Thats the question.. I often find myself liking to use active object for most stuff, even though it wont be so "active". It easier to manipulate if the need rises though. Is active object very much more "demanding" for the game and filesize or is it not so big difference?
I find that it is very demanding. There are some users here will be able to tell you the more technical demands of actives vs. backdrops vs. text blitter vs. Active pictuer etc.
From what I can tell through my own studies of how Actives work, is that most of the demand of actives comes from their events. If you are placing dozens of Actives in your frame with hundreds of events each, all manipulating alterable Values hundreds of times per second, while changing ink effects, and moving wildly across the screen checking for obstacle overlaps... Then yes, you will see slow down.
But if you are just using stationary Active objects as a sort of "animated backdrop" that has no events, no alterable values, or movement, then I don't think it taxes MMF2's resources that much.
I'd like someone to verify this for me as well, since I've come to a point in my game that I want to add some lightly animated fire torches, but I want to be certain that adding hundreds of animated torches to the level won't effect game speed as long as the torches don't actually DO anything (just a simple 4 frame animation).
Does using Actives this way effect performance of the application?
I think it is not about "can it handle it" but about saving as much ressources as possible. Using instanced Objects should be less demanding. And if you need to have animated elements in the Background, then only use an active Object in the Background for the Part that is actualy also animated. For Example; you have a Statue with a glowing Eye. Instead of creating Animation-Frames of the whole Object (Statue) with the glowing Eye, just paste the Statue as Background and just animate the Eye and paste the animate Eye on Top of the Statue.
And if you want to have hundreds of torches that are animated, then just use one animated torch object and use instanced objects. To make them move with some randomness, you could randomize there animation-speed and also randomize the startpoint of the animation-frame.
As i said at the Beginning its important to think twice if there' s a less ressource-hungry way to achieve a certain result. There are often many ways and some can only be found by trying to "think around the corner".
Greets,
jahkri
This brings me to the question I've been wondering lately:Originally Posted by Jahkri
Is there any alternative to having animated background elements that do NOT use Active objects?
From what I understand, Animated Picture, Text Blitter, and other animation objects are actually MORE resource intensive than Actives.
Is there any object that isn't resource heavy that handles simple 3 or 4 frame animations? An "Animated Backdrop Object" of sorts? Or is using Actives basically the most efficient way?
The reason i often want to use Actives is that i can order them backward and forward as much as i want, as i have understood it you can never have a background object in front of a Active?
@ JimJam,
if you need to animate the Object, then i think you should go with the Active-Object. But as i said before, you should try to only use an Active for the Part in the Background that is animated. For the Rest of the (static) Background just use a Backdrop.
@ Outcast
Have you checked out the "Layers" in MMF2? By default they are not activated in MMF2. In the MMF-Main-Menu go to "View" and then under "Toolbars" activate the "Layers"-Toolbar. Once activated you can find the "Layers"-Toolbar on the rights Side of the Frame-Editor.
Backdrop-Objects that are placed in a Layer above the "Active"-Layer, then the Backdrop-Objects are ofcourse in Front of the Active-Objects.
The Layers can also be used for advanced parallax-Effects when doing scrolling.
Greets,
jahkri
I cant use layers because its supposed to be so that the caracter can walk both in front and back of all objects depending on his X and Y positions..
By the way, what is best, to use many small actives or to use one much bigger? For example if you need a forest that blows in the wind. Is it best to create one tree and then just dublicate it multiple times, or copy and paste all the trees as one big animated active object?
Still wondering about this
You are better off not having a giant active object (say, the size of the screen) if it is going to be animating and collision detecting and all the other bells and whistles. But it really depends on your game. The best way to find out is to try it. In the case of your trees, it is probably better to have individual trees so the objects offscreen will be culled.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote