removing images

[Findo777]

On the wiki, it said this; Shape:destroy()

but when I make a image, I do this:

image = love.graphics.newImage("block")
love.graphics.draw(block,400,300)


Now how would I remove it?


Thanks for your help in my first language guys, it is appreciated

[HugoBDesigner]

On the wiki, it said this; Shape:destroy()

but when I make a image, I do this:

image = love.graphics.newImage("block")
love.graphics.draw(block,400,300)


Now how would I remove it?


Thanks for your help in my first language guys, it is appreciated

You'll have to use an external variable. You can't "unload" images while using love.graphics, but you can do this:

Code: Select all

[on love_load]
image = love.graphics.newImage("block")

[wherever you'll remove the image]
image = false

[on love_draw]
if image then
    love.graphics.draw(image,400,300)
end

or, if you don't want to loose your image - perhaps you want to use it later:

Code: Select all

[on love_load]
image = love.graphics.newImage("block")
drawimage = true

[wherever you'll remove the image]
drawimage = false

[wherever you'll re-add the image]
drawimage = true

[on love_draw]
if drawimage then
    love.graphics.draw(image,400,300)
end

[Findo777]

Sorry... this is not working for me....

[veethree]

For a small game there's not really any need to 'remove' images. Just don't draw them.

But if you really need to, I think something like this would completely remove an image from the memory

Code: Select all

image = love.graphics.newImage("whatever.jpg")
image = nil
collectgarbage()

[kingomar]

What if the images are stored in a table, how can i clear the table and free the memory?

[HugoBDesigner]

What if the images are stored in a table, how can i clear the table and free the memory?

If the table consists ONLY of images you wanna remove, I think you can pretty much do this:

Code: Select all

imageTable = {}

If only some part of the table is an image...

Code: Select all

imageTable = {x = 10, y = 20, image = image, rotation = 0} --just an example. The image is "imageTable.image"
imageTable.image = nil --or imageTable["image"]

You can use collectgarbage() after it, but I'm not sure if it is REALLY necessary. It takes a bit of time to run, but in the end it helps...

[Jeeper]

I think that you are just misunderstanding things. You do not need to remove images, memory is being handled by the garbage collection and you need A LOT of images before this even makes a small difference.

On the wiki, it said this; Shape:destroy()

That has to do with the box2d module (Physics) and has nothing to do with images.

image = love.graphics.newImage("block")
love.graphics.draw(block,400,300)

Now how would I remove it?

An image is drawn every frame, if you stop calling "love.graphics.draw(block,400,300)" the image will no longer be visible.

An example:

Code: Select all

If player.alive == true then
    love.graphics.draw(player.img,player.x,player.y)
end

This will make it so that the player is visible when he is alive, and the second he is no longer alive, he is not visible.


And when it comes to images the vast majority will be reused later on in a game, so in MOST cases it is actually a very bad idea to try to "unload" an image.

[pixelprato]

Thx guys !!!
settings up my unused images to nil and collectgarbage() works perfectly

[pgimeno]

This is an old thread (2014). Things have changed since; now there is image:release() that you can use to free an image.

[milon]

Note that after calling any :release() function, it's also best to set that variable to nil.