Memory Control?

[CryoNox]

Hi, I'm new to LÖVE and I have some questions:

1) Is it possible to control when to load/unload resources in my game?
e.g. load game sprites when player enters the game state from the menu screen.

2) Is there an event callback when all resources have loaded?
e.g. Lets say I have a variable called "img" in my Actor class, and I want to set that value to a loaded image after all resources are loaded.
"img" is then used in the draw function.

Code: Select all

-- Actor Class --

-- Call Initialize when resources have loaded (Is this possible???)
function Actor:initialize()
	img = love_ball -- set the "img" variable to the loaded image
end

-- Draw Function
function Actor:draw()
	love.graphics.draw(img,self.x,self.y)
end

[Robin]

Remember, img is here a global variable. If you want some sort of object oriented approach, you will want to use self.img. (The self is implicit, for example: actor1:draw() is really Actor.draw(actor1))

EDIT: as for your questions, for that you place them in the function load():

Code: Select all

function load()
    actor1 = Actor.new() --or whatever function you use
    love_ball = love.graphics.newImage("ball.png")
    actor1:initialize()
end

So, you don't need callbacks for them.

[CryoNox]

oh no wonder it couldn't work, I forgot to add the "self". Thanks Robin for your help

What about dynamic loading and unloading of resources then? (My 1st question)

[Tenoch]

You can load images whenever you want, just be careful with the fact that for big images it can take some time (and pause the game loop for a while).

To "unload", simple remove all references to the image, and Lua's garbage collection will take care of it :

Code: Select all

self.img = nil

[Zorbatron]

Unless you have a ridiculously large amount of images, I doubt you'd need to worry about unloading them. However, I guess it's good to have load screens when you switch between levels for a good base framework.

[CryoNox]

Zorbatron: Yup, I was thinking along the lines of loading screens between levels

Tenoch: Thanks so much for your reply