Generating a tile one frame at a time

Unity Engine
1

Hello! I am experimenting with procedural generation and I’m using code from a youtube tutorial. Everything is great except it generates all unloaded tiles in one frame, which lags the game. I would like to make it so I can only generate one (the closest unactivated) tile per frame. Here is the current script:

List<GameObject> tileObjects = new List<GameObject>();
//activate new tiles
foreach (Vector2 tile in centerTiles)
{
    int radius = isPlayerTile ? radiusToRender : 1;
    for (int i = -radius; i <= radius; i++)
        for (int j = -radius; j <= radius; j++)
            ActivateOrCreateTile((int)tile.x + i, (int)tile.y + j, tileObjects);
}

centerTiles is a list of all tile indexes which are inside the player’s render radius.
The radius is more like a box, not a circle.
isPlayerTile is the tile the player is currently standing on.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

2

Stick it in a coroutine and yield after creating a tile.

3 Likes
3

I actually figured this out myself. Long story short, I stuck it in a coroutine and that increased performance dramatically, but the tiles loaded from -x to +x instead of starting at the players position and working outward (which was the main thing I was struggling with). I eventually figured it out though. If people want to know how I solved this, just shoot me a reply.

4

Probably worth at least summarizing the method for posterity. You don’t want to be that guy! :smile:

5

Couldn’t you just generate one tile per each call of Update(), since Update() is called once per frame?

6

You could, but it would be more awkward as the state for said Update logic would necessarily spill into the body of the class. A coroutine allows the state to be nicely packaged inside a method.

1 Like
7

Alright, after some refining here is the final code. This is just in my Update loop after getting coordinates of the tiles that need to be loaded.

float tileDistance;
// will be used to test the distance from the player
float shortestDistance = -1;
// set to -1, since distances are always >= 0. this is just to test if shortestDistance is undefined
Vector2 tileToLoad = new Vector2();
// declare the vector that tells which tile to load
bool tileToLoadChanged = false;
// used to tell if a tile has been chosen by the foreach loop

foreach (Vector2 potentialTile in tilesToLoad)
// tilesToLoad is a List<Vector2> of the coordinates of all the tiles inside the render distance that haven't been loaded yet
{
    tileDistance = Vector2.Distance(potentialTile, playerTile);
    // set the distance from the tile to the tile the player is on

    if (tileDistance <= shortestDistance || shortestDistance == -1)
    // check if the new tile distance is shorter than the previous shortest distance, and also if shortestDistance is undefined
    {
        shortestDistance = tileDistance;
        // set the new shortest distance
        tileToLoad = potentialTile;
        // tile will be loaded after the foreach loop has completed
        tileToLoadChanged = true;
        // set to true because we now have coordinates for the tile to load
    }
}

if (tileToLoadChanged)
{
    ActivateOrCreateTile((int)tileToLoad.x, (int)tileToLoad.y, tileObjects);
    // create the tile!
}

Hope this helps!

1 Like