Libgdx animation controller, optimize for culled animations - animation

I wan't to cull all animations that are not visible to the user. I have tried a crude way where I simply do not call AnimationController.update() if the animated object is not visible. This does not work as I wan't though. Since when a culled object comes back into view it will play the last applied animation (even ones that I applied when they where culled) This is as expected I guess. Animations still needs to be applied to culled object as they might come into view halfway through an animation for example.
I am now looking at subclassing AnimationController, and change the update() method to take into consideration if the object is culled or not. If it is I wan't to only update the "time" and not do any "heavy" operations at all.
My problem is that I am not sure what are the heavy parts an what is the bare minimum I need to update/advance. So I was hoping someone with more insight to the AnimationController class could help me out a bit? Any help welcome, thanks!
/** Update any animations currently being played.
* #param delta The time elapsed since last update, change this to alter the overall speed (can be negative). */
public void update (float delta) {
if (paused) return;
if (previous != null && ((transitionCurrentTime += delta) >= transitionTargetTime)) {
removeAnimation(previous.animation);
justChangedAnimation = true;
animationPool.free(previous);
previous = null;
}
if (justChangedAnimation) {
target.calculateTransforms();
justChangedAnimation = false;
}
if (current == null || current.loopCount == 0 || current.animation == null) return;
justChangedAnimation = false;
updating = true;
final float remain = current.update(delta);
if (remain != 0f && queued != null) {
inAction = false;
animate(queued, queuedTransitionTime);
queued = null;
updating = false;
update(remain);
return;
}
if (previous != null)
applyAnimations(previous.animation, previous.offset + previous.time, current.animation, current.offset + current.time,
transitionCurrentTime / transitionTargetTime);
else
applyAnimation(current.animation, current.offset + current.time);
updating = false;
}
I was hoping I could do something like only advance transitionCurrentTime, remain and current.time when culled...?

Related

RayCast not working as expected, help! (Unity 3D)

