...*shrugs* I prefer to tile the tables and keep the NPCs to a minimum, but euh.

NPC's do kinda lag things down, but then again, it makes it easier to place things when it's an NPC... I guess we could make it go both ways.... Depends on your level building style.

if you have a vine image npc placed 100 times in the same level, with the image vine.png, it only draws the image once, not 100 times, the only thing that would lagg a level is obsesive use of lights, and lights with a setzoom over 4, you can have 300 npcs in a level with minimal lagg.

:eek:

You must teach me how lol

Barrels are fun :D

o.O

It has to draw the image as many times as it appears on the screen. The more images you have, the slower things go. Usually people can handle it, but it really depends on what other stuff is going on at the time. More processing given to images takes away what you can assign to AI or whatever.

Grim Squeaker:

I think what he meant to say is that Graal only has to convert the image from .png one time, of course it's still slow as heck with too many images.
Though showimg is still the better alternative, means less NPCs need to be loaded in memory.

well, what I tried to say was, the image only loads once in the memory, and it just draws itself in the level once, images shouldn't lagg you if the number is greater than 200, though, this is what Stefan has, for the most part, told me so bleh,
if you had 20 differnt npcs in the level, with 20 differnt images, and another level with 20 npcs with the same image, the one with the same image would be alot less laggy.

Yeah, but if you have a level with 200 NPCs running the code if(created){ dontblock; drawunderplayer; } and a level with one NPC running the code if(playerenters) addtiledef ...; the tiledef-only room will be faster.

I recently made a magic system that maybe some of you will have seen (screenshot attached). It has the player draw shapes with the mouse, which are then recognised as spell runes that trigger different magical effects. The point is that the system uses maybe 50-80 images at any time the player is drawing a rune. If there are already 200 images in the level then those extra images are liable to cause a performance hit. If tiles are used instead of independent images then it leaves space for elaborate magic systems or enemies composed of multiple images or fireworks or suchlike.

!!!!


That's a cool system!!! Integrate it!!!

Into what?

Yeah, good idea on the magic. Requires skill and memorization, as magic should.

Oh yeah, Birdo, Gon, Ghosty's saying the Zal plot and tiles are his and demanding I unload them immediately. While I scoff at his impotence to make me do any such thing and all that, you guys wanna talk to him about it? The fact that he inherited a project doesn't give him rights to reneg extant contracts made with the former owner, but if he MADE all this stuff, I/we probably shouldn't be using it...

1) Ghostie didn't make Zal labs

2) 2230 has nothing to do with Zal now... =/

3) I'll try talking to him.

Okay, so the pics2230 graphics, that's Zal, and the zal rifle, cannon, teleporter, all that, that's all Zal as well? None of that is Ghost's territory, just the names of the ships in the Classic intro are from G2230?

Grim Squeaker:

Did you get that idea from Arx Fatalis or does it just seem that way?
Bleh, nice anyway.

correct. Ghost has only gotten those as something for him. The rest of the junk is stuff for Zal

...shoot, if that's all let's just write a similar Zal plot with different ship names. ^_^

I got it from Black & White although Arx was probably an influence, since I'd just been playing it.

Grim Squeaker:

Meh, I was originally going to say Black & White, but then I thought of the fact that Arx is more recent.