Simsets with objects vs Tilemap
by kupo · in Torque Game Builder · 02/29/2012 (1:26 pm) · 1 replies
Just a curious question :
I divide my screen space into blocks (ie - 8x6 = 48 blocks). Is it more resource friendly to use a tilemap for this?
Currently I've been using a simset with 48 individual objects in it and refreshing it through calls on the simset.
What are the pros/cons to this as far as speed?
I divide my screen space into blocks (ie - 8x6 = 48 blocks). Is it more resource friendly to use a tilemap for this?
Currently I've been using a simset with 48 individual objects in it and refreshing it through calls on the simset.
What are the pros/cons to this as far as speed?
About the author
Associate William Lee Sims
Machine Code Games
48 sprites won't tax the system, especially if they aren't animating. A prototype I'm working on has a few hundred sprites, text, and a few particle effects. There's no slowdown (60+ frames a second).
Tilemaps can be limited. They can't rotate (only flip). But they do run EXTREMELY fast. I have another prototype which had several hundred sprites that animated. It taxed the system to the point of unplayability. When I moved it over to a tilemap, the game ran as fast as if it had no sprites.
I find tilemaps to be most useful when the tiles don't need to update often or interact with each other. I find sprites to be best in all other cases. And in the few games where I've needed both, I wrote a custom t2dSceneObject that acted like a tilemap with the additional features that I needed.
Good luck!