Okay so I'm making a photography game where when you 'take a photo', Unity sends a few raycasts forward to check if certain tagged items are in the photo (all within the cameras FOV). My problem is, this seems to work intermittently! Sometimes it finds the tagged objects, other times it will be right in front of the view yet it will miss it completely! Can anyone advise about what I'm doing wrong?
public static Transform target;
public static GameObject[] targetName;
public static float length = 250f;
public static Transform thisObject;
// Start is called before the first frame update
void Start()
{
thisObject = GameObject.Find("Main Camera").GetComponent<Transform>();
//target = GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag("Trees").transform;
}
// Update is called once per frame
void Update()
{
//InFront();
//HasLineOfSight("Trees");
}
public static bool InFront(Transform target1)
{
Vector3 directionToTarget = thisObject.position - target1.position;
float angleOnXAxis = Vector3.Angle(thisObject.right, directionToTarget);
float angleOnYAxis = Vector3.Angle(thisObject.up, directionToTarget);
//Debug.Log(angleOnYAxis);
if (Mathf.Abs(angleOnXAxis) < 130 && Mathf.Abs(angleOnXAxis) > 50
&& Mathf.Abs(angleOnYAxis) < 115 && Mathf.Abs(angleOnYAxis) > 62)
{
//Debug.DrawLine(transform.position, target.position, Color.green);
return true;
}
return false;
}
public static bool HasLineOfSight(string objectTag)
{
RaycastHit hit;
Vector3 direction = target.position - thisObject.position;
//Debug.Log(direction);
if (Physics.Raycast(thisObject.position, direction, out hit, length))
{
if (hit.transform.tag == objectTag)
{
Debug.DrawRay(thisObject.position, direction * 0.96f, Color.red);
return true;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
public static GameObject SortObjects(string objectTag)
{
targetName = GameObject.FindGameObjectsWithTag(objectTag);
GameObject closestObject = null;
for (int i = 0; i < targetName.Length; i++)
{
if (Vector3.Distance(thisObject.position,
targetName[i].transform.position) <= length)
{
if (InFront(targetName[i].transform))
{
if (closestObject == null)
{
closestObject = targetName[i];
}
else
{
if (Vector3.Distance(targetName[i].transform.position, thisObject.position) <= Vector3.Distance(closestObject.transform.position, thisObject.position))
{
closestObject = targetName[i];
}
}
}
}
}
return closestObject;
}
public static bool ObjectCheck(string objectTag)
{
//Debug.Log(SortObjects(objectTag));
if (SortObjects(objectTag) != null)
{
target = SortObjects(objectTag).transform;
//Debug.Log(target);
if (InFront(target) && HasLineOfSight(objectTag))
{
return true;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
I'm essentially calling ObjectCheck() with the tag I want to check for to get the closest, visible, object with that tag. What is wrong with this code??
In your script, only the closest object to the main camera gets checked. SortObjects() determines the closest tagged object, and then you only handle that single object in ObjectCheck(). - That object might be obstructed by something else, so the method returns false. And other tagged objects that are actually visible, are not picked up this way...
So, you could rename and change your SortObjects() function to check for both conditions right in the loop (InFront(target) && HasLineOfSight(objectTag)), and filter the objects out right in there, since only those objects are of interest.
Also, your HasLineOfSight() method checks the tag of the hit object, but what you probably wanted to do, is to check if the raycast actually hits that exact object. So it should instead compare the hit's gameObject to the target's gameObject, ignoring the tag, since a correct tag alone isn't enough. (Side note: it would make sense to place all "photographable objects" on a "photo layer", and set the layer mask in the Physics.Raycast() call accordingly, it's more efficient that way in larger scenes.)
The way the angles are calculated in the InFront() method is probably causing issues, because the direction vector to the target is really in 3D. To calculate the angles, you could try to use Vector3.Project() or Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(), but that will also be problematic, because of perspective camera issues.
This check is strongly related to the topic of "frustum culling", a technique usually used for rendering. But it's similar to what you need, to filter out all the (possibly) visible objects in the camera's field of view (frustum culling doesn't handle obstruction, it is just a geometric check to see if a point lies within the camera's frustum space). See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewing_frustum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-surface_determination#Viewing-
http://www.lighthouse3d.com/tutorials/view-frustum-culling/
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UnderstandingFrustum.html
If you want to dig deeper and optimize this, there are a couple of ways this can be done. But luckily, Unity comes with many useful related functions already built into the Camera class. So instead, you could use Camera.WorldToScreenPoint() (or Camera.WorldToViewportPoint()), and compare the resulting screen coordinates to the screen size or viewport, like discussed in Unity forum. (The frustum math is hidden behind these compact functions, but beware that this is probably not the optimal way to do this.)
Instead of calling FindGameObjectsWithTag() every time, you could do it only once in Start(), assuming objects do not get created/destroyed while the game is running.
I've tried to modify your script, since I'm also learning Unity again... The script can be dragged to the main camera, and it should show the "focus object" in the Scene view with the green debug line. I hope this helps:
using UnityEngine;
[RequireComponent(typeof(Camera))]
public class PhotoCast : MonoBehaviour
{
public float maxDistance = 250.0f;
public string objectTag = "photo";
protected GameObject[] objs;
protected GameObject objFocus;
protected Camera cam;
public void Start() {
objs = GameObject.FindGameObjectsWithTag(objectTag);
cam = GetComponent<Camera>();
}
public void Update() {
if (Input.GetButtonDown("Fire1")) {
objFocus = CheckObjects();
if (objFocus) {
Debug.Log("closest object in view: " + objFocus.name);
/* TODO: take actual photo here */
}
}
if (objFocus) {
Debug.DrawLine(transform.position,
objFocus.transform.position, Color.green);
}
}
GameObject CheckObjects() {
GameObject obj_closest = null;
float dist_closest = float.MaxValue;
foreach (GameObject o in objs) {
float dist = Vector3.Distance(
o.transform.position, transform.position);
if (dist < maxDistance && dist < dist_closest
&& InViewport(o.transform.position)
&& HasLineOfSight(o.transform)) {
dist_closest = dist;
obj_closest = o;
}
}
return obj_closest;
}
bool InViewport(Vector3 worldPos) {
Vector3 p = cam.WorldToViewportPoint(worldPos);
return (p.x > 0.0f && p.x <= 1.0f && p.y > 0.0f && p.y <= 1.0f
&& p.z > cam.nearClipPlane);
}
bool HasLineOfSight(Transform target) {
RaycastHit hit;
Vector3 dir = target.position - transform.position;
if (Physics.Raycast(transform.position, dir, out hit, maxDistance)) {
if (hit.collider.gameObject == target.gameObject) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
}
Side notes:
Another issue with this technique is, that there can be tagged objects right in front of the camera, but other tagged objects that are closer on the side will be picked up instead of the obvious one. Many small issues to fine-tune until the scripts fits the game, I guess. Instead of only using one Raycast per object, you could use multiple ones, and take the bounding box or the actual collider shape into account.
An improved version of the script could make use of the Physics.Overlap*() or Physics.*Cast*() functions, documented here.

Trying to create a very basic game, but experiencing some bottlenecking issues (I think)!

