Scene managment discussion?

Fodder76

Hi there,

I'm working on putting together a point and click adventure, which naturally will include many environments and lots of various items and what not. So I'm hoping to read up on a scene management 'best practices' sort of discussion or documentation. Does anything like that exist?

Top priority is that the game runs nicely, and I want to keep loading to a minimum. But of course I also want to keep a reasonable workflow going. So I'm hoping to read about the experiences of those that have worked with many different environments and what they learned about scene management.

Thanks for any help!

JohnPapiomitis

The best thing to do is to put multiple scenes in one scene when possible, line them side by side in one scene then switch the camera over to change scenes. Best part is its instant

simo103

This topic also has me a little confused. John (or anyone else) would multiple scenes have a downside?
Like would it take longer to load the first time?
Would the RAM usage and/or fps be effected by all the actors and rules (even those off camera scene)?

Not exactly sure how Gamesalad and /or IOS handles these things so some experienced insight would be great.

This is what I am building at the moment if anyone would comment in case I'm going in the wrong direction I would appreciate the help:

1. Having a single scene with Game and company logo so it loads as quick as possible after GS splash
2. Have it start loading into the levels/options which are one long scene using camera move to instant jump to each
3. Have 3 camera 'panels' load from the Level selector. 2 of those are games scenes and the third is a level complete with instructions for new elements coming up in the next level. Loading of next level is going on as one reads this page.

And so on .....

Fodder76

Thanks John and simo.

Simo, you asked a lot of the questions I was wondering about in my head. Surely there are at least a few people that have tackled this same problem?

One big benefit that I would have thought would come from separating out scenes is the asset management aspect of it. But all of the actors you've created all show up regardless of which scene you are in, which surprises me.

It seems that the only time GS pauses to load is when its switching scenes, so is it purely a matter of preference as to when / how long you want your loads? Could one conceivably have an entire game in one scene with a really long load at the beginning?

And, as simo asked, I'd like to know if performance / memory usage is affected by scene size at all.

Thanks to anyone that can shed some more light on this subject.

firemaplegames

The biggest thing to consider is your RAM usage. Having multiple "screens" in one Scene is a nice way to lower loading times between screens for the user.

However, you always have to watch the RAM usage. When it hits ~35MB on an older device it will crash. Nobody knows the exact number, even Apple won't tell, but it has something to do with how much music the user has in their iTunes library, how many apps they have running, etc.

It's best not to approach anywhere near that number to be on the safe side.

So that means all art, music, sfx, etc. - plus every actor you spawn - all of that combined can not reach that total.

It's usually fine for something locked down like a menu system, where you know exactly how many assets you will be using.

But in a main game screen where bullets and enemies are being spawned, it won't work very well.

simo103

thanks FMG ... a great firm number to use as a guide.