Smooth Preloader

[frankieboywonder]

Hi, we're building a slot game that loads 15-20 texturepacked images, 20+ sound files, and maybe a dozen spine files. Some of these are obviously bigger than others, and so due to the nature of counting the files instead of the bytes, the preloader looks very choppy as it occasionally pauses (and so looks stuck) on a large texture.

I wondered if anyone had any tips or techniques for smoothing out the progress bar animation?

Thanks

[ivan.popelyshev]

> I wondered if anyone had any tips or techniques for smoothing out the progress bar animation?

Do it with css matrix translate

[b10b]

Compute the bytes loaded / bytes total - and show that as a function of time elapsed.  Similar to how a large OS update shows its progress.  It will be wrong for 99.99% of the time, but tend towards accuracy as it approaches completion!

That said - don't fix what isn't broken - lumpy loaders are cooler.  If a loader is too smooth some users will assume it's fake and become disgruntled.  Plus anticipation of a lump completing is oddly entertaining.  Loader psychology is weird and fascinating.  Some loader progress designs aren't linear, some include minimum progress updates, etc.  Ever noticed how many AAA loaders zoom the beginning then get slower at the end?  Expectation manipulation!

[jonforum]

if is for desktop app, just use nodejs https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html
You read folders and files, storing all metas somewhere (size,type,hash,path....), and you can make your loader with those meta and track smoothly the progress.
For web (you dont have nodejs)  so you will need manually add those meta informations.
Maybe a task before publish, to get those metas.