ok thanks Egon!

For everyone who wants to get more information about Memory Management in Android here is a very useful presentation that should answer all other questions relating to Memory Management and Memory Leak tracking in Android!

To the huge texture problem:
I' m scaling the 2048² bitmap down to 1024² and resize the GUI elements programmatically like I said before.
I believe I have to live with the maybe creepy results, we will see.
Another option is to completely change the GUI to a retro style with pixel graphics...

But, thanks again Egon, for your time invest!

Howdy!

short question about the storage of GUI elements that are obliged to blit via FrameBuffer:

What is better:
1. putting all GUI elements in one big bitmap that will be loaded as one single Texture to the TextureManager
or
2. for every small GUI element one single Texture-object that will be loaded to TextureManager?


My Problem:
I've chosen the first path because I've got about 60 GUI elements. All these elements are placed within a single
bitmap and are drawn to the screen via frameBuffer.blit(...) over their associated 'bitmap source coordinates' that are stored in a so called GUIMeasurements-Object.
The size of the bitmap is (please don't go berserk XD) 2048x2048 with a color depth of 16.

Is it necessary that this bitmap, which is only used for blitting, is loaded to the TextureManager?
At the moment the memory limit is reached while restarting the Activity, so I got a OOM - naturally.

The use of the method FrameBuffer.blit(int[], int, int, int, int, int, int, int, int, boolean) could be an alternative but is not recommended.

Any advice or hint?

With "recycle" i actually meant to copy the references into the new (or restarted) Activity. My Android examples do this in a crude and simple way and my RPG game does it too. The result is, that the game simply continues where i left once all references are being copied into the new Activity.

... how do you copy the objects? Via Intent? I've already thought about handing over all jpct objects at the beginning of the developement.
At that time I failed to transport the mGLView because I didn't know how to transport custom or uncommon objects via Intent. So I leave this branch to save time.
Your result of copying the references seems to be equal with my "onResume"- result after minimizing and reopen the app.
When restarting the game and the activity, I want to reset all jpct objects position, score, time and so on. So no need to destroy them, thats right.
But I have to reset and unconnect the jBullet-Simulation. So it might work if I copy the refs like you said and 'just' destroy the jBullet things. Thats an idea...

reducing polys:
Ok I understand the problem, thanks! Your idea with the reduced master mesh seems to be plausible and make sense.
So back to original mesh :S ... I hope the polygon cruncher plugin for 3ds doesn't clump all submeshes of the object while reducing.
If so, there is no way to rotate the wheels after reduction... i test this and will report
 

Hooohaaa!

the most nerving problem while programming for mobile devices is the OutOfMemory Exception.
In most cases the OOM is caused by long living objects. The further the development progresses the more objects you
need and the more often you are running into a OOM.

1.
Does anyone have experience with a kind of Memory Leaks tracking tool?
I want to find out which objects are blocking the Memory.
I would try this: http://macgyverdev.blogspot.de/2011/11/android-track-down-memory-leaks.html


The latest OOM - that drives me insane - is thrown after restarting the gameActivity wherein , among others, a simple keyframe animation
is created. Uncommenting that code lets the OOM disappear, so i think i have something forgotten to clean up.
This is how I do:

private Animation drive = null;
private Object3D temp = null, playerCar = null;
[...]
/* jPct specific ViewPort setup. It's called in MyRenderer.onSurfaceChanged(...)*/
private void setupViewPort(){
[...]
//loading 3D cars
case 1:{
//playerCar = beetle
if(playerCar == null){
playerCar = loadZippedSerializedModel(getResources().openRawResource(R.raw.beetleidle));
playerCar.rotateY((float)Math.PI/2);
playerCar.rotateMesh();
playerCar.clearRotation();
playerCar.getMesh().compress();
//*
drive = new Animation(3);
drive.createSubSequence("IDLE");
drive.addKeyFrame(playerCar.getMesh());

drive.createSubSequence("LEFT");
temp = loadZippedSerializedModel(getResources().openRawResource(R.raw.beetleleft));
temp.rotateY((float)Math.PI/2);
temp.rotateMesh();
temp.clearRotation();
temp.calcBoundingBox();
temp.calcNormals();
temp.getMesh().compress();
drive.addKeyFrame(temp.getMesh());
if(temp!=null)temp.clearObject(); temp = null;

