In the project I’m building the player is supposed to travel to the past on a button press. That means the general architechture of the map is the same but I’m using a different post process volume and I’m switching out a few assets and geometry.
For the prototype I have it set up with a persistant level that includes assets that are in both the present and the past, then I have a “present” sublevel and a “past” sublevel which each contain their own post process volume and some assets that can only be seen in either present or past.
It works ok for the prototype for as soon as my level will be a little bigger I’ll have a performance problem because on each button press it unloads and loads several assets. Below is how I currently have it set up.
Is there a more efficient way to do this? E.g. have both sub levels loaded and then just switch visbility on or off? Is my general approach wrong and inefficient? This thought was triggered because I ran the game in standalone for the first time and it took ages to “travel between times” even in small levels.
As always, it depends on how you set your level up.
I don’t know how you set your world up, however:
My large world loads and unloads levels based on player location, but for more compact areas (like my Downtown area), I use PACKED LEVEL ACTORS that can be hidden or culled; very quick retrieval and although it doesn’t improve FPS/MS as much as a full unload, it still is better than being visible at all times. So, PACKED LEVEL ACTORS may be what you want, in addition to your current setup; they can act as an in-between.
You can also just make your sublevels invisible, which will save FPS/MS, but still take up space because they are loaded:
I haven’t thought about “the entire map” at this point but I think I’ll have to do something similar as you describe, loading and unloading levels based on player location.
It seems I’ll have to do some research into packed level actos, it could be exactly what I need. I could build the basic level, then pack specific actors to make visibile or invisible as you travel through time and still have a system where other areas are loaded based on player location.
I’ll need a little time to research this fully but it sounds great, thanks for the advice.
