How to show a minimap in a 3d world

Posted by Bubblewrap on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by Bubblewrap
Published on 2012-04-10T17:12:24Z Indexed on 2012/04/10 17:47 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 298

Filed under:

libgdx

Got a really typical use-case here. I have large map made up of hexagons and at any given time only a small section of the map is visible. To provide an overview of the complete map, i want to show a small 2d representation of the map in a corner of the screen.

What is the recommended approach for this in libgdx? Keep in mind the minimap must be updated when the currently visible section changes and when the map is updated.

I've found SpriteBatch, but the warning label on it made me think twice:

A SpriteBatch is a pretty heavy object so you should only ever have one in your program.

I'm not sure i'm supposed to use the one SpriteBatch that i can have on the minimap, and i'm also not sure how to interpret "heavy" in this context.

Another thing to possibly keep in mind is that the minimap will probably be part of a larger UI...is there any way to integrate these two?

Related posts about libgdx

Pass a single boolean from an Android App to a libgdx game

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I'm writing an Android application that needs to pass a single boolean into an Android game that I am also writing. The idea is that the user does something in the App which will affect how the game operates. This is tricky with LIBGDX since I need to get the bool value into the Java files of the… >>> More
Pass a single boolean from an Android App to a LIBGDK game

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I'm writing an Android application that needs to pass a single boolean into an Android game that I am also writing. The idea is that the user does something in the App which will affect how the game operates. This is tricky with LIBGDX since I need to get the bool value into the Java files of the… >>> More
How do I generate mipmap .png and model .obj files for LibGDX?

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I'm playing a bit with LibGDX (OpenGL ES 2.0 wrapper for Android). I found some sample code which used prepared files to load models and mipmap textures for them, e.g., at https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/blob/master/demos/invaders/gdx-invaders/src/com/badlogic/gdxinvaders/RendererGL20.java it reads… >>> More
So LibGDX / Java or XNA / C# [on hold]

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I am curious to know what will be better for me - LibGDX / Java or XNA / C#. I am on the same level with C# and Java (I am pretty advanced with both of them). I really want to get into game development, develop indie games and such. So what are the pros and cons of XNA and LibGDX, what do you prefer… >>> More
How to move the camera sideways in libgdx

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I want to move the camera sideways (strafe/truck), now i had the following in mind, but it doesn't look like there are standard methods to achieve this in libgdx. If i want to move the camera sideways by x, i think i need to do the following: Create a Matrix4 mat Determine the orthogonal vector… >>> More

Developer IT