Releasing actions « cocos2d for iPhone

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Releasing actions

(13 posts) (5 voices)

Started 2 years ago by adpro
Latest reply from SpaceHunter

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adpro
Member

Hello

I can't seem to find an answer for this, but I hope there is a solution.

I keep reading that running actions is expensive, but I need a lot of moveTo actions.

I have, lets say, 5 different objects you can toss up the screen. Each one of them is different, but created from the same object class. Within those objects I have an action that handles the moveTo for each of these when it has been thrown. Basically I take the difference of the locations between ccTouchesBegan and ccTouchesEnded and I multiply them by 50 (10 being the minimum difference for the x value - thus causing it to go off the screen).

Anyway, once they have reached a given point (x = 480) or they have interacted with another object, I do stuff. Either remove it, change it, or whatever I am doing.

I have gone through all of my code and I have optimized everything I can think of, and when I have a bunch of sprites on the screen at once, everything is fine, fps is 60 and not budging, up until I have thrown a lot of these sprites. So, when a lot of moveTo's have happened, it seems to slow down to about 40fps - sometimes down to 30.

My question is, is there a way to empty the actions when no actions are happening? The only cocosNode actions are the 'throwing' actions I was talking about. I handle all other actions manually. So, if none of those are being thrown, can I release anything being held in action?

From what I understand, everything it set to be removed in [actionsToRemove, right?

Can I just call stopAllActions? It looks like this may not remove them all?.. does it?

The last line of the following in the stopAllActions class confuses me:

-(void) stopAllActions
{
[actionsToAdd removeAllObjects];

[actionsToRemove removeAllObjects];
[actionsToRemove addObjectsFromArray:actions];
}

Anyway, on a side note. Does anyone else have a better way to move something the way I am trying to? Basically I need something like this.

I need to make something move as if it has been thrown up the screen (right now, the further you swipe your finger, the faster the object goes - thus giving the illusion that it's being thrown harder). I need it to bounce off the side walls, but continue up. Right now it slows down after each bounce, which is fine, cause I change the direction of the action when it hits a wall, and I keep the duration the same, but it doesn't need to slow down.

Sorry about the long post. I tried to make it as short as I could. I'm bad with writing a lot.

Thanks for your help!

Posted 2 years ago #
Steve Oldmeadow
Administrator

It sounds to me like a physics engine might be a better bet. Orta even has an open source example using Chipmunk where you throw an object around, check out Thrown at http://www.ortatherox.com/site/

Posted 2 years ago #
adpro
Member

Thanks steve,

I am going to stay away from chipmunk for right now. I don't think this is the issue with my app anyway.

I tested to see if 'actionsToRemove' has anything in it after I remove the child for this sprite. It seems as though it doesn't. I modified numberOfRunningActions in the CocosNode.m file and added +[actionsToRemove count]. Before I remove and cleanup the child, it is at 2, after, it is at 0. So, it looks as though it is being removed properly.

I am going to have to look elsewhere to see if I can resolve my issue. Thanks for the advice!

If anyone has any suggestions as to why my game would slow down to 40fps after a bit of time (there are sometimes only 5-10 sprites on the screen when it decides to slow down) I'm all ears.

I'm using the ParticleExplosion example for when these sprites collide (each sprite creates an explosion - so, up to 30 on the screen at the same time and a total of up to 400 during any given level) and am using atlas sprites and labels.

Any direction or common things you have encountered for me to test and look into would be fantastic!

Thanks!

Posted 2 years ago #
edisonslabs
Member

Did you preallocate the particles or are you allocating them on the fly? Though I'm not sure how much of a performance dent it would make.

I have done something similar for our latest game, quite a few sprites, lots of moving, and lots of particles. I used chipmunks, preallocated an array of sprites and particles, and my fps stayed at pretty much 60. However, the initial method was allocating particles on the fly, and when there are several of them, the frame rates drops to 30-40.

I would be really hesitant on using actions for movements. A quick physics engine like Chipmunks really seem to be way to go, even for simple games.

Also, have you read the optimization tips on Cocos2d website? One is turning off thumb-compile, which did boost my fps by a little too.

Posted 2 years ago #
vutronic
Member

I did run into performance issues when using multiple particle effects in one of my games. If you use the Object Allocation performance tool in xcode you'll notice the particle effect instances are not being cleaned up properly. My solution was to preallocate the particles and reuse them in the game. I had to customize the particle component to accomplish this though. Hope this helps.

Posted 2 years ago #
edisonslabs
Member

I didn't need any customization to preallocate and reuse the particles. But whatever works.

Posted 2 years ago #
adpro
Member

Ok, I guess I am going to take a look at the particle thing and also dive into some chipmunk stuff as well.

In the meantime, does anyone have any good chipmunk sprite movement / collision tutorials they want to share? I'll see what I can find, but if you have any good ones in mind, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks!

Posted 2 years ago #
edisonslabs
Member

This is the way I think getting familiar with chipmunk should go:

1. Check out chipmunk's OWN demo first. You don't need to run it, just read through the code and comments to understand how everything is set up. At the same time, look at chipmunk's old documentation (not the new wiki style one). This should give you a good view of how to use chipmunk
2. Look at the Cocos2d chipmunk demos and see how everything should be set up for Cocos2d apps. Play around with them if you like.
3. Make your app and incorporate chipmunks in.

