of these ever cared about pixel measurements.