drive.createSubSequence("RIGHT");
temp = loadZippedSerializedModel(getResources().openRawResource(R.raw.beetleright));
temp.rotateY((float)Math.PI/2);
temp.rotateMesh();
temp.clearRotation();
temp.calcBoundingBox();
temp.calcNormals();
temp.getMesh().compress();
drive.addKeyFrame(temp.getMesh());
if(temp!=null)temp.clearObject(); temp = null;

playerCar.setAnimationSequence(drive);

playerCar.strip();
playerCar.build();
// playerCar is added to world later, after connecting with jBullet Rigidbody
// /*drive.remove(0); drive = null;*/
                                                }

}
                           
/** Loads a single, zipped and serialized Object from InputStream. It' s called in setupViewPort()*/
private Object3D loadZippedSerializedModel(InputStream inputRessource) {
ZipInputStream zis = new ZipInputStream(inputRessource);
try {zis.getNextEntry();} catch (IOException e) {/*throw new RuntimeException(e);*/}

Config.oldStyle3DSLoader=true;
Config.useRotationPivotFrom3DS = true;

Object3D model = null;
model = Loader.loadSerializedObject(zis);

//clear resources
try {
zis.close();
zis = null;
} catch (IOException e) {/*e.printStackTrace();*/}
Loader.clearCache();
MemoryHelper.compact();
System.gc();
return model;
}


/* Resets all Objects to null in reverse order of creation. It's called in Activity.onDestroy()*/
private void destroyAllObjects(){
[...]
Loader.clearCache();
playerCar.clearAnimation(); playerCar.clearObject(); playerCar = null;
if(drive != null)drive.remove(0); drive = null;
if(temp != null)temp.clearObject(); temp = null;
[...]
System.gc();
MemoryHelper.compact();
}



What I managed beside the cleaning of all objects on Destroying the Activity:

• minimizing the keyframe animation to 3 frames (so beside the object3D there are two more Meshes loaded)
• every keyframe is part of a single animation sequence (so one frame per sequence)

To reduce the memory usage I want to compute the 3ds-objects down - I hope this helps.

2.
Does anyone know a good polygon reduction tool?
I already tried POLYGON CRUNCHER (http://www.mootools.com/plugins/us/polygoncruncher/) but after optimizing (from 9073 vertices  to 6112 and from 14652 faces to 8738)
the jpctSerializing process get stuck so the serialized 3ds file is not created.
I guess there was something destroyed while polygon reducing that was important for jpctSerializer.
Anyone knows a better tool?
(EDIT: fixed this by doing another import of the reduced 3ds-file to 3ds-Max and export it as 3ds-file again)


ByTheWay!?: What's recommended: quadrangular or triangular Polygons?
I've read somewhere that all quads are recompute into triangles for the android's hardware, so putting objects as quadrangular Polygon Mesh would reduce performance (can't find where I read this anymore) - so is that true?

Within the onDestroy-Method of the Activity, that should be able to get restarted, I call the method destroyAllObjects().
This method resets and 'nulls' all Objects, that were initialized and used by the Activity.

Or what do you mean with decouple?

some more trys:
I'd imported the vehicle.3ds to blender. With the exception of the rerotation of the 2nd vehicle it's all just ok. The pivot points seems to be on the right place in blender.

... so, I recognize that the so called "Selection Center" of the 3ds max Polygon editor in vertex mode resembles the in jpct shown transformed center (see pic1 previous post).
Some more recherche show that this "Vertex Selection Center" is the calculated geometric center of 3DS max.
http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/15/ENU/3ds-Max-Help/index.html?url=files/GUID-4B35174B-AAC4-470D-8A4E-89608EB6914D.htm,topicNumber=d30e57453


Is it possible that the transformed center of objects in jpct equals this geometric center?

Now, i no more believe that there is an error in exporting the 3ds. file referring to the pivot point.
(this other thing, i mean, the rerotating of the 2nd mesh, could be some failure of mine)

Huhu,

I am going to try to load a 3ds object (it's one single vehicle mesh) to jpct-ae to connect it with a jbullet rigidbody.
The rigidbody needs the transform's center to set a rigidbodyshape correctly.