I'm using Adobe Flash Professional CS6 to create the game. I'll post the code under. Be noticed that there are two symbol I've created using Flash that are not made by code. These symbols are the Crosshair symbol, and the Hitbox symbol. Basically, the objective of the game is to click the Hitbox symbol. My issue is that I am experiencing what seems to be bottlenecking issues. When I click the Hitbox symbol a lot of times with a fast timer the score doesn't register. I am pressuming that this comes from the (maybe) ineffective movement algorithm. But I can't really seem to find room for improvement. Some help would be appreciated.
Be noticed, I had to change the timer from Timer(1) to Timer(30). This made the bottlenecking issue a little bit better, but made the game less fluent.
Aah, and the reason as to why I am using the directionCheckerY and directionCheckerX variables is that I will later in the development add random movement. A random timer will change these to either 0 and 1, creating random movement.
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.events.TimerEvent;
// Variables
var directionCheckerX:int=0;
var directionCheckerY:int=0;
var pointChecker:int=0;
// Croshair
var crosshair:Crosshair = new Crosshair();
addChild(crosshair);
Mouse.hide();
function moveCrossEvent (evt: MouseEvent) {
crosshair.x = mouseX;
crosshair.y = mouseY;
evt.updateAfterEvent();
}
// Hitbox
var hitbox:Hitbox = new Hitbox();
addChild(hitbox);
hitbox.x=50;
hitbox.y=50;
// Timer
var myTimer:Timer = new Timer(30);
myTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, timerEvent);
myTimer.start();
function timerEvent(evt:TimerEvent) {
// Border code (Keeps the Hitbox away from out of bounds)
if (hitbox.x <= 0) {
directionCheckerX = 1;
} else if (hitbox.x >= 550) {
directionCheckerX = 0;
}
if (directionCheckerX == 0) {
hitbox.x-=2;
} else {
hitbox.x+=2;
}
if (hitbox.y <= 0) {
directionCheckerY = 1;
} else if (hitbox.y >= 400) {
directionCheckerY = 0;
}
if (directionCheckerY == 0) {
hitbox.y-=2;
} else {
hitbox.y+=2;
}
}
// EventListeners
stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, moveCrossEvent);
hitbox.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, hitboxEvent);
stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, stageEvent);
function hitboxEvent (evt:MouseEvent) {
pointChecker+=1;
outputTxt.text = String(pointChecker);
evt.stopImmediatePropagation();
//evt.updateAfterEvent();
}
function stageEvent(evt:MouseEvent) {
pointChecker-=1;
outputTxt.text = String(pointChecker);
}
To be clear, I'm not a game developer.
Actually, sometimes there is no big difference between a Timer with 1 millisecond interval and another one with 30 milliseconds interval because it's depending on the SWF file's framerate or the runtime environment ... but here, what about using an Event.ENTER_FRAME event instead of a Timer ? because as Adobe said here about Timers versus ENTER_FRAME events :
Choose either timers or ENTER_FRAME events, depending on whether content is animated.
Timers are preferred over Event.ENTER_FRAME events for non-animated content that executes for a long time.
and in your case the content is animated (even if your game is still basic).
Then you can use a var to set the speed of your hitbox which you can update at any time :
var speed:int = 2;
function timerEvent(evt:TimerEvent): void
{
// ...
if (directionCheckerX == 0) {
hitbox.x -= speed;
} else {
hitbox.x += speed;
}
// ...
}
Hope that can help.

