Asynchronous loading of resources in Unity

        As an excellent game engine, Unity is widely used in the field of game production. In the game development process, the efficiency and smoothness of resource loading are particularly important. For large resource files, the synchronous loading method may cause problems such as game freezes and delays. Therefore, the asynchronous loading method can improve the efficiency and user experience of the game.

This blog will introduce in detail the technical principle and implementation method of resource asynchronous loading in Unity, and explain and demonstrate it in combination with code and comments. Finally, the application scenario of resource asynchronous loading in game development will be given.

1. The principle of asynchronous loading

Asynchronous loading means that during the resource loading process, the program does not wait for the resource loading to complete, but uses other processing capabilities for multitasking. When the resource loading is complete, the program will notify the main thread for corresponding processing.

In Unity, asynchronous loading is mainly realized through coroutine technology. Coroutines are a technique that allow us to suspend the execution of a function and resume it later. When loading resources asynchronously, we can let the resources load in the background without blocking the main thread of the game. After the loading is complete, the main thread of the game will continue to execute and complete the processing of resources.

Second, the implementation method of asynchronous loading

1. Create a script First we create a new script, for example: LoadAssetAsync.cs.

2. Load resources

IEnumerator LoadAsset(string assetPath)
{
    // 异步加载资源
    AssetBundleCreateRequest createRequest = AssetBundle.LoadFromFileAsync(assetPath);
    yield return createRequest;

    // 获取加载的AssetBundle
    AssetBundle assetBundle = createRequest.assetBundle;

    // 加载资源
    AssetBundleRequest request = assetBundle.LoadAssetAsync<Sprite>("sprite");
    yield return request;

    // 获取加载的资源
    Sprite sprite = request.asset as Sprite;

    // 显示加载的资源
    spriteRenderer.sprite = sprite;

    // 卸载AssetBundle
    assetBundle.Unload(false);
}

In the LoadAsset method, we use asynchronous loading to load resources. First use the AssetBundle.LoadFromFileAsync method to asynchronously load the resource bundle, wait for the loading to complete, and then use the AssetBundle.LoadAssetAsync method to asynchronously load the resource.

After waiting for the resource loading to complete, we will get and display the loaded Sprite resource, and use the AssetBundle.Unload method to unload the resource bundle.

3. Call asynchronous loading Then, in the Start method, we call the asynchronous loading method of the script and pass in the resource path to be loaded asynchronously.

void Start()
{
    StartCoroutine(LoadAsset("Assets/AssetBundles/sprite"));
}

4. run

Finally, when we run the game, we can see that the asynchronously loaded Sprite resources are successfully displayed in the game scene.

3. Application scenarios

Asynchronous loading of resources is widely used in many games. Let's look at some typical application scenarios below.

1. Scenes are loaded asynchronously In the game, the scene is a resource that occupies a large amount of memory. Especially when the game scene is very large, synchronous loading will cause problems such as freezes and delays in the game, which will affect the fluency of the game. Therefore, using asynchronous loading can greatly improve the efficiency and user experience of the game.

2. Resource preloading

During the loading process of some resources, if you wait for the resource loading to complete before proceeding to the next step, it will cause game delay and freeze. At this time, you can use resource preloading to load the resources that the game needs into the memory in advance, and call them when they are needed, reducing the time and impact of resource loading.

3. Multilingual localization

In multilingual game development, using asynchronous loading can improve the localization efficiency of the game. When the game is initialized, we can asynchronously load all language resources and call them when needed.

Summarize

This blog mainly introduces the technical principle and implementation method of asynchronous loading of resources in Unity, and explains and demonstrates it in combination with code and comments. Asynchronous loading has a wide range of application scenarios in game development, such as scene asynchronous loading, resource preloading, multi-language localization, etc. During the development process, choosing an appropriate asynchronous loading method according to the actual situation can greatly improve the efficiency and user experience of the game.