Creating Game and Level Load Screens

You can create a game or level loading screen with the UI Editor. The game loading screen is displayed while the game loads. The level loading screen is displayed while a level loads. You can create and define a loading screen for each level.

Load screens support more than just UI canvases when using RAD Game Tools’ Bink video files. You can specify a path to either a UI canvas or a Bink video file. Additionally, multi-threaded load screens are supported for Bink videos, enabling a load screen to render hitch-free while levels load.

To define the game and level loading screens, you set the file paths as parameters in game.cfg and level.cfg.

Defining a Game Loading Screen

To define a game loading screen, first do one of the following:

• Create the loading screen canvas in the UI Editor and save it in your O3DE project directory.
• Save a Bink video file in your O3DE project directory.

You then add or modify parameters in game.cfg, which is at the root of your project directory.

To add game loading screen parameters to game.cfg

1. In a text editor, open game.cfg at the root of your project directory.

2. Add or modify the following parameters in game.cfg:

   • game_load_screen_uicanvas_path - File path to the .uicanvas game load screen file relative to your project path. Use this if you are using a UI canvas for your loading screen.
   • game_load_screen_bink_path - File path to the .bk2 game load screen file relative to your project path. Use this if you are using a Bink video for your loading screen.
   • game_load_screen_minimum_time - Minimum amount of time to show the game load screen, in seconds. Important to prevent short loads from flashing the load screen. 0 means there is no minimum. The default is 0.
   • game_load_screen_sequence_to_auto_play - Name of the game load screen animation sequence to play on load.
   • game_load_screen_sequence_fix_fps - A fixed frame rate for the game load screen animation to play on load. Default is 60. To ignore this setting and use the real time-delta, specify -1.
   • ly_EnableLoadingThread - Experimental. Set to 1 to enable fully threaded loading where the load screen is drawn on a thread that isn’t loading data. Currently only supported for Bink load screens.

The following are examples of these parameters in a game.cfg file:

game_load_screen_uicanvas_path="UI\Canvases\UiAnimMultiSequence.uicanvas"
game_load_screen_minimum_time=5
game_load_screen_sequence_to_auto_play="TopRowMove"
game_load_screen_sequence_fix_fps=4.0

game_load_screen_bink_path="Videos\GameLoadingScreen.bk2"
game_load_screen_minimum_time=5

Defining a Level Loading Screen

To define a level loading screen, first do one of the following:

• Create the loading screen canvas in the UI Editor and save it in your level’s directory.
• Save a Bink video file in your level’s directory.

You then add or modify parameters in level.cfg, which is at the root of your level directory.

To add level loading screen parameters to level.cfg

1. In a text editor, open level.cfg at the root of your level directory.

2. Add or modify the following parameters in level.cfg:

   • level_load_screen_uicanvas_path - File path to the .uicanvas level load screen file relative to your project path. Use this if you are using a UI canvas for your loading screen.
   • level_load_screen_bink_path - File path to the .bk2 level load screen file relative to your project path. Use this if you are using a Bink video for your loading screen.
   • level_load_screen_minimum_time - Minimum amount of time to show the level load screen, in seconds. Important to prevent short loads from flashing the load screen. 0 means there is no minimum. The default is 0.
   • level_load_screen_sequence_to_auto_play - The name of the level load screen animation sequence to play on load.
   • level_load_screen_sequence_fix_fps - A fixed frame rate for the level load screen animation to play on load. Default is 60. To ignore this setting and use the real time-delta, specify -1.
   • ly_EnableLoadingThread - Experimental. Set to 1 to enable fully threaded loading where the load screen is drawn on a thread that isn’t loading data. Currently only supported for Bink load screens.

The following are examples of these parameters in a level.cfg file:

level_load_screen_uicanvas_path="Levels\StarterGame\UiAnimMultiSequence.uicanvas"
level_load_screen_minimum_time=3
level_load_screen_sequence_to_auto_play="TopRowMove"
level_load_screen_sequence_fix_fps=4.0

level_load_screen_bink_path="Videos\IntroLevelLoadingScreen.bk2"
level_load_screen_minimum_time=3