Keeping the previous load zone in sight

Daystar · Post by **Daystar** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 12:32 am

Hello all I'm not sure if this is the right area to post this but you know when a character moves from one loading zone to the next when you look back you can still see the previous load zone...How would you do this using Irrlicht? Is this even Posible?

vitek · Post by **vitek** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:19 am

Don't unload the previous zone until it is out of view and the character is some distance away (at least so far away that you can reload it before it would need to come back into view). This discussion is not really Irrlicht specific as Irrlicht doesn't support paging and dynamic loading of zones based on character position. That would all be logic that is specific to your application.

Travis

Aelis440 · Post by **Aelis440** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:20 am

The short answer is yes.

However, there is a lot of ambiguity in what you are asking. A "loading zone" is something that you code and develop on your own, which is outside of what Irrlicht is conerned with. I believe that you want different "areas to load" in your game, but you still want to render all your art within the camera's view distance. This is certainly possible. However, before I go into more detail, I suggest you give your own question some more detail.

edit: beaten by Vitek

Daystar · Post by **Daystar** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:45 am

Yea I understand that u can't use irrlicht to do that, I was just wondering if it was a way for me to do it without having to keep the previous map on screen/

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:55 am

You're asking if you can see something that's not there? Hey hey, if a tree falls in the woods and theres nobody around, what sound does it make?

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 3:42 am

Daystar wrote:Yea I understand that u can't use irrlicht to do that, I was just wondering if it was a way for me to do it without having to keep the previous map on screen/

Can we come back to this question next year? Looks pretty mysterious at the moment. Why would Daystar go that way is simply way beyond me.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 10:57 am

You could keep 3 zones in memory at once, i.e. the one that your actor is in, plus the two on either side.

Alternatively, have zones that overlap slightly and duplicate the transition regions in each adjacent zone. You can design your levels to hide the limited extent of each zone. If your game is set in an interior environment, do the transitions (for example) in a winding hallway where your view is limited. You can see this design in (e.g.) Half Life and (very obviously) in Deus Ex.

If you want smoother transitions, as in GTA: San Andreas, then you're going to have to implement streaming loading and LOD switching, which requires heavy magic.

roelor · Post by **roelor** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:17 pm

Or make a texture for the skybox of the previous zone.