optimize javafx code consuming large amount of memory and CPU

the code below is for a fundraiser dinner to purchase a land, the purpose is to show the progress of the square meter of land purchased (around 2976m2). everytime a square meter is purchased, the application adds an image tile which corresponds to an acctual 1m2. eventually the tiles (~2976 of them) fill up like in a grid to complete the land once fully purchased.
The size of each tiles is around 320bytes, there are 2976 tiles in total.
I have also showing below an image example.
The thing that drives me crazy with this code (in javafx) is that it consumes around 90 to 100% of 1 of my processors and the memory usage keeps increasing as the tiles add up until the code buffer run out of memory and the program crashes after a while. this is not desirable during the fundraising dinner.
the full code is available for testing at
you will need to change boolean split to true false, which will split the images for you, (around 3000 images);
https://github.com/rihani/Condel-Park-Fundraiser/tree/master/src/javafxapplication3
The main culprit that uses all the memory and CPU is the AnimationTimer() function shown below and I am wondering if anyone can help me reduce memory and CPU usage in this code.
to briefly explain how the code below is used, the land is divided into 2 panes, when the first one grid_pane1 is filled up the second pane grid_pane2 starts to then fill up.
also a flashing tile is used to show the current progress.
I am using total_donnation ++; to test the code, but would normally use mysql to pull the new value raised during the findraising dinner
AnimationTimer() Code:
translate_timer = new AnimationTimer() {
#Override public void handle(long now) {
if (now > translate_lastTimerCall + 10000_000_000l)
{
old_total_donnation = total_donnation;
try
{
// c = DBConnect.connect();
// SQL = "Select * from donations";
// rs = c.createStatement().executeQuery(SQL);
// while (rs.next())
// {total_donnation = rs.getInt("total_donnation");}
// c.close();
total_donnation ++;
if(total_donnation != old_total_donnation)
{
System.out.format("Total Donation: %s \n", total_donnation);
old_total_donnation = total_donnation;
if (!pane1_full)
{
grid_pane1.getChildren().clear();
grid_pane1.getChildren().removeAll(imageview_tile1,hBox_outter_last);
}
grid_pane2.getChildren().clear();
grid_pane2.getChildren().removeAll(imageview_tile2,hBox_outter_last);
for(i=0; i<=total_donnation; i++)
{
if (pane1_full){ System.out.println("Pane 1 has not been redrawn"); break;}
file1 = new File("pane1_img"+i+".png");
pane1_tiled_image = new Image(file1.toURI().toString(),image_Width,image_Height,false,false);
imageview_tile1 = new ImageView(pane1_tiled_image);
grid_pane1.add(imageview_tile1, current_column_pane1,current_row_pane1);
current_column_pane1 = current_column_pane1+1;
if (current_column_pane1 == max_columns_pane1 )
{
current_row_pane1 = current_row_pane1+1;
current_column_pane1 = 0;
}
if (i == max_donnation_pane1 ){ pane1_full = true; System.out.println("Pane 1 full"); break;}
if (i == total_donnation)
{
if (i != max_donnation_pane1)
{
hBox_outter_last = new HBox();
hBox_outter_last.setStyle(style_outter);
hBox_outter_last.getChildren().add(blink_image);
ft1 = new FadeTransition(Duration.millis(500), hBox_outter_last);
ft1.setFromValue(1.0);
ft1.setToValue(0.3);
ft1.setCycleCount(Animation.INDEFINITE);
ft1.setAutoReverse(true);
ft1.play();
grid_pane1.add(hBox_outter_last, current_column_pane1,current_row_pane1);
}
}
}
if (i < total_donnation)
{
total_donnation_left = total_donnation - max_donnation_pane1;
for(j=0; j<=total_donnation_left; j++)
{
file2 = new File("pane2_img"+j+".png");
pane2_tiled_image = new Image(file2.toURI().toString(),image_Width,image_Height,false,false);
imageview_tile2 = new ImageView(pane2_tiled_image);
grid_pane2.add(imageview_tile2, current_column_pane2,current_row_pane2);
current_column_pane2 = current_column_pane2+1;
if (current_column_pane2 == max_columns_pane2 )
{
current_row_pane2 = current_row_pane2+1;
current_column_pane2 = 0;
}
if (j == max_donnation_pane2 ){ System.out.println("Pane 2 full"); break;}
if (j == total_donnation_left)
{
if (j != max_donnation_pane2)
{
hBox_outter_last = new HBox();
hBox_outter_last.setStyle(style_outter);
hBox_outter_last.getChildren().add(blink_image);
ft = new FadeTransition(Duration.millis(500), hBox_outter_last);
ft.setFromValue(1.0);
ft.setToValue(0.3);
ft.setCycleCount(Animation.INDEFINITE);
ft.setAutoReverse(true);
ft.play();
grid_pane2.add(hBox_outter_last, current_column_pane2,current_row_pane2);
}
}
}
}
current_column_pane1 =0;
current_row_pane1=0;
current_column_pane2=0;
current_row_pane2=0;
}
}
catch (Exception ex) {}
translate_lastTimerCall = now;
}
}
};
First and foremost, you create a lot of indefinite FadeTransitions that are never stopped. These add up over time and cause both memory and CPU leaks. You should stop() the transition before starting a new one. Alternatively, you only need one transition to interpolate the value of a DoubleProperty and then bind node's opacity to this property:
DoubleProperty opacity = new SimpleDoubleProperty();
Transition opacityTransition = new Transition() {
protected void interpolate(double frac) {
opacity.set(frac);
}
};
// elsewhere
hBox_outter_last.opacityProperty().bind(opacity);
You may want to preload all the image tiles beforehand, so that you avoid reading from disk in the loop.
You unnecessarily destroy and recreate large part of the scene in every cycle. You should modify your code to only add the new tiles and not drop them all and recreate them from scratch.
Finally, when you actually query the database, you should do it from a different thread and not the JavaFX application thread, because your UI will be unresponsive for the time of the query (e.g. not animating your fade transitions).
I have a suggestion:
Do not split the image instead using 2 panels. One for displaying the whole image. The second will be a grid pane overlapping the first pane. Therefore, when a square meter is purchased, the background of corresponding grid-cell will become transparent.

