CODEWITHSUNDEEP
unity-game-engine
Cristian C.
Cristian C.

Reputation: 828

Multiple Tilemap Maps Loaded Dynamically

Feel free to close this question if it is deemed too subjective. I realize that it might very well be, as it may focus heavily on best practices, which, if not an industry standard, may be subjective.

The Problem & Idea:

I'm using the tilemap system in unity (2D), and its been working great, but I have a few concerns regarding my particular usage. What I'd like to have is multiple "battle maps" that will get instantiated when the battle scene is switched to. My current idea is to just make each type of battle map a prefab (prefab on the grid, since the tilemaps are just layers), and then instantiate the grid when the scene loads in.

Is this best practice or is there any better way? Does having 10 maps vs 200 maps make a difference?

Other Things I've Considered:

Would it be a better idea to make one huge tilemap with all of the battle maps drawn a distance away from each other and just restrict the camera to moving only within the "current" battle map? The absolute max size I could see a map being is, let's say 30x20 tops, probably closer to half that though.

An earlier idea was to use small pixel map images to render the maps in. This was before I found out about Unity's tilemap system, which, admittedly, I'd rather use because it is so much simpler to visualize, and less work to develop.

The Scenario:

For simplicity's sake, let us assume the game has 2 scenes, the main menu, and a battle scene. Basically, the idea is to enter the battle scene and have a random battle map to be spawned out of what's available. The character(s) get placed, and any additionals also get placed, say, items, or what have you.

Is what I proposed above best practice? And should I consider any other other two systems I've also described? Or is there something I'm not thinking of that would be even better?

I don't believe that any of the above ways wouldn't work, I'm just curious if any of them is the best way to go about doing this.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1032

Answers (1)

JSON Brody
JSON Brody

Reputation: 828

Your consideration to have all of your battle maps drawn on a single tilemap and restricting the camera to only the region of the current map is an instant red-flag. In my experience with unity, if I want to have a large level drawn on a grid I will have to break it up into chunks (each chunk is a separate tilemap) for performance reasons in the editor and in the game, so I would not recommend doing that.

If your goal is fast load times, then instancing a prefab as you suggested is not a terrible idea as long as the respective tilemap is fairly small (less than 10000 tiles), otherwise you would almost difinitely notice the map getting loaded in. If you are trying to load large tilemaps seemlessly, it may help to load the tilemap asynchronously before the actual switch occurs.

I would keep only the current map and next map loaded in the scene to ensure a seamless transition and optimal resource usage. Unity's tilemaps are not light.

Upvotes: 1

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