It could be from leaks, but if it is - as you say - immediate, it is probably from loading resources.
2.gen devices will pop level 1 warnings from textures quite easily, as they have fixed texture memory.

Thanks guys,
Tried a release build and noticed an immediate improvement, even without any optimisations - I'll start on those next;)
I did notice an immediate memory warning though, could this be from anything other than my game assets and objects using too much memory?

Cheers

@Mister_Cheese

cocos3d does not cull objects to maintain frame rate.

Translucent objects are drawn in reverse-order of by distance from the camera. If your nodes are large planar objects (which, based on their names, it sounds like they might be), nodes moving from side to side can move ahead or behind other nodes as the straight-line distance to the node from the camera changes.

Read the notes for, and try playing with, the shouldUseOnlyForwardDistance property of the drawing sequencer. The sequencer is found in the drawingSequencer property of your CC3World.

You can also try playing with the shouldDisableDepthMask and shouldDisableDepthTest properties of some of your mesh nodes, to fiddle with how they are compared to other objects during drawing. Again, read the notes for those properties as well.

...Bill

The best thing is to learn how to use instruments to work out where the performance problems are. Often it is in places you never expected.

I see in another thread you are using CCTMXTiledMap? Is that for the background of your breakout game perchance? If so try performance with the tile map disabled. I don't use CCTMXTiledMap but from memory it can be a performance problem if not used correctly.

It's not so much bad performance, as in not great performance compared to comparable games. I'll try some of your suggestions out and see how they go.
Thanks

@Hemingway72 - you should not be having bad performance with a breakout game. cocos2d is more than capable of handling that. If you are having performance issues it must be something you are doing wrong and we can't read your mind.

Do you have code for collision detection? Touch handling? Creating and destroying lots of objects can also hit performance.

Thanks for the comments.
OK, I'll check Infinity Field. And I'll try a release build.
I know there are a few optimisations I can try.
Are there any other specific things that might improve performance?

Cheers

@Hemingway72 - I have to agree with Birkemose. You aren't doing it right. Look at a game like Infinity Field for an example of cocos2d taken to the max. It urinates on Atari's Breakout game (from a great height).

However, without seeing any code we can't tell you what you are doing wrong. It could be something as simple as you have too many log statements in your code, they are real performance killers. Also make sure you test performance on a device with a release build.

@Hemingway72
Many great games are made with cocos2d, and while there can be cases where you use OpenGL directly to achieve some special effects, cocos2d is more than enough to make anything in 2D.
So I am afraid, that the reason your breakout clone doesn't feel right, is to blame on yourself.

I do not think I would use a physics engine for a game like that, unless there was something special I was trying to achieve, like the debris from shattered tiles tumbling in a lifelike fashion, or whatever.

Not sure what you mean by a solid look and feel. You could try to use box2d for the physics, or use easing with CCActions to smooth the path etc.

Hi All,

Does the overhead of using cocos 2D mean that I will never achieve the quality of animation compared to using native opengl?

I've been playing around creating a basic Breakout style game using cocos 2D. The ball movement is achieved through updating ball.position * delta (change in time) each iteration of the game loop.
When I compare the look and feel of my animation to that achieved in Atari's own version of Breakout (free version on the app store) they are miles apart. Atari's animation has very solid look and feel to it. Is there a trick that I have missed with cocos 2D, or is this just something we have to settle for?

Cheers,

I sent you mail.

Legal Bump? I see some artists look for work in the other posts.

So I've decided I'd like to try to use OpenGL to roll 3D dice. I realize this is probably over my head but I'm willing to put forth the time and effort to learn. Does anyone have any suggestions on tutorials that would help me achieve this? I've found a couple that cover how to create OpenGL cubes and map textures to each side, but I haven't seen any that apply the concept to a dice rolling simulation (eg. the physics behind it). Any help is truly appreciated. Thanks!

Further experimenting may suggest it's a processing problem? I am running my apps on an iPad 2, and I have gotten rid of OpenEars and added a few more elements to the scene. A couple static planes as a backdrop and 2 more planes that move across the screen via an animation in a pod file. When I do not add the character I talk about in the above post everything loads and animates fine. But when he is added one of the clouds will disappear, popping in every now and then for a couple of seconds.

I can get everything to appear on the screen using by lowering the frame rate to 20 FPS (from 60) with [director setAnimationInterval:1.0/20]. Me scene seems less complex then the CC3DemoMashUp, which runs smoothly on the iPad. Though maybe my complexity is hidden in my 1 character. I suppose this is the reason for parts of my character disappearing when using OpenEars.

