How to show a spash-screen while my game is loading?

RogerT

Hi guys,
My game needs to load a few TexturePacks, such as

packA = TexturePack.new("virusA/virusA.txt", "virusA/virusA.png",true)

and it can take up to about ~30 seconds on slower phones, so I want to add a "loading..." splash screen to appear during this time.

I tried the most obvious, adding a stage:addChild( bitmap ) before loading the packs, but it does not appear, i.e. the screen is black for 30 seconds and then the game starts.

Please suggest, how do I show a splash screen? Thanks.

talis

ifound this answer by atilim. i didn't tried by myself but should work.

1. First only load your "loading" image or logo and put it on the stage.
2. Wait for 1 enter frame event
3. Load all of your other assets

RogerT

Thanks, by the way, how can I "Wait for 1 enter frame event" ?

Nascode

@RogerT you could use timer or using enterframe event, in which you track frames manually

petec

@RogerT - I used atilim's method. I renamed what had been main.lua to main2.lua and found that I needed to exclude it from execution so that it didn't run (right click on main2.lua and select exclude). I then added the following code as a new main.lua:

local splashScreen=Bitmap.new(Texture.new("splashScreen.jpg"),true) stage:addChild(splashScreen)   local frameCount=0 local function loadRest() if frameCount==1 then stage:removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,loadRest) require("main2") end frameCount=frameCount+1 end   stage:addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,loadRest)

where the require("main2") bit runs main2.lua.

It was all a bit trial and error so there may well be a better/more efficient way of doing it, but this brought up my splash screen OK and then loaded the rest after it has appeared.

yvz5

if you use screen manager, first load loading.lua and then try to go load the main script. in that way it would show only loading screen before you load your main file.

RogerT

THanks guys, seems to work!

RogerT

By the way, maybe it is possible to somehow count the progress of loading data, to show it to the user?...

talis

see this thread @RogerT

http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/995/how-can-i-create-preloader

RogerT

thanks, got it working based on atilim's example. here's my code:

stage:setBackgroundColor( 0.1,0.1,0.1 )
text = TextField.new(nil, "System Scaled")
text:setPosition(150,350)
text:setTextColor(0xffffff)
text:setText("LOADING")
stage:addChild(text)

anim = {}
packArray = {}

local function preloader()


if ( #packArray < 7 ) then

if ( #packArray == nil ) then numLoading = 0
else numLoading = #packArray+1 end

packArray[#packArray+1] = TexturePack.new("ktest.txt", "ktest"..numLoading..".png",true)

text:setText("LOADING "..#packArray)

end

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if ( #packArray == 7 ) then

stage:removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preloader)

for pk=1, #packArray, 1 do

for lp=1,221,1 do
anim[#anim+1] = Bitmap.new(packArray[pk]:getTextureRegion("k ("..lp..").png"))
end

end

frame = 1
stage:addEventListener("enterFrame", onEnterFrame )

end

end

stage:addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preloader)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

function onEnterFrame()

if ( #anim > 0 ) then

if ( bitMap ~= nil ) then
stage:removeChild(bitMap)
end

frame = frame +1

if ( frame > #anim ) then
frame = 1
end

text:setText("frame: "..frame)
bitMap = anim[frame]
bitMap:setAnchorPoint(0.5,0.5)
bitMap:setPosition(200,200)

stage:addChild( bitMap )
end
end

Cyberience

I use the time event like this, cause I need to load the Database. the 1 is to run once only, I could make it run many times if I want, and remember there is an Event for its completion you can use too. I made it anonymous, but you could just call your function if you want. This is also my Whole main.lua file.

local background = Bitmap.new(Texture.new("images/back/loading.jpg")) stage:addChild(background) DB = DBclass.new("db/Top100.db3")   local authormenu = Timer.new(1000, 1) --[[Delay execution]] authormenu:addEventListener(Event.TIMER, function(event) stage:addChild(Menu.new()) stage:removeChild(background) end ) authormenu:start()