iOS: Screen flickers/flashes black whenever new actor is created/spawned

fredsimma@gmail.com

Hello community!

I'm just trying to build my first GS game and have hit my first roadblock:

My game works pretty well so far in Creator (Mac, v1.25.61). But when I publish and test it ad-hoc on my iPhone 6 (iOS 9.3), there is this annoying flickering/flashing of the screen, whenever I'm spawning a new actor. (More specifically, I'm creating a "garden" composed on 10x15 "grass" actors - here my screen is constantly flickering. As soon as I'm done spawning, the flickering stops. When other objects are spawned later, it flickers again for a few milliseconds. The issue also occurs when I test on other iPhones, but not in Creator itself.)

If this description is unclear, I could upload a video of the behavior as well.

Any ideas how I can resolve this? I didn't find any similar threads on this forum.

Thanks for your help in advance!
Fred

Socks

Try changing the layer position of the spawning actor - so inside the spawning behaviour change - for example - in front on layer to behind layer . . . . see if this has an effect ?

Also is spawning 10x15 grass actors the most efficient way to achieve this, of course it may well be depending on your particular needs, but could you not instead have 1 large actor with the grass image tiled ?

fredsimma@gmail.com

Hi Socks,

Thanks for the quick reply!

I tried changing the layer (from "back of layer" to "front of layer") but the flashing still seems to be there Is there a place where I can upload a screencam to show what it looks like?

Replacing the 10x15 grass actors by a single, large one won't be possible, unfortunately, as all of the grass fields will eventually disappear...

Any other ideas I could try?

Thanks again,
Fred

Hopscotch

@fredsimma@gmail.com game development is all about optimization, no matter what engine you use. You need to find creative ways to achieve the result you want, while focusing on performance.

fredsimma@gmail.com

@Hopscotch, thanks for the comment and couldn't agree more.

Right now, I'd be happy if the game played the same way on iOS as it does in the Creator. With constant flickering/flashing, it is basically unplayable.

Maybe you (or any other members) have an idea what is going wrong here? Is this a known issue? Anything else I could try? Feel a little bit stuck at the moment...

Thanks,
Fred

Hopscotch

@fredsimma@gmail.com
how many "grass" actors do you have in total?
How much logic is in each?

Have you tried setting all their physics attributes (density, friction, etc.) to zero.
Also set "movable" off.

Also, try putting a layer beneath the layer containing all the grass actors.

fredsimma@gmail.com

@Hopscotch, thanks for the suggestions!

All 150 "grass" actors already were set to density=friction=bounciness=0 with movable=off. But putting a layer beneath the grass layer indeed did the trick - no more flickering!! I guess I'll still have to get used to this type of workarounds, but greatly appreciate your help!

Thanks again,
Fred

Hopscotch

@fredsimma@gmail.com great, glad it helped!