Hiding Static Sprites in TGB

#1 In regards to changing sprites so that they don't pop up in the visual editor (but can still be activated in game), I made my own method of activating/deactivating groups of objects swiftly. I modified my games "levelmanagement.cs" file by replacing the function it calls on objects to activate their physics with one of my own called "initializePosition". I then added the following code to my scripts:

function SimSet::initializePosition( %this ){
	for(%i = 0; %i < %this.getCount(); %i++){
		//Firstly, if the sub objects shouldn't be enabled, disable them
		if(%this.Enabled $= "0")
			%this.getObject(%i).Enabled = "0";
		//Then initialize the objects, and log their parents for GUI scripts
		%this.getObject(%i).initializePosition();
		%this.getObject(%i).ParentMenu = %this;
	}
}

function t2dSceneObject::initializePosition( %this ){
	%this.setPosition(%this.getPosition());
}

function SimSet::setEnabled( %this, %state ){
	for(%i = 0; %i < %this.getCount(); %i++)
		%this.getObject(%i).setEnabled(%state);
	%this.Enabled = %state; //Good for checking
}

Now, if you group your objects together in simsets (like t2dSceneObjectGroup) and then add "Enabled" as "0" to that group in its level file, they will need to be explicitly enabled to show up, which you can do simply by calling "setEnabled" on the group like you would any object. So far I love this system, it makes it really easy to make sceneobject GUIs and what not : )

As for your second question, I'm not sure! ^^;;

I hope this helps though!

#2 Thank you very much for the idea. Yet I think your solution is something different from what I need. Still I will think about that in the future because we might need it for levels with heavy grafics load.

Perhaps I should explain my problem in more detail:

Our Designers make a Level Design in Photoshop that is about this resolution: 25600 x 6144 px

Then when the design is final I split this huge image into 512 x 512 blocks. In that case that would mean 50 x 12 = 600 images.
Then a self written Application generates a resource pack with all the images needed and a generated level where all the images are already placed like they should.

Now I have 600 images for each resource pack. After 3 levels TGB will need 1 Minute to load 1800 images in the visual editor and will be a bit sluggish. So not the best way to make 50 Levels.

What I need is a field in the t2dImageMapDatablock where I can say that it should not show up in the create button.
In the level itself I don't have any problems with it since I just can disable certain layers.

#3 You can load them with a separate datablock while playing. Then you don't need to have them inside the editor at all.

Put the exec line at the place where you want to load in the extra datablocks.

exec("game/gameScripts/extra_datablocks.cs");

and in extra_datablocks.cs you put the datablocks for the 600 images.

#4 Awesome! Very simple but effective solution. I will try that. I guess I won't see the images in editor then. Still need to set the collisions, but that wouldn't be that kind of a problem since I can enable and disable the resource as I need.

Thank you!

#5 If you want them to be present but not visible, just set the .visible field to false. They will be present in your project Object Tree and editable, just not visible.