Posted 2 years ago #
adpro
Member

Hello again,

I did some testing. It looks like it is for sure the particle explosion that is causing issues with the framerate.

Soooo, my question is, how exactly are you pre-allocating the particles?

I am changing the texture for each explosion, depending on what type of sprite is hit - basically just to change the color of the explosion. Once it is hit, I create a new particle explosion, throw it in a mutable array, i change the texture by using setTexture (I believe this will automatically re-use images if they have already been added before), then I set the position of where the explosion should happen, and I add the child so the explosion happens.

Then, I have another timer looking through the mutable array of explosion objects to see if any exist - if they are, it sets them to be removed next time - if they are set to be removed, it removes the child, releases the object, and then removes it from the array - this goes through every second to ensure it's not removing anything that is currently exploding.

Anyway, there can be a bunch of the exact same explosions on the screen at the same time. In fact, there's usually at least two of the same explosion at a time.

Any help on how I could pre-allocate properly would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you so much for your help thus far!

Posted 2 years ago #
SpaceHunter
Member

"Then, I have another timer looking through the mutable array of explosion objects to see if any exist - if they are, it sets them to be removed next time - if they are set to be removed, it removes the child, releases the object, and then removes it from the array - this goes through every second to ensure it's not removing anything that is currently exploding."

This method has got to be slow as molasses, no?

"any help on how I could pre-allocate properly would be greatly appreciated!"

I'm curious to know how others are using the particle framework as well. From what I see *YOU* must make changes (looking at the examples given) otherwise you will have memory leaks.

Posted 2 years ago #

vutronic
Member

Ok, I just implemented some particle effects and I used the technique explained by zombie in this thread:

http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/177#post-975

I have no problems with performance so far, currently I'm running about 4 resusable particle systems for different types of explosions in my game. Let me know if you have questions, I've been playing with this for days:) This is how I set things up:

1. Create a custom Particle System classe by extending the PointParticleSystem. ( see code pasted below ).

2. Override the -(id) initWithTotalParticles:(int) so you can tweak the particle behavior

3. Add the - (void) spawnParticles:(uint)n method. You use this method to run the particle system during game play.

4. Add an instance of you custom particle system to your game view class. explosion1 = [ Explosion_1 node ]; To us it just do this [ explosion1 spawnParticles:300 ]

5. If you want to add more particle system you can just extend the custom "Explosion_1" class and override the -(id) initWithTotalParticles:(int) call.

//Infterface
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

#import "PointParticleSystem.h"
#import "QuadParticleSystem.h"

@interface Explosion_1 :PointParticleSystem{
	int particlePos;
}

- (void) spawnParticles:(uint)n;

@end

//Implementation

#import "Explosion_1.h"
#import "TextureMgr.h"
#import "Director.h"
#import "CGPointExtension.h"

@implementation Explosion_1
-(id) init
{
	particlePos = 0;
	return [self initWithTotalParticles:20];
}

-(id) initWithTotalParticles:(int) p
{
	if( !(self=[super initWithTotalParticles:p]) )
		return nil;

	// duration
	duration = -1;

	// gravity
	gravity.x = 0;
	gravity.y =-40;

	// angle
	angle =90;
	angleVar = 360;

	// radial acceleration
	radialAccel = 30;
	radialAccelVar = 20;

	// emitter position
	self.position = ccp(160, 60);
	posVar = ccp(5, 5);

	// life of particles
	life = 1;
	lifeVar = 0.25f;

	// speed of particles
	speed =40;
	speedVar = 20;

	// size, in pixels
	startSize = 5.0f;
	startSizeVar = 1.0f;
	endSize = kParticleStartSizeEqualToEndSize;

	// emits per frame
	emissionRate = totalParticles/life;

	// color of particles
	startColor.r = 0.8f;
	startColor.g = 0.3f;
	startColor.b = 0.1f;
	startColor.a = 1.0f;
	startColorVar.r = 0.0f;
	startColorVar.g = 0.0f;
	startColorVar.b = 0.0f;
	startColorVar.a = 0.0f;
	endColor.r = 0.0f;
	endColor.g = 0.0f;
	endColor.b = 0.0f;
	endColor.a = .5f;
	endColorVar.r = 0.0f;
	endColorVar.g = 0.0f;
	endColorVar.b = 0.0f;
	endColorVar.a = 0.0f;

	self.texture = [[TextureMgr sharedTextureMgr] addImage: @"explosion_fragment.png"];

	// additive
	blendAdditive = NO;

	return self;
}

// do not mix spawn with addParticle (so also not with self emitting systems)
- (void) spawnParticles:(uint)n
{
	 Particle* particle;
	for(uint i=0; i<n; i++)
	{
		particle = &particles[ particlePos ];
		[self initParticle: particle];
		particlePos++;
		particleCount++;
		if(particlePos==totalParticles)
		{
			particlePos=0;
		}
		if(particleCount>totalParticles)
		{
			particleCount=totalParticles;
		}
	}

}

@end

have fun,
Vutronic

Posted 2 years ago #

SpaceHunter
Member

good stuff there vutronic. I'll have a look at this when I get home from work.

Thanks!

Posted 2 years ago #
SpaceHunter
Member

I think I'm missing something.

According to Zombies post - http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/177#post-975

there needs to be some changes in PointParticleSystem class.

Any idea what these changes are?

Posted 2 years ago #

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