Hello! I upload a lot of avatars of users from social networks into the game. I do this with the code
http.request(link, "GET", function(self, id, res)
local img = image.load(res.response)
if gui.new_texture(link, img.width, img.height, img.type, img.buffer) then
gui.set_texture(avatar_node, link)
end
end)
But I stumbled on the fact that the number of drawcalls!
Is it possible to collect dynamic user avatars in one atlas and use from
.......
local img = image.load(res.response)
-- avatars is atlas name
if gui.new_texture('avatars/'..link, img.width, img.height, img.type, img.buffer) then
gui.set_texture(avatar_node, 'avatars')
gui.play_flipbook(avatar_node, link)
end
How to download a lot of avatars of users in the game and avoid a big drawcalls!
Unfortunately it’s not possible easily dynamically create atlases at runtime… but it would be an awesome feature if it was added. I don’t think there is an issue yet for it so you should create one to request this feature https://github.com/defold/editor2-issues/issues
I thought maybe you could create a buffer which is then dynamically updated, but custom properties sent to the shader for offsets would cause extra drawcalls too so we would need to be able to create UVs at runtime too.
It might be possible to calculate the UVs in GLSL based on a “image index” that could be stored in the Z-component of the GUI node (keeping the draw count down due to Z not breaking batching in GUIs). (I think, not tested myself. )
What dimensions are your avatars? How many do you want to be able to be loaded at once? They are GUI nodes?
My current thinking is to use tilesource for textures because then you can use it as a texture with animations and the placements are consistent. Then you can setup animations for each avatar slot so it’s easy to set in the the right slot gui scripts. So you download the image, replace the image data in the buffer at the correct offsets, and then update the tilesource texture with resource.set_texture. The only issue with this is that there will probably be lag every time you update the texture.
Here is the ugly proof of concept so you can see how it works. I still need to clean it up, add proper offsetting, and make it work with irregular texture sizes. Right now the tiles are starting from the bottom left because it’s easier.
I can’t spend more time on it right now though but can finish it tomorrow. If anyone else feels like making the final production ready version before then please do.
You should be able to adapt the solution to work with jpg as well. The solution could likely be adapted to using image.load() instead (since it supports both png and jpg).
Have irregular sizes working, tiles now start at top left, have offsets working properly.
A feature which would be nice to add after everything else is working is automatic edge extrusion support so the images don’t bleed into each other when scaled as they share the same texture space. If you have a frame around the avatar it’s not noticeable, but otherwise you can see a tile bleed into another.
For JPG / image.load() the raw data is in the Lua table instead of a Defold buffer. Would it be better to transfer the raw data into a Defold buffer after loading and then use that, or use the raw data directly?
My mistake I was only setting the red channel to each rgb when I changed over the code. The images do appear to be incorrectly flipped horizontally still…
)
