SendMessage timing

[Rick]

I know you can have a delay for SendMessage() but let's say you put a 0 in there meaning you don't want a delay. Does SendMessage() instantly call the GetMessage() of the entity you are sending or does this happen at a certain point in the main loop?

[AggrorJorn]

In the switch.lua is comment:

--Just set the key and everything will get updated automatically

 

 

So my guesses are that it updates instantly

[Rick]

See my concern is that automatically and instantly are 2 different things. The reason I ask this is since a message can have a delay to it and I think that delay is non blocking to the rest of the code (I'm assuming it is), then the message must get stored and a timer later sends messages that have reached their delay time limit, and I assume this is done at a specific spot in the updating of the engine. So for messages that don't have a time limit one of 2 things could happen. They could be sent instantly from SendMessage(), or the message is stored, but they get sent instantly when that update portion of the engine happens. So it would depend on how Josh implemented this message system behind the scenes. The reason I ask is because I would want the message sent instantly from the SendMessage() instead of possibly stored and send from some engine update. I fear that might give a slightly laggy feeling in some situations where some entity slows down the cycle from hitting that engine update part.

[TylerH]

You can code your own system in Lua that works instantly. If I can assume that if I grab an instance of ANOTHER script in a given entity's script, can I access the members defined in the OTHER script? Or does this multi-state setup prevent that currently?

 

The single-state would clearly let you setup a global message system simply in Lua using an Input/Output structure like in Hammer.

 

function entity:FireOutput(output,value)
	for k,v in pairs(self.targets) do
	v:FireInput(output,value)
	end
end

 

The above would be instantaneous, because you are directly calling a function of the receiver from the sender's script. Hammer/Source engine does this EXACTLY in this way, except via C++ functors/callbacks, not Lua.

[Josh]

Messages with zero delay are sent immediately.

[Rick]

That's perfect. So really it's not that much overhead from doing that than calling a method of that entity directly.

[Josh]

Right.