[AS3] My collision system is faulty and is lagging my game

[jpoopdog]

hello,

After little help with my previous thread asking for a possible solution to my problem, being that i had no idea how to do X and Y collisions, i have finally gotten it to work, to an extent.

I got X and Y collisions, to work, but it is very strange, only X collisions work smoothly, or at least they did before i moved it all out of my zombie class and onto the main game class since i was told that the enemies shouldnt be doing their own collisions.

Anyway, i got it all working now, in a way, but now the game laggs up really bad when theres over 5 zombies on screen, doing collisions, which then causes some to glitch and get stuck in walls, which in turn worsens the lagg.


can someone please help? what do i need to do to get this to work without lagging so bad, and perhaps also actually get both x and y collisions to work, instead of just the one which is called first in the for loop (which is generally X).

in the game, wherever the mouse is clicked a zombie is spawned, as a block.

[abeall]

Hi there,

You're much more likely to get help if you can post code, not many people will download a zip right off the bat. I realize you might have a lot of code and you aren't sure where the problems stem from, but try to isolate your problem areas and post the code from there.

[jpoopdog]

I may have changed some things around, but heres the code for the zombie class.

package {
    import flash.display.MovieClip;
    import flash.display.DisplayObject;
    import flash.events.*;

    public class Zombie extends MovieClip {

        private var lacc:Number=0;
        private var racc:Number=0;
        private var uacc:Number=0;
        private var dacc:Number=0;
        public var LastX:Number=50;
        public var LastY:Number=50;

        private var timer:Number=1;
        private var timer2:Number=1;
        private var loffset:Number=100;
        private var roffset:Number=100;
        private var uoffset:Number=100;
        private var doffset:Number=100;
        private var ran1:Number=1;
        private var ran2:Number=1;
        public var Xhit:Boolean=false;
        public var Yhit:Boolean=false;

        public var dx:Number=0;
        public var dy:Number=0;
        public var bump:Boolean=false;
        private var stuck:Number=0;
        private var mL:Boolean=false;
        private var mR:Boolean=false;
        private var mU:Boolean=false;
        private var mD:Boolean=false;
        public var doomtime:Number=0;

        //public var hit:Boolean=false;
        public function Zombie() {

            x=mouseX;
            y=mouseY;

        }
        public function moveDownABit():void {

            timer2+=1;

            if (timer2>=ran2) {
                timer2=0;
                dx=racc*roffset/75-lacc*loffset/75;
                dy=uacc*uoffset/75-dacc*doffset/75;
                ran2=Math.random()*10;
            }

            if (doomtime==0) {
                if (Xhit==false) {

                    LastX=x;

                    x+=dx;
                } else {

                    x-=dx;
                    //dx=0;

                }
                if (Yhit==false) {


                    LastY=y;

                    y-=dy;
                } else {

                    //y-=dy;
                    dy=0;


                }
            } else {
                doomtime+=1;
            }
            /*MovieClip(root).moveleft.text=mL;
            MovieClip(root).moveright.text=mR;
            MovieClip(root).moveup.text=mU;
            MovieClip(root).movedown.text=mD;
            MovieClip(root).ltb.text=lacc;
            MovieClip(root).rtb.text=racc;
            MovieClip(root).utb.text=uacc;
            MovieClip(root).dtb.text=dacc;
*/
            timer+=1;




            if (timer>=ran1) {
                loffset=Math.random()*100;
                roffset=Math.random()*100;
                uoffset=Math.random()*100;
                doffset=Math.random()*100;
                ran1=Math.random()*150;
                timer=0;
            }




            if (x<MovieClip(root).targX) {
                mR=true;
                mL=false;
                //if player is to the right

                if (racc<=4) {
                    racc=racc+0.2;

                }
                if (lacc>=0) {
                    lacc=lacc-0.2;
                }
            }
            if (x>MovieClip(root).targX) {
                mL=true;
                mR=false;
                //if player is to the left

                if (lacc<=4) {
                    lacc=lacc+0.2;
                }
                if (racc>=0) {
                    racc=racc-0.2;
                }
            }
            //}


            if (y<MovieClip(root).targY) {
                mD=true;
                mU=false;
                //if player is beneath
                if (dacc<=4) {
                    //if (lastpress == 1) 
                    dacc=dacc+0.2;
                }
                if (uacc>=0) {
                    uacc=uacc-0.2;
                }





            }
            if (y>MovieClip(root).targY) {
                mU=true;
                mD=false;
                //if player is above

                if (uacc<=4) {
                    uacc=uacc+0.2;
                }
                if (dacc>=0) {
                    dacc=dacc-0.2;
                }
            }


        }


        //private function moveX():void {
        //if (Yhit==false) {
        /*
        for (var a in MovieClip(root).dirt) {
        Xhit=false;
        
        if (MovieClip(root).dirt[a].hitTestObject(this)==true) {
        
        Xhit=true;
        collideX();
        
        }
        }
        //}
        
        */
        //}
        //public function collideX():void {
        //trace("x is last x");
        //x=LastX;

        //racc=0;
        //lacc=0;


        //}

        //private function moveY():void {
        //if (Xhit==false) {
        /*Yhit=false;
        for (var a in MovieClip(root).dirt) {
        
        if (MovieClip(root).dirt[a].hitTestObject(this)==true) {
        Yhit=true;
        
        collideY();
        }
        
        
        
        }
        //}
        */

        //}
        //public function collideY():void {
        //if(Xhit==false){


        //uacc=0;
        //dacc=0;
        //y=LastY;
        //}

        //}








    }
}

[rrh]

So is your collision testing all in your commented-out setions?

   for (var a in MovieClip(root).dirt) {
        Xhit=false;
        
        if (MovieClip(root).dirt[a].hitTestObject(this)==true) {
        
          Xhit=true;
          collideX();
        
        }
   }

How many elements do you expect to be in "dirt?" Is it just an Array or what?

Assuming it's an Array...

 var dirt:Array = MovieClip(root).dirt;
 Xhit=false;
 for (var a in dirt) {       
        if (MovieClip(dirt[a]).hitTestObject(this)==true) {
        
          Xhit=true;
          collideX();
          break;
        }
 }

Three changes:
1 set "dirt" before the loop, so I didn't need to keep re-casting "root"
2 set Xhit to false before the loop, so it only does it the once. Before, if the last entry of dirt doesn't collide, then Xhit would return to false for the last go through the loop, even if an earlier entry collided
3 I added the break, since once it's found one collision it doesn't seem to matter if it finds two


I also question the value of testing for Xhit inside the collideY function. What if it hits a corner, where moving just the X position back won't be enough to get it out of the wall? Then it might get stuck.

[jpoopdog]

hi, i added your changes to the game, and performance wise it helped quoite a bit.
ive solved the collisions problem though, for seperately detecting y,x collisions, by using this code within the doom time if statement, instead of whats there now.

LastX=x;//Set the last x position without being in touch with a dirt tile, to current x
                x+=dx;// Increase x by x acceleration
                moveX();// check to see if there was a collision after moving.




                LastY=y;// Set the last x position without being in touch with a dirt tile, to current x
                y-=dy;// Increase x by x acceleration
                moveY();// check to see if there was a collision after moving. 

this way collisions are finally clean. also i moved collisions back into the zombie class since it didnt actually improve performance to have it in the main game AS.

would you perhaps know though how i could better improve performance?
would turning zombies into sprites for instance help?

edit--

also, now i AM using the commented out code at the bottom you have asked about. i had Xhit inside the for loop before because otherwise collisions would work at all.