I''ve been thinking about loading screens (sad but true). Considering the long loading periods some games have, is it worth it to add a bit of eye candy to the loading screen to make it a bit more bearable or is a (alpha-blended) progress bar over a background bitmap enough? And, if I put a fancy progress meter in, wouldn''t it slow the map loading process and just make things worse? ------------------------------------------------- Mindphuq Software : "Who do you want to do today?"

The loading screens are working your HDD or CDRom/DVD Drive... so while the loading is going on you still have most of the CPU to play with, and show something interesting. I don''t recall offhand many games or applications that have done this though.


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This can go horribly wrong. Strider two on the PSX is a good example. Every time you move from one area on to the next (relatively often) they split the screen off into 16 subscreens of the last thing you say, and then spiral a little Strider 2 logo. Well, 16 Strider 2 logos to be exact.

The result could be used to induce vomiting. In fact, it has.

In the old times of Demo making (err.. Ok it''s still alive), the creation of fancy loading screens was an art form
The one I recall from the Amiga was a Guillaume Tell theme. On one side, a guy as shooting an arrow, on the other side, Guillaume Tell, with an apple on his head.
The arrow indicated the progress of the loading by moving from the bow to the apple, hopefully

It''s the little details that you call bells and whistles, but it''s the ones that people remember years afterwards...

If you can''t create shorter load times then I think an entertaining load screen would be a good idea over a progress bar. I think the more action oriented your game is the more you want to have a sense that something is still happening, even if it''s a little cycling movie. (Heh, just don''t go too far, as LF was noting) For instance, you could do what the old Wing Commander games did (the launch and land sequences) and make it totally in context.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

you have to be careful when creating screens like this...if you try to make them too involved they will detract from the entire game experience. i think valve got it right with half life: dont have load screens; reduce load times as much as possible. deus ex tried to do the same thing but the save and load times are huge and distracting.

if a long load time is a must, i like what thief ii did; the screen itself is interesting and they tell you your objectives (showing which have and haven''t been completed). this provides us the players with useful information in an attractive way while we are waiting.

one other possibility (of many) is to have a little cutscene play during the load (or do the load during a cutscene, either way). this way you further the story and keep the player involved, and the load times are less intrusive. this would not work in a seemless environment type game like half life (but it isnt needed in a game like half life either). if a fmv or in-engine cutscene is taking up too much system resources, you could do a simpler stylized version, like the age of empires II cutscenes, and to an extent the homeworld. this would have the advantages of giving your game a distinctive style, they may be easy to make, and they would take up less system resources...

those are my thoughts...

<(o)>