Is there an optimal method to implement moving background?

Question

I am trying to develop a little game using libGDX. We have a hero who jumps and world consist of dynamically created moving platforms in an auto side-scrolling manner. I wanted background to scroll at half speed of foreground objects to establish a moving background effect.

For this I came up with this idea: Have a 1024px X 240px image and each time render executes select a 256px X 240px region from that texture according to backgroundObject X position. Something like this:

And this is my code:

    bgTexture = new Texture(Gdx.files.internal("data/bg.png"));
    bgTexture.setFilter(Texture.TextureFilter.Nearest, Texture.TextureFilter.Nearest);

And this code executes inside render method.

    bgRegion= new TextureRegion(bgTexture, -1 * (int)bgObj.getX(),0,256,240); //bgObj is a scrollable object where in each update changes X value of position(Vector2): moves left.
    bgRegion.flip(false, true);

    batcher.draw(bgRegion, 0, 0, Variables.ScreenWidth / 2, Variables.ScreenHeight / 2);

Now, I am wondering if there is a better method to implement this effect? My method seems to have high system resource cost.

Answer 1

Don't keep newing up TextureRegions, try re-using one and just change the parameters of that.

private TextureRegion bgRegion;

public void create() {
    bgRegion= new TextureRegion(bgTexture, -1 * (int)bgObj.getX(),0,256,240); //bgObj is a scrollable object where in each update changes X value of position(Vector2): moves left.
}

public void draw() {
    // Update the region here
    bgRegion.setRegionX(-1 * (int)bgObj.getX());
    batcher.draw(bgRegion, 0, 0, Variables.ScreenWidth / 2, Variables.ScreenHeight / 2);
}