assets - How should I handle missing resources?

Your game expects a certain asset to be loaded, but it isn't found. How should the situation be handled? For example:

Texture* grassTexture = LoadTexture("Grass.png"); // returns NULL; texture not found
Mesh* car             = LoadMesh("Car.obj");      // returns NULL; 3D mesh not found

It might have been accidentally deleted by the user, corrupted or misspelled while in development.

Some potential responses:

• Assertions (ideally only during development)


• Exit the game gracefully


• Throw an exception and try to handle it.

Which way is best?

Answer

Lots of games have a generic "error material" and "error mesh" that is really obvious to see. Pair this with a warning in the logs, of course.