Wait/Pause/Sleep?

[Knuxchan]

Is there a Wait/Pause/Sleep method or function that exists for LOVE? Basically, I want to show a screen that says 'Stage 1 Start' for 5 seconds then goes to the next level file (level1.lua).

So basically something along these lines:

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love.graphics.print("Stage 1 Start", 100,200) --show text on the screen
wait(5) --wait 5 seconds
love.filesystem.load("level1.lua")() --go to level 1 (btw, is this the correct syntax to load a level? Because I couldn't find anything in the documentation or the forums about simple level generation).

[Jackim]

this should work

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function love.load()
     waiting = true
     waitingtimer = 0
end

function love.update(dt)
    waitingtimer = waitingtimer + dt
    if waitingtimer > 5 then
         waiting = false
    end
end

[T-Bone]

And about loading levels, I think you're looking for

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require "level1"

or

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level1 = require "level1"

[Plu]

It's probably a better idea to do

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love.timer.sleep( 5 )

The above would keep the CPU running all the time, which probably isn't neccesary.

[Nixola]

It's probably a better idea to do

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love.timer.sleep( 5 )

The above would keep the CPU running all the time, which probably isn't neccesary.

And this one would freeze LÖVE for those 5 seconds, is it a better idea?

[Plu]

Does it flush the graphics buffer? I thought it would keep the screen frozen in place? If it makes the screen black it's indeed not a good idea, and I also misunderstood the purpose of the function.

(Of course if you want animations in your loading screen it's also not a very good idea)

[daviddoran]

It's definitely a better idea to use Jackim's approach.
That way the game won't lock up, you can keep drawing (maybe you'll have a loading animation in the future) and you can keep receiving input (e.g. skipping the loading screen by pressing any key).

The only thing I'd change is how the timer is implemented.
With the code below you can just set the loading variable to the number of seconds to wait, anywhere in your program.

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local loading = -1

function love.load()
	-- start our 5s loading timer
	loading = 5
end

function love.update(dt)
    if loading > 0 then
    	loading = loading - dt
    elseif loading == 0 then
    	loading = -1
    end
end

function love.draw(dt)
    if loading > 0 then
    	-- draw the loading screen
    end
end

[T-Bone]

Even without vsync, Jackim's solution won't max out the cpu. It works just fine.

[Plu]

Aight, guess that does work better. Sorry about the lousy suggestion

[Knuxchan]

This is weird. It's not working for me. It seems to be ignoring the dt argument, so the timer is never going off. I passed the dt argument in my update function. I even tried printing out the value of dt on the screen and nothing shows up.