Save Scene in Current State

flame-cube

Is there any way that I can use code to save the current scene in its state to a folder as a .tscn file, and then use code to load that scene? I would also want to overwrite any previous save files when saving so that when loading I can just look for a specific name e.g. "scene.tscn", and then load it.

cybereality

You can look into PackedScene.pack(). See here: https://godotengine.org/qa/903/how-to-save-a-scene-at-run-time But I'm not sure if exported variables get saved (it may save the default values) so you'll have to look into that.

flame-cube

@cybereality Where does the code in the edit go? Do you have to put that in all of the child nodes?

flame-cube

One reply mentioned a function, does that function need to be called anywhere is does it automatically execute?

DaveTheCoder

The godotengine.org link has an example of using the function.

cybereality

That code is for when you add a child to the scene you are saving. So if you (in other code somewhere in your app) are dynamically creating node instances and adding them to the scene you want to save, then you need to set the owner of that child at the time when you add the child to the scene.

TwistedTwigleg

Just to add: you only need to set the owner of the instanced scene, not any children the instanced scene has, as their owners will be correctly set. For example, if you are instancing the following scene tree:

Player
- Health_Bar
- Inventory

Then you only need to set the owner of the Player node when instancing it, as the Health_Bar and Inventory nodes will have their owner correctly set to Player.

(Note: This is from what I remember with saving nodes dynamically in the editor. I'm not 100% if the same applies during runtime)

flame-cube

@TwistedTwigleg what about autoload nodes? I have a node that autoloads and I will need it to be as default at a new game, but then when I load it, I want all the variables set to a saved value. Is there a way to do this?

Megalomaniak

@"Flame Cube" said: I have a node that autoloads and I will need it to be as default at a new game, but then when I load it, I want all the variables set to a saved value. Is there a way to do this?

I'm not sure if I even read/interpreted that right but if I did then that autoloaded node should probably not be a autoload/global var.

flame-cube

@Megalomaniak I use the autoload node if I want several nodes to be able to access the same variables. But I will need those variables to be saved too

Megalomaniak

Could have a node in the master scene that stores them and saves to/loads from a file when relevant. The file it saves to/loads from could be level or player profile dependent. etc. Or your Autoload could have a script that creates such a child node.

TwistedTwigleg

@"Flame Cube" said: @TwistedTwigleg what about autoload nodes? I have a node that autoloads and I will need it to be as default at a new game, but then when I load it, I want all the variables set to a saved value. Is there a way to do this?

I don’t think there is any great way to save autoloads right off, as they exist outside of the current scene. What I would recommend doing is storing all the data you want to save/load into a dictionary and then save it to a JSON file. Then you can save it to a JSON file after saving the current scene, and then load the JSON right after (or before) loading the scene again.

I would recommend putting the save and load functions in the autoload directly. I’m not able to currently, but if you need I can try to make a quick code example.

cybereality

Yeah, honestly saving a JSON file and recreating the objects on load would probably be a much better idea. One, the save files would be text and much smaller, Also, it would be more dynamic (such as if you later edited a scene in the editor, you could still load the same save file and get the most recent version of the scene). So that is probably a more robust approach. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.4/tutorials/io/saving_games.html

flame-cube

@cybereality how does the serialization step work? Won't adding to the persist group save the nodes anyway? So for that step do we do put it in the node containing the main script (save.tscn) or does it go into the scene that we are saving (player.tscn) Is it necessary at all??

cybereality

I'm not sure. What are you trying to accomplish with the saving?

flame-cube

@cybereality I want to be able to save the player’s position, health, inventory, and anything it has done to the world scene, such as monsters that are dead, things destroyed etc, storing changes to world scene in variables would be near impossible which is why I asked the original question. The thing is the scene containing variables that I also want saved and accessible to all nodes is autoload and need to save them too

cybereality

Well it wouldn't be impossible. This is how games like Elder Scrolls, etc. work, by serializing the world and saving a text file. Every time you save a game in an RPG, it doesn't save the entire game to a file, just the relevant world state (in a text file), which is then recreated on load. The link I posted shows the way to do this in Godot (it is called serialization if you want to search more).

flame-cube

@cybereality so there is no way I could save the current scene in its current state, and then use serialization to save the variables that don't come with the scene?

Megalomaniak

Might be possible to do something via PackedScene but the save file would likely be massive, at least in relative terms. I don't think it would be easier than just dealing with serializing alone tho.

Ghost

I have not tested it but, I think you can achieve what you want with resources. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/getting_started/step_by_step/resources.html