Is this correct that objects don't get drawn in order to maintain the frame rate? Also I have a few CC3Layers, would combining everything into a single layer give a good performance boost?

I am loading the models with the following code

CC3MeshNode* mn;
    CC3ResourceNode* rezNode;
    rezNode = [CC3PODResourceNode nodeFromResourceFile:@"Page01_backdrop.POD"];
    mn = (CC3MeshNode*)[rezNode getNodeNamed: @"Page01_Backdrop"];
    mn.isOpaque = NO;
    [mn alignInvertedTextures];
    [self addChild:mn];

    rezNode = [CC3PODResourceNode nodeFromResourceFile:@"Page01_SkyGradient.POD"];
    mn = (CC3MeshNode*)[rezNode getNodeNamed: @"Page01SkyGradient"];
    mn.isOpaque = NO;
    [mn alignInvertedTextures];
    [self addChild:mn];

    rezNode = [CC3PODResourceNode nodeFromResourceFile:@"Page01_Cloud01.POD"];
    mn = (CC3MeshNode*)[rezNode getNodeNamed: @"Cloud01"];
    [mn remove];
    mn.isOpaque = NO;
    [mn alignInvertedTextures];
    [self addChild:mn];
    CCActionInterval* LCLoop = [CC3Animate actionWithDuration: 10 limitFrom: 0.0 to: 1.0];
    [mn runAction: [CCRepeatForever actionWithAction:LCLoop]];

    rezNode = [CC3PODResourceNode nodeFromResourceFile:@"Page01_Cloud02.POD"];
    mn = (CC3MeshNode*)[rezNode getNodeNamed: @"Cloud02"];
    [mn remove];
    mn.isOpaque = NO;
    [mn alignInvertedTextures];
    [self addChild:mn];
    LCLoop = [CC3Animate actionWithDuration: 14 limitFrom: 0.0 to: 1.0];
    [mn runAction: [CCRepeatForever actionWithAction:LCLoop]];

And the character is loaded with the code in my above post in a different layer.

Andrew

I was also thinking about adding variable delay to the animation system, for making the animated particle extension more useful. Good to see Riq already tackled it, I'll integrate this as well in 1.1.

Alex,

I'm using PVRGoePOD v1.25. Do you see your animations in PVRShaman?

Here are my settings:

Export Options
- Export geometry (checked)

Materials
- Export materials (checked)

Animation
- Export animation (checked)
- Indexed (checked)

Coordinate System = OpenGL

Geometry Options
- Normals (checked)
- Mapping channels (checked)
- Flip V coordinate (checked)
- Interleave vectors (checked)
- Align vertex data (to 32 bit) (checked)

Skin
- Export skinning date (checked)
- Matrix palette size = 9

Primitive Type = Triangle list
- Indexed (checked)

Triangle Sort = PVRTGeometrySort
- Sort vertices (checked)

Vertex vector formats (all defaults)

I have an pod file of an animated character created in max and have been having an issue where parts of his body will disappear, or the animation will go funky. ie His hat will at his neck instead of on his head.

I use the following code to load the model and start the animation.

CC3MeshNode* mn;
CC3ResourceNode* rezNode;
rezNode = [CC3PODResourceNode nodeFromResourceFile:@"Learning_Companion_Anim_Ambient01.POD"];
mn = (CC3MeshNode*)[rezNode getNodeNamed: @"Dummy01"];
mn.isOpaque = NO;
[self addChild:mn];
CCActionInterval* LCLoop = [CC3Animate actionWithDuration: kAnimationTime limitFrom: 0.0 to: 1.0];
[mn runAction: [CCRepeatForever actionWithAction:LCLoop]];

After some messing around, I have discovered that using OpenEars, an open source library for voice recognition http://www.politepix.com/openears It seems to be the cause for parts of the body disappearing. If I never start openears from listening for audio input the model animates fine. If the animation is never started with runAction, then the model appears correctly and none of his body parts are missing.

I was hoping someone might have some insight as to why this library would be messing up the animations running in cocos3d. I also realize my chances at getting help on this are slim to none as the problem is stemming from conflicting libaries, so I would really appreciate any insight.

Thanks,
Andrew

Glenn,

I am trying to export from Maya 2011 an object that contains animation to POD file but I have a hard problem making it animate in Cocos3D. Could you share your settings on the PVRGeoPOD converter? Which PVRGeoPOD version do you use?

