bevy/crates/bevy_time
Nuutti Kotivuori 3d79dc4cdc
Unify FixedTime and Time while fixing several problems (#8964)
# Objective

Current `FixedTime` and `Time` have several problems. This pull aims to
fix many of them at once.

- If there is a longer pause between app updates, time will jump forward
a lot at once and fixed time will iterate on `FixedUpdate` for a large
number of steps. If the pause is merely seconds, then this will just
mean jerkiness and possible unexpected behaviour in gameplay. If the
pause is hours/days as with OS suspend, the game will appear to freeze
until it has caught up with real time.
- If calculating a fixed step takes longer than specified fixed step
period, the game will enter a death spiral where rendering each frame
takes longer and longer due to more and more fixed step updates being
run per frame and the game appears to freeze.
- There is no way to see current fixed step elapsed time inside fixed
steps. In order to track this, the game designer needs to add a custom
system inside `FixedUpdate` that calculates elapsed or step count in a
resource.
- Access to delta time inside fixed step is `FixedStep::period` rather
than `Time::delta`. This, coupled with the issue that `Time::elapsed`
isn't available at all for fixed steps, makes it that time requiring
systems are either implemented to be run in `FixedUpdate` or `Update`,
but rarely work in both.
- Fixes #8800 
- Fixes #8543 
- Fixes #7439
- Fixes #5692

## Solution

- Create a generic `Time<T>` clock that has no processing logic but
which can be instantiated for multiple usages. This is also exposed for
users to add custom clocks.
- Create three standard clocks, `Time<Real>`, `Time<Virtual>` and
`Time<Fixed>`, all of which contain their individual logic.
- Create one "default" clock, which is just `Time` (or `Time<()>`),
which will be overwritten from `Time<Virtual>` on each update, and
`Time<Fixed>` inside `FixedUpdate` schedule. This way systems that do
not care specifically which time they track can work both in `Update`
and `FixedUpdate` without changes and the behaviour is intuitive.
- Add `max_delta` to virtual time update, which limits how much can be
added to virtual time by a single update. This fixes both the behaviour
after a long freeze, and also the death spiral by limiting how many
fixed timestep iterations there can be per update. Possible future work
could be adding `max_accumulator` to add a sort of "leaky bucket" time
processing to possibly smooth out jumps in time while keeping frame rate
stable.
- Many minor tweaks and clarifications to the time functions and their
documentation.

## Changelog

- `Time::raw_delta()`, `Time::raw_elapsed()` and related methods are
moved to `Time<Real>::delta()` and `Time<Real>::elapsed()` and now match
`Time` API
- `FixedTime` is now `Time<Fixed>` and matches `Time` API. 
- `Time<Fixed>` default timestep is now 64 Hz, or 15625 microseconds.
- `Time` inside `FixedUpdate` now reflects fixed timestep time, making
systems portable between `Update ` and `FixedUpdate`.
- `Time::pause()`, `Time::set_relative_speed()` and related methods must
now be called as `Time<Virtual>::pause()` etc.
- There is a new `max_delta` setting in `Time<Virtual>` that limits how
much the clock can jump by a single update. The default value is 0.25
seconds.
- Removed `on_fixed_timer()` condition as `on_timer()` does the right
thing inside `FixedUpdate` now.

## Migration Guide

- Change all `Res<Time>` instances that access `raw_delta()`,
`raw_elapsed()` and related methods to `Res<Time<Real>>` and `delta()`,
`elapsed()`, etc.
- Change access to `period` from `Res<FixedTime>` to `Res<Time<Fixed>>`
and use `delta()`.
- The default timestep has been changed from 60 Hz to 64 Hz. If you wish
to restore the old behaviour, use
`app.insert_resource(Time::<Fixed>::from_hz(60.0))`.
- Change `app.insert_resource(FixedTime::new(duration))` to
`app.insert_resource(Time::<Fixed>::from_duration(duration))`
- Change `app.insert_resource(FixedTime::new_from_secs(secs))` to
`app.insert_resource(Time::<Fixed>::from_seconds(secs))`
- Change `system.on_fixed_timer(duration)` to
`system.on_timer(duration)`. Timers in systems placed in `FixedUpdate`
schedule automatically use the fixed time clock.
- Change `ResMut<Time>` calls to `pause()`, `is_paused()`,
`set_relative_speed()` and related methods to `ResMut<Time<Virtual>>`
calls. The API is the same, with the exception that `relative_speed()`
will return the actual last ste relative speed, while
`effective_relative_speed()` returns 0.0 if the time is paused and
corresponds to the speed that was set when the update for the current
frame started.

## Todo

- [x] Update pull name and description
- [x] Top level documentation on usage
- [x] Fix examples
- [x] Decide on default `max_delta` value
- [x] Decide naming of the three clocks: is `Real`, `Virtual`, `Fixed`
good?
- [x] Decide if the three clock inner structures should be in prelude
- [x] Decide on best way to configure values at startup: is manually
inserting a new clock instance okay, or should there be config struct
separately?
- [x] Fix links in docs
- [x] Decide what should be public and what not
- [x] Decide how `wrap_period` should be handled when it is changed
- [x] ~~Add toggles to disable setting the clock as default?~~ No,
separate pull if needed.
- [x] Add tests
- [x] Reformat, ensure adheres to conventions etc.
- [x] Build documentation and see that it looks correct

## Contributors

Huge thanks to @alice-i-cecile and @maniwani while building this pull.
It was a shared effort!

---------

Co-authored-by: Alice Cecile <alice.i.cecile@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Cameron <51241057+maniwani@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Jerome Humbert <djeedai@gmail.com>
2023-10-16 01:57:55 +00:00
..
src Unify FixedTime and Time while fixing several problems (#8964) 2023-10-16 01:57:55 +00:00
Cargo.toml Bump Version after Release (#9106) 2023-07-10 21:19:27 +00:00
README.md Add missing documentation to bevy_time (#9428) 2023-08-15 21:48:37 +00:00

Bevy Time

The built-in timekeeping plugin for the Bevy game engine.