Rain effect

ID:2090402
 
May 27 2016, 9:51 pm
(See the best response by Lummox JR.)
I have a weather system in my game that I recently converted from utilizing area to client.screen (recommended by a fellow dev)-- because I'm a stickler for detail, I have a raindrop splash effect that I want to appear on random turfs all over the map while it's raining. I know HOW to code it, but the problem is that "for looping" over all of the turfs in the world causes visible lag. I tried to relegate it to just show up on 1 type of tile and still the same result. The only other way I can think of doing it is to create a bunch of screen objects at random screen_locs but that just seems so...yuck. I like clean, efficient code.

Is there a better way that won't cause overhead?
May 27 2016, 10:27 pm
What's the loop that's causing all that lag?

Also, IMO client.screen won't perform any better than areas for this purpose, unless your rain overlay is a fairly large image.
May 27 2016, 10:32 pm
In response to Lummox JR
Lummox JR wrote:
What's the loop that's causing all that lag?

for loop for every turf in world, and then applying the visual at a prob of 33%. Experimented with objs, overlays, and even creating the visual at runtime to be applied later but every way caused a short lag spike

Also, IMO client.screen won't perform any better than areas for this purpose, unless your rain overlay is a fairly large image.

Yeah I actually didn't notice a performance difference tbh, but I do like that I don't have to have to paint a bunch of area on my map lol

May 27 2016, 10:34 pm
Using the client's screen in this way seems like alot more work than just using anything else :P
May 27 2016, 10:38 pm
In response to SolarOblivion
Putting rain on every turf is definitely not the way to go. Put it only on turfs the players might actually see.
May 27 2016, 10:38 pm
In response to Kozuma3
Kozuma3 wrote:
Using the client's screen in this way seems like alot more work than just using anything else :P

Actually quite simple thanks to being able to set screen_loc from southwest to northeast. Just paints the rain icon over the screen nice and easy

May 27 2016, 10:39 pm
In response to SolarOblivion
Best response
SolarOblivion wrote:
Kozuma3 wrote:
Using the client's screen in this way seems like alot more work than just using anything else :P

Actually quite simple thanks to being able to set screen_loc from southwest to northeast. Just paints the rain icon over the screen nice and easy

But as I mentioned in today's developement news post, I discovered the code that handles that is really, really outdated and in need of some TLC. It's liable to cause a performance hit.
May 27 2016, 10:43 pm
In response to Lummox JR
Lummox JR wrote:
Putting rain on every turf is definitely not the way to go. Put it only on turfs the players might actually see.

That's the thing though-- players could be anywhere in the game, you know? I'm at least saving myself a different headache by having weather illogically change for everyone, everywhere.
May 27 2016, 11:10 pm
When it's raining, just have a simple loop. Every tick, pick a player at random who's in a rainy area, then pick a random turf in range of them. If it's rainable and a certain random threshold is met, add a raindrop there.
May 27 2016, 11:38 pm
In response to Lummox JR
Lummox JR wrote:
When it's raining, just have a simple loop. Every tick, pick a player at random who's in a rainy area, then pick a random turf in range of them. If it's rainable and a certain random threshold is met, add a raindrop there.

Hmmm clever. I'll try that, thanks.