Thanks and I appreciate it,
Alex

Update:

delay units -> delayUnits
delay per unit -> delayPerUnit
restore original frame -> restoreOriginalFrame

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to Cocos2d and I've been reading a bunch of books and tutorials on the subject.

I'm in the process of making a game that will focus on rolling three dice and subsequently dragging those dice onto a 9x9 grid for scoring (this process will take place three times). I've written the code to drag and drop the dice, but I'm a bit clueless about two aspects of the game: what would be the best solution for animating the dice roll while being able to return the face-up value (sprite sheet? 3D?), and how would I drag the dice and "snap" them to a segment on the 9x9 grid while being able to return what segment the dice was snapped to? Thanks so much for your time and advice!

-A

Are you tired of boring little trashy "flick and forget" games yet? I know I am. That's why I set out to prove that even with a concept as tired as Angry Birds, you can create gameplay that is easy to learn and challenging to master together with a presentation that is engaging and humorous. How about instead of making the player feel like an idiot because their three year old has more stars, giving the player a real gaming experience that takes skill to complete, and makes the player feel accomplished when they finally beat the final boss? Let's put the "GAME" back in "Mobile Games".

I've been developing a runner/action type game. Basically, this is the polar opposite of Angry Birds - you're a pig fighting off birds in a fast paced setting. The engine is almost completely done, I just need actual assets to progress. Lucky for you, my aspiring artists, I'm not half bad with a pen and pad, and am providing detailed sketches of every major frame for the player character, enemies, and environment. You will have to follow the art style I provide exactly. I'm looking for bold, saturated colors. Cartoony, but not entirely generic if you get my drift.

This game has some pretty cool stuff in it. The engine supports game speed modification (for example, bullet time), and has a fake camera that can be used to zoom the game environment in and out. Even the bosses have a unique finishing sequence. This is definitely a great opportunity for anyone interested in mobile games.

Obviously, I don't have the budget of a full studio since I've done this all in my spare time, but I'm willing to pay for quality. Send me a message or email (my user name @gmail.com) with the following. If I like what I see, I'll send you a simplified game doc so you can see all the enemies and such.

- examples of past work
- your availability and rates
- any references you may have
- a brief description of your favorite portable game, and why it's your favorite
- your reason for wanting to work on this game

Deliverables:
- all frames in vector format (Illustrator)
- a saved copy in .png format, optimized for the iOS retina display (such as Photoshop's "save for web and devices->24 bit png" option)

Oh, and I'll be looking for a music/sound guy soon enough. Tell your friends.

We use CCVideoPlayer to play a mp4 video in our intro scene. It worked well for us in one of our apps.

CCVideoPlayer is part of cocos2d-extension.

Great assets! Thanks @bradparks!

cool.... and i forgot to mention that you have to only use the SWF format... that thread talk about converting the SWF's into textures, but for your purposes you'd ignore that whole bit and just stick with native SWF's.

Thanks @bradparks, looks interesting :) I'll definitely check them out tomorrow and get back to you with updates :)

hey.... you can use Adobe Flash SWF's in Cocos2d for stuff like that.... That would be low overhead for memory, and would probably work great for cut scenes... I haven't tried it though, but it should work. When you publish your Flash SWF's, they can't include Actionscript, and they should probably publish to something like Flash 3 or something like that.... This thread talks about it in detail:

http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/24542

with I *beleive* the best versions of the referenced source online available at GitHub here:
https://github.com/talentless

specifically, I think you need the following:
https://github.com/talentless/MonkSWF
https://github.com/talentless/cocos2d-iphone-extensions-swf
https://github.com/talentless/MonkVG

Hope it helps! Let us know how you make out.... I haven't looked at this since that thread was busy a couple of months ago, but will probably get back to it sometime within the next month myself....

I was wondering, the intro animation of Cut the Rope, in which theres a knock on the door, and Om Nom appears in a box, etc. How is this made? Is there any way I can embed videos in my game like that, because making a video like that, by using CCSprites and CCAnimation would consume a lot of memory.

Hey, good job :). I wonder how this works with the UIKit friendlier Cocos2D 2.0 :).

If there's no "delay units" for frame - 1 will be used by default.

Ok. I will add that behavior.

Do you plan to add this format support to 1.x?

I am not maintaining v1.1, but it could be a nice feature for v1.1. Please, contact @araker.