A fast, easy to use, free, and community supported 2D game engine
Osiris
Member
I have a simple routine in my init method of gamescene loading textures...
Texture2D *level1Texture = [[TextureMgr sharedTextureMgr] addImage:@"LEVEL_1_background_BUTTONLESS.jpg"];loads 14 screen-sized textures (480x320) jpgs into a NSMutableArray. I've timed it and from the beginning of the load to the end takes 5 seconds on a Gen 1 Ipod Touch. Does this seem right?
You can place 6 images in one 1024x1024 sheet, so you need to load only 3 files instead of 14. It'll be way faster
Osiris
Member
another thing im having problems with and it is probably my stupidity, im loading these in the init section of gameScene (setup basically like the Monocle Studies Whitepaper). Is it possible to load and display graphics while in the init section? I have tried and it totally ignores it until I get to "onEnter". I was going to build a progress bar and update it inbetween graphic loads, but it just doesn't want to display. If I take the same Sprite definition block and move it to onEnter, it runs fine?
If you want to display a progress bar while you're loading the images, you'll have to load them asynchronously and use a callback to update the bar. See the following method in the TextureMgr class :
-(void) addImageAsync: (NSString*) filename target:(id)target selector:(SEL)selector
Osiris
Member
Ok, im looking in the Texture2D example code and ran into this (the callBack function):
-(void) imageLoaded: (Texture2D*) tex
{
// IMPORTANT: The order on the callback is not guaranteed. Don't depend on the callback
// This test just creates a sprite based on the Texture
Sprite *sprite = [Sprite spriteWithTexture:tex];
sprite.anchorPoint = ccp(0,0);
[self addChild:sprite z:-1];
CGSize size =[[Director sharedDirector] winSize];
int i = imageOffset * 32;
sprite.position = ccp( i % (int)size.width, (i / (int)size.width) * 32 );
imageOffset++;
}since tex is an id node and you cannot depend on the order being correct, how do you ensure that "background1.jpg" is assigned to the correct "level1Background" texture? The order is kind of important.
Hmm no, it's not that important. The thing is to load all your images asynchronously at once. You use each callback to update your progress bar (and your progress bar only). It's only when you receive the last expected callback that you can start using the textures to create Sprites.
No sure what you meant by "since tex is an id node" but it sounds wrong.
Steve Oldmeadow
Administrator
^ the filename is still the identifier for the texture in TextureManager.
Osiris
Member
Thank you everyone... I changed everything image-related in my -init to -addImageAsync and trap the count to power my load indicator and it has fixed both problems (The other thread about scenes and layers) Somehow, when loading synchronously, obj C must be waiting for everything to load before doing anything else, including updating the screen.
All is well so far. We are very close to releasing!
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