On 12/20/2015 01:17 AM, Sven Littkowski wrote:
> The new feature I am describing here might not be of much use for
> regular scenes, but I think, it comes handy for testing purposes.
>
>
Hi Sven,

My scenes tend to be small, but what I've noticed when reviewing code 
from others is they plan ahead for switching to simpler versions of 
textures or shapes knowing they'll need to do it to speed development.

As they create code, they add conditionals based upon switches that let 
them swap in simpler/faster versions of things peripheral to the portion 
of the scene they are currently developing. They might also swap in and 
out simpler lighting, for example.

What is necessary to speed up development changes scene to scene and 
with development style. A person who uses a great many large meshes 
might need to swap in simpler ones or CSG shapes to speed parsing times. 
Another user with complex lighting might need to develop mostly with 
simpler lighting.

For you, I'd guess from the enormous size of the images you have posted, 
it is probably loading and using very large images maps in textures that 
most slows you down.

Is so, an option is to have large and small versions of your image maps 
where you use the smaller versions for scene elements peripheral to 
those on which you are currently working. For example, a 
UseSimpleHullTexture switch for conditional code around the loading of 
the image(s) and defining your texture(s). Such a switch would allow you 
to define simpler versions of your hull textures if you were, say, 
working on media for the engine.

I'll add that in addition to the quick color mechanism previously 
mentioned, there is also the SDL #default directive for textures though 
it would too require some switch and conditional set up.

Bill P.

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