Help Logically setting up Layers for Good Game Design

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Help Logically setting up Layers for Good Game Design

(8 posts) (4 voices)

Started 1 year ago by salmansqadeer
Latest reply from Scryb

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salmansqadeer
Member

Hi All!

Im in the middle of creating my first iPhone game - I have a background in OOP and in particular C++ so I had some questions with regards to how best to logically setup layers while maintaining functionality.

Currently I WANT for my game to have three main layers:

- HUDLayer (All static objects on the screen are here - game controls, User score, pause button etc.)
- PlayLayer (The Player, the main game loop and all of the game logic here)
- Level Layer (The level images and the level physics objects that the player interacts with, and the background music specific to this level)

Notice I used the word WANT here - because for the life of me im constantly having to move logical objects around just to work within what appears to be Cocos2d's and spacemanagers structure.

Below are just some of the issues that I'm facing

- I would like for my PlayLayer to be the scene thats loaded by the director - but if I do that then all of the HUDLayer objects get covered behind the PlayLayer, and dont stay in place like they should, hence the HUDLayer is my scene and I have had to do that just to make it work
- I would like to play the background music (via simpleAudioEngine playBackgroundMusic) in the LEVEL layer because I want different levels to have different music. So far the ONLY way I have gotten background music to work is to have it in the TOP most layer i.e. in this case the HUDLayer
- Because of the fact that I have to use an instance of the SpaceManagerCocos2d object to create physics bodies - it seems like my level layer has to be killed and just incorporated within my PlayLayer otherwise im having a nightmare of a time attempting to detect collisions between the player and the level.

Am I missing something very obvious here? is there a core understanding of layers that Im just not getting? More and more I feel like im being pushed by the framework to build the whole game inside of a single class and just to use layers as scenes.

Is anyone else having these problems? Am I approaching the architecture of the game wrong? Any help would really be appreciated.

Thanks in advance guys!

Posted 1 year ago #
Tim Lowe
Member

There are a number of misconceptions in your message - for example having music 'attached' to a layer. Your music can be setup just about anywhere, the issue you had with it having to be in the TOP layer is most likely a mistake in programming. Here is how I have my game currently setup:

GameScene (CCScene): This .h/.m handles loading the layers needed to play the game, so the only code here is the process of showing, hiding, loading, unloading layers the player needs to see. During gameplay this looks like:

*Tile Map (at z = 0) (not touch enabled)
*Entity Layer (at z = 1) (touch enabled)
*UI Layer (at z = 2) (not touch enabled as all touches are on CCMenuButtons)

Now lets say the player brings up another menu/layer (like the inventory screen) - my GameScene has a method called "showInventory" and what this does is make the three layers above non-visible/touch-enabled and once the player is done with the inventory and dismisses it the layers are made visible/touch-enabled again.

When I switch levels (TileMaps) I have the GameScene show a Loading layer while I'm unloading and loading a new tilemap in the Tile Map layer.

Posted 1 year ago #
Benihana
Member

What about an intermediate scene, and attach your layers to it. I thought there was a diagram of it in the wiki but I can't find it now. Anyway, your layers should be children of your scene.

I think box2d requires all objects to be part of the same world to interact, but it doesn't dictate how you display them. You can display your level and enemies in one layer, and your player in another (though I'd just use one and a CCFollow). I can't really help you set that up without seeing how you're displaying your box2d objects, but perhaps that will be enough to get you started.

Edit: Sorry Tim, didn't mean to step on any shoes. I had this open and got distracted partway through my response.

Posted 1 year ago #
salmansqadeer
Member

Thanks for the quick response guys!

@Tim: I apologies for the misconceptions / bad language in my posting. As I mentioned previously im just getting started with both ObjectiveC and Cocos2d so I hope to improve that.

So my understanding from you message is that your gamescene manages all of the layers in your game - adding them and removing them as and when they are necessary based on game logic. Thats interesting. What Im doing is is very similar to your approach - except my version of GameScene (Called ConductorScene - like an orchestra lol) loads other scenes (i.e. main menu, playScene (the main game), pause scene, etc). Each of those individual scenes then load the necessary layers they require to function (which are added as children). Do you think thats a logical / appropriate way to move forward? Or are all my problems cause by this extra level of abstraction?

My issue with regards to the music was that apparently it seemed to always be required to be in the scene layer and not its children (though it now seems to be working as part of the child so that makes no sense lol).

@Benihana - Originally thats what I intended to do i.e. Have my player a cpCCSprite on one layer (with all his motion code etc), and have the level on another layer (with all the enemies etc) and both of these layers were added as children to a scene. Doing this unfortunately doesnt allow me to detect collisions between the two, and I feel that the amount of work involved in making the layers communicate with one another is too much for the sake of clean code - hence now there is a single layer (titled PlayScene) that has

*HUDLayer (at z = 0) (touch enabled)
*PlayLayer (at z = 1) (touch disabled because all touches are handled in the HUD)

Posted 1 year ago #
salmansqadeer
Member

I wonder if there anyone has written anything with regards to the best practices for using scenes and layers in Cocos2d - (i.e. the most logical, and extensible way). Seems like everyone writes about the technical aspect of how to get started but no one approaches good project architecture.

Would love to get some help on that.

Posted 1 year ago #
Scryb
Member

I think the biggest issue you're having with the structure is that you've misunderstood Scenes. The idea of a scene is that there's only one active at a time and it includes everything you do while that scene (be it a level in a platform game or the chess board in a chess game) is active. For instance, it would be common practice to have your menus be one scene and your game another.

In my game, which is a dice game, I actually have two game scenes that the game alternates between. One with a score table and one with the dice rolling. I could've had them both in one scene, but I like the nice transitions I get for free from using scenes.

As for music: If you use CocosDenshion you can call the different shared audio managers (SimpleAudioEngine etc) from anywhere you like. For instance, you could start the background music in your menu scene and then change it in your game scene.

Posted 1 year ago #
salmansqadeer
Member

@Scryb Ok that makes perfect sense. I refactored some of my code and used a much more logical game design - with only one scene being active at any given time and managing the layers beneath it.

My main issue currently is trying to figure out how use a SpaceManager instance across different layers / classes.

i.e. I want to maintain all of the player and level logic in different classes. I cant for the LIFE of me get them both to share the same space manager instance and both function.

Posted 1 year ago #
Scryb
Member

That sounds awfully complicated. I mean, you can have separate methods for dealing with the player and the enemies/backgrounds but add the actual sprites to the same layer and of course you HAVE to have them in the same "world" in Spacemanager (otherwise how would they interact?)

Posted 1 year ago #

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