Starling.stop() seems to stop Flash completely

Starling Forum » Starling Framework » General Discussion

Starling.stop() seems to stop Flash completely

(18 posts) (5 voices)

Started 1 year ago by blemmo
Latest reply from xs2bas

Tags:

No tags yet.

blemmo

Novice Bird
Joined: Apr '12
Posts: 9

Hi folks,

I'm stuck on a problem here and couldn't find a solution by searching the forums. I'm working on a game for IOS and am using the head revision from git (245).
I have a setup where the code consists of several modules, one module contains all Starling related code, other modules contain classic Flash display objects.
There should be an in-game menu (done in Flash) above the game ui (Starling). For this I want to pause Starling, which obviously is done by calling stop() on the Starling instance. The problem is that after calling Starling.stop(), there's nothing happening anymore at all - the Flash menu is not showing, also another Flash object (stats display) on top of the Starling layer stops updating. The whole app seems to be frozen.
This happens on the IPhone 4, testing this in the FlashBuilder emulator works just fine - Starlings pauses, Flash menu is shown and Starling resumes afterwards.

I doubt that this is normal behaviour, stage3d rendering should be independet from display list rendering, right? did anyone experienced this too? Are there workarounds to this?

Posted 1 year ago #
Jeff

Moderating Owl
Joined: Nov '11
Posts: 1,285

Daniel (or others in the know) might want to comment but I just recently quoted this from the AIR 3.2 notes in another topic:

The overlaying of normal Stage content on top of Stage3D has been optimized by combining all rendering into a single pass. The Stage plane now updates synchronously with the Stage3D plane. Synchronous updates mean that if you are using
normalDisplayObjects overlayed on top of Stage3D content, then neither the Stage nor the Stage3D content will update on screen until you call Context3D.present()

And that last sentence where it states neither the stage nor the stage3d content will update until you call Context3D.present() got me thinking to check Starling's current onEnterFrame() and it seems currently Context3D.present() will only be called inside Starling's render() and only if Starling is started.

It might be the case that if there is a nativeOverlay but Starling is paused or not started that maybe Context3D.present() needs to be called still outside of render()...
or a pause mode that does or does not also include the native stage needs to be supported...

Posted 1 year ago #
blemmo

Novice Bird
Joined: Apr '12
Posts: 9

Thx Jeff, that seems to be the explanation. If I move the render() call in Starling's onEnterFrame outside the if(mStarted) statement, Starling's animations are stopped and the Flash layers are showing just fine when stop() is called. I still need to call render() in onEnterFrame to keep the paused state of Starling showing - calling only Context3D.present() will remove all Starling content and display a grey area. Because the in-game menu is transparent this is bad in my case, but if it was an opaque menu that hides Starling completely it would be enough to just call Context3D.present().

Starling still queues the TouchEvents while stopped, so I added
if( !mStarted ) return; in the onTouch() handler.

Thx for the pointer!

Posted 1 year ago #
danieldourado_2

Moderating Bird
Joined: Feb '12
Posts: 203

Thanks for the workarround, blemmo!
I just faced the same problem that you had, with the exactly the same circumstances as yours: To pause the game with a classic displayObject with opaque background!

So, is this a bug? Because when you call starling.stop() you probably mean only to stop starling, not the whole render process...

I suggest Daniel should update it to starling.stopStarling() and starling.stopAll()... What you guys think?

Posted 1 year ago #
blemmo

Novice Bird
Joined: Apr '12
Posts: 9
I was thinking about this too. My idea was to add functions pause() and resume(). These could set a mPaused flag similar to what start() and stop() do with mStarted. In onEnterFrame, mPaused could be checked and only if it was true, advanceTime() is called. render() would be called outside the if-clause in every frame to keep the paused state showing.
If stop() was called, the onEnterFrame could just call mContext.present() to keep the rendering process alive without processing and showing the Starling ui.
Would be like this then:
private function onEnterFrame(event:Event):void { makeCurrent(); if (mStarted) { if( !mPaused ) { if (mNativeOverlay) updateNativeOverlay(); advanceTime(); } render(); } else { mContext.present(); } }
If you want to stop Starling completely you could use dispose(), i guess if the context3d is disposed rendering continues as usual.
Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel

Primary Feather
Joined: Jan '10
Posts: 2,437

Thanks a lot for making me aware of this issue!

I have just updated Starling so that, as soon as the native overlay contains any children, the render method continues to be called.

Thus, you can call "start" and "stop" just like before, and the Starling content will always be visible behind any transparent overlay objects. I think this should be the most straightforward solution. Furthermore, I'm now ignoring Mouse/Touch and KeyboardEvents while Starling is paused.

What do you think? Is this a practical solution?

Posted 1 year ago #
blemmo

Novice Bird
Joined: Apr '12
Posts: 9

Hi Daniel, I think it's a good solution as long as you keep all UI inside the starling area, e.g. with the NativeOverlay method. But, if you have UI outside starling and the NativeOverlay, like I did (because I didn't know about the overlay...), then you will run into this problem again if you don't know about it. In that case you couldn't use stop() because it would stop rendering because the NativeOverlay is not in use. Maybe it would be practical to have an optional parameter to the stop() method that can be set to true if rendering should continue?

Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel

Primary Feather
Joined: Jan '10
Posts: 2,437

Hm ... you're right, in that case it won't help. I'll think about that! In the meantime, I recommend to simply use that overlay.

Posted 1 year ago #
xs2bas

Novice Bird
Joined: Oct '12
Posts: 10

I'm facing the same problem, even when using nativeOverlay like this:

var p_cDummy:Class = getDefinitionByName ("dummy") as Class;
var p_oDummy:MovieClip = new cDummy() as MovieClip;
TweenMax.to (oDummy, 1, { rotation:10, yoyo:true, repeat:-1} );
Starling.current.nativeOverlay.addChild(oDummy);

The animation stops rendering when stopping Starling, while it's not supposed to?
Movieclips in the 'regular' DisplayList stop playing too.

What am I doing wrong? or is it still not working? thanks!

Posted 5 months ago #
Jeff

Moderating Owl
Joined: Nov '11
Posts: 1,285

It does seem like the latest Starling sources now will only render if Starling is started, even native stage and the call to mContext.present().

I've just created a ticket issue on github to get Daniel's confirmation on whether this is an expected limitation now or an unexpected side-effect:
https://github.com/PrimaryFeather/Starling-Framework/issues/223

Posted 5 months ago #
Daniel

Primary Feather
Joined: Jan '10
Posts: 2,437

Sorry, that was an error on my side -- got lost during a previous update. I've just fixed it.

Now, I'm simply always rendering the stage, even when Starling is paused. (Of course, no application logic is executed.)

So you can now use either the conventional stage or the native overlay.

Posted 5 months ago #
xs2bas

Novice Bird
Joined: Oct '12
Posts: 10
Daniel, thanks for the quick fix, but now it seems like it's not possible anymore to start/stop the Starling-object!

Wheither I say start or stop, Starling automatically start running:
m_oStarling.stage3D.addEventListener(Event.CONTEXT3D_CREATE, StarlingReady); private function StarlingReady(e:Event) { m_oStarling.stop(); // m_oStarling.start(); }
Even without the eventlistener Starling starts running immediately and there is no way stopping it.
Posted 5 months ago #
Jeff

Moderating Owl
Joined: Nov '11
Posts: 1,285

Are you sure you don't have a start() somewhere else in your code? Starling doesn't seem to autostart as far as I can see from the latest code.

Posted 5 months ago #
xs2bas

Novice Bird
Joined: Oct '12
Posts: 10

When I replace the most recent Starling library source code (which I use now) with a version of a couple of weeks ago, it doesn't autostart anymore ... and besides the autostart, I'm not able to stop it either (using the latest Starling-version).

Posted 5 months ago #
Jeff

Moderating Owl
Joined: Nov '11
Posts: 1,285

Odd, there is nothing in the code to autostart, doesn't happen for me with the latest source drop. If I don't call start(), Starling will not be running.

Just swapping the Starling code to an older version doesn't necessarily prove that there still isn't some start() call in your code that might be triggering it.

I see you have a Event.CONTEXT3D_CREATE listener added to the stage3D, and I am not sure exactly where you have all your start() calls, but maybe one of your listeners is still triggering the first start(). Maybe trace or set a breakpoint on Starling's start() method to see what is triggering it.

Posted 5 months ago #

xs2bas

Novice Bird
Joined: Oct '12
Posts: 10

Hey Jeff, thanks for thinking along with me ... I still didn't catch the problem.

Question: can a Starling-instance start itself?
Ik stripped down the document-class-code to:

	public class SpelTestIOS extends MovieClip{ 
 
		protected var _starling:Starling;
		private var m_oStats:Sprite;
 
		public function SpelTestIOS():void {
			stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;
			stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
 
			 _starling = new Starling(Game, stage);
			 _starling.showStats = true;
			_starling.stop();
 
			_starling.stage3D.addEventListener(Event.CONTEXT3D_CREATE, Finished);
		}
 
		private function Finished(e:Event) {
			trace("READY!");
			_starling.stage3D.removeEventListener(Event.CONTEXT3D_CREATE, Finished);
			_starling.stop();
		}
 
	}

... and still Starling is playing ... even calling _starling.stop() from a button doesn't stop starling from playing.

The thing is that I'm having problems playing mp4-video through a StageWebView, because Starling slows down the iOS native videoplayer-interface a lot, and I have to stop Starling from playing while using the StageWebView.

Posted 5 months ago #

Daniel

Primary Feather
Joined: Jan '10
Posts: 2,437

I think we're talking about two different things here.

In its latest version, when Starling is not started, it won't run any application logic -- i.e. it doesn't dispatch ENTER_FRAME events, and won't listen to touch/keyboard input.

BUT: it will render its contents once per frame. This happens because otherwise, the conventional display list wouldn't be rendered.

The only alternative would be that Starling renders a black frame. I don't know if that would be better for you?

In any case, what's not possible is to leave the Starling content as it was when you called "stop". I have to clear the context, otherwise no Flash content will be drawn.

Posted 5 months ago #
xs2bas

Novice Bird
Joined: Oct '12
Posts: 10

okay, well, thanks for your explanation ... unfortunately stopping starling doesn't solve my problem with using the native video player in StageWebView

Posted 5 months ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.