xna 4.0 animation looping

Hello everyone I have been following this tutorial here http://www.gogo-robot.com/2011/05/30/xna-skinned-model-animations/ and so far its great got the animations playing and everything, but now I want to expand it and stop the continuous loops say for instance i press the a key to make the model jump when i release the a key i want him to stop jumping but if i hold the a key i want him to keep jumping. Here what i have tried so far
and none of it works.
I am stumped here on how to do this thanks for any help with this.
private void HandleInput(GameTime gameTime)
{
currentGamePadState = GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One);
// Check for changing anims
//SkinningData skinningData = model.Tag as SkinningData;
SkinningData sd = jumper.model.Tag as SkinningData;
if (currentGamePadState.Buttons.A == ButtonState.Pressed)
{
if (jumper.animationPlayer.CurrentClip.Name != "Fire")
jumper.animationPlayer.StartClip(sd.AnimationClips["Fire"]);
}
if (currentGamePadState.Buttons.X == ButtonState.Pressed)
{
if (jumper.animationPlayer.CurrentClip.Name != "DieF")
jumper.animationPlayer.StartClip(sd.AnimationClips["DieF"]);
}
//does not work
if (currentGamePadState.Buttons.X == ButtonState.Released)
{
if (jumper.animationPlayer.CurrentClip.Name == "DieF")
jumper.animationPlayer.StartClip(sd.AnimationClips["Idel"]);
}
if (currentGamePadState.Buttons.Y == ButtonState.Pressed)
{
if (jumper.animationPlayer.CurrentClip.Name != "Idel")
jumper.animationPlayer.StartClip(sd.AnimationClips["Idle"]);
}
//does not work
if (jumper.animationPlayer.CurrentTime == jumper.animationPlayer.CurrentClip.Duration)
{
//set him back to idel
jumper.animationPlayer.StartClip(sd.AnimationClips["Idle"]);
}
I have tried these configuration with no luck in the game
// Starts playing the entirety of the given clip
public void StartClip(string clip, bool loop)
{
AnimationClip clipVal = skinningData.AnimationClips[clip];
StartClip(clip, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0), clipVal.Duration, loop);
}
// Plays a specific portion of the given clip, from one frame
// index to another
public void StartClip(string clip, int startFrame, int endFrame, bool loop)
{
AnimationClip clipVal = skinningData.AnimationClips[clip];
StartClip(clip, clipVal.Keyframes[startFrame].Time,
clipVal.Keyframes[endFrame].Time, loop);
}
// Plays a specific portion of the given clip, from one time
// to another
public void StartClip(string clip, TimeSpan StartTime, TimeSpan EndTime, bool loop)
{
CurrentClip = skinningData.AnimationClips[clip];
currentTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0);
currentKeyframe = 0;
Done = false;
this.startTime = StartTime;
this.endTime = EndTime;
this.loop = loop;
// Copy the bind pose to the bone transforms array to reset the animation
skinningData.BindPose.CopyTo(BoneTransforms, 0);
}
Can you not attach a bool on the animation clip to tell it to play only once, or an active variable that can be called.

Java ME. How to animate Sprite

I am having trouble with animating my sprite in Java ME.
if ((k & FIRE_PRESSED) != 0) {
spriteActive = true;
boxer.nextFrame();
if (boxer.getFrame() == boxer.getFrameSequenceLength() - 6) {
spriteActive = false;
}
}
}
// TO re-start a game...
public void update() {
if(boxer.getRawFrameCount() == 5 && spriteActive == false){
boxer.setFrame(0);
}
}
When the enter key is pressed, spriteActive is set true but only changes the frame by one. I intend to have it animating the entire sequence but it is not doing that. Just animates 1 frame at a time with every press.
Does anyone have any ideas/advice of how I should approach this?
Thanks for the time and help!
Do you have any code that checks whether spriteActive is true and then sets the next frame?
I am no expert on Java but I would suspect you'd need to implement something like this:
if (spriteActive == true)
{
boxer.nextFrame();
}

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