Showing sprites without an actor?

[Matt]

I find I spawn a lot of smoke, puff, flame, etc. sprites. Most of these don't need anything like all the stuff that gets initialized when a new actor is spawned.

I remember reading on the forums a while ago about a special thinker or something that doesn't do anything but show a sprite and now I'm wondering if using that might help.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? And does it actually use significantly less CPU time to spawn if not maintain?

[zrrion the insect]

I may be remembering wrong, but IIRC it had something to do with randi's work on blood compatibility.

EDIT: [wiki]Classes:CustomSprite[/wiki]
Could this be it?

[Rip and Tear]

I may be remembering wrong, but IIRC it had something to do with randi's work on blood compatibility.

EDIT: [wiki]Classes:CustomSprite[/wiki]
Could this be it?

CustomSprite still inherits from Actor.

There are some flags like +NOINTERACTION which can reduce the load of an actor.

[Caligari87]

Well, I just tested and it's already possible to inherit from something as low-level as Object, though I can't seem to do much with it. Might it be possible, with a few exports, to build such an actor from scratch?

Although Matt, in your case it's probably the translucency overdraw that's causing a lot of the lag, not necessarily the number of actors (unless of course you've tested and found otherwise, but that's just my guess)

[Matt]

zrrion: That's what I was thinking about! But yeah, it's an actor. Oh well, I'll think of something (possibly even just not spawning as many actors...)

R&T: I'm aware of the advantages of +nointeraction but it doesn't stop the overhead of initializing all those actors at once.

Caligari: Maybe, but the actor-spawning is definitely contributing - try using a doorbuster (or five) on a larger door, say the north secret on Map01, and unless you've got a much faster computer than me there will be a noticeable pause as all the debris actors appear.

[Nash]

I think the real solution here would be skinnable particles.

[The Zombie Killer]

Well, I just tested and it's already possible to inherit from something as low-level as Object, though I can't seem to do much with it. Might it be possible, with a few exports, to build such an actor from scratch?

Classes inherit from Object by default, therefore:

Code: Select all

class Example : Object
{
}

// is the same as

class Example
{
}

[Matt]

I think the real solution here would be skinnable particles.

Are those possible right now? I have this vague recollection of this being implemented at some point but I could be imagining things (and I can't find anything on the wiki).

[Caligari87]

Sort of, but not really. You can replace the particle graphic in GZDoom.pk3 and it'll be used in place of all particles as expected, but hasn't been exported to be generally usable by mods. I'm not an engine dev but that seems like a reasonably straightforward thing to do, considering it, y'know, already halfway works.

[Nash]

There's a small discussion but that's about it. viewtopic.php?f=4&t=55737

There may or may not already be an open suggestion yet; I'm too tired to search

[Apeirogon]

I looks through all base definitions of object, thinker and actor, in zscript part of gzdoom, and did not see any function/way which can show sprite, or make from thinker something, which from far distance looks like default actor.
But that probably because I am a blind kitten in programming.

[Graf Zahl]

To render a sprite there needs to be some reference object in the map - that's the Actor. Sorry, it cannot work any other way.