Problem is, that the center of the vehicle transform (Object3d.getTransformedCenter()) at runtime doesn't equal with the center of the object in 3ds max. Even a moving of the object in 3ds max away from (0,0,0) doesn't cause a difference (the shown transformedCenter of the vehicle is still the same).

But, that doesn't concern to all objects I'd loaded with jpct the same way!
The transformed center of a spherical soccer ball matches exactly with the one from 3DS Max.

Anyone of you knows this issue?
Is it possible that the .3ds-exporter of 3DS max generates a center of the transform relatively to the size and not position of the object?
Or is the vector of this center generated while serializing the object's 3ds. file with jpct?

I method like Object3D.setTransformedCenter(new SimpleVector()) would be great. Then I may reset manually the center of the vehicle at object creation time.


If some more information, code-snippets or explanation screenshots are required I can deliver them in addition.
(sorry for linguistic bloopers, but this problem made me insane and dizzy .'S )


EDIT:
The 3d object passes through the following workflow:

3DS MAX -> Export as .3ds-file -> Serialization 3ds. to .ser-file -> Zip
... Android Build process ...
Runtime: -> unzipping -> load via Loader.loadSerializedObject and object3d creation

Hi there,

i hope you can help me with the following activity-lifecircle problem:

Situation:
I have two Activities, one for the Menu and one for the Game.
The GameActivity is started by the MenuActivity via startActivityForResult(GameIntent) after pressing "start Game"
(see pic0 number 1. )
There are two different jPCT-Environments within these two Activities, that will be individually cleaned by their
associated Activity.onDestroy() method when calling Activity.this.finish().


The user has differnet options after pressing "pause Game":

a. Resume the game
-> simply unpausing the game

b. Quit the game

//pseudo code
GameActivity.this.setResult(RESULT_QUIT);
GameActivity.finish();
MenuActivity.onActivityResult(...){ ... case RESULT_QUIT: MenuActivity.finish() }

c. Back to Main Menu
//pseudo code
GameActivity.this.setResult(RESULT_MAIN_MENU);
GameActivity.finish();
MenuActivity.onActivityResult(...){ ... case RESULT_MAIN_MENU: MenuActivity.currentScreen = Screen.MAIN_MENU; }

d. Restart the game
//pseudo code
GameActivity.this.setResult(RESULT_RESTART);
GameActivity.finish();
MenuActivity.onActivityResult(...){ ... case RESULT_RESTART: startActivityForResult(GameIntent) }


Problem:
When restarting the GameActivity immediately after destroying (see option d.), the jpct-World doesn't load (see pic2),
although the Framebuffer is ready (you can see the key buttons on pic 2).
I think the old GameActivity with the cleaned jPCT-Environment is still on the Activity stack and not
destroyed quickly enough by the garbage collector. (see pic0 number 2. ) [reason for this argument: see clumsy workaround 1, lower]

Restarting the GameActivity by pressing "start Game" after returning to the Main Menu (see option c.) is working (see pic1).

pic0

short workflow


pic1

Display after pressing "start Game"


pic2

Display after pressing "restart Game"

Clumsy workaround 1:
When returning to MenuActivity with RESULT_RESTART, pasting a thread.sleep for 5 sec before calling startActivityForResult(GameIntent)
-> result:  World will be loaded like shown in pic1
Issue:
5 sec blackscreen appears between activity switching

Clumsy workaround 2:
When returning to MenuActivity with RESULT_RESTART, putting a System.exit(0); in GameActivity.onDestroy() as last line
-> result:  World will be loaded like shown in pic1
Issues (EDIT):
-rough Activity changing with short ugly blackscreen, lumberjack style :S
-a following "back to Menu"-action from GameActivity ends up in a restart of the MenuActivity too,
because System.exit(0) clears the states of all Activities! - i guess



Question:
Does anyone know a good way to get rid of old activity instances immediately?
I think about a command like "gc, clean the stack NOW!" (System.gc() doesn't help, still takes 5 sec until the GC get its ash up)

Or is there a way to get the number of the Activities on stack?

I am wondering why no new instance of GameActivity is build after calling startActivityForResult(GameIntent) immediately?
Maybe I have to set a flag like "the old GameActivty is expired"? Any ideas?


EDIT:
Reset the GameIntent before calling startActivityForResult(GameIntent) doesn't help neither









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