Singleton used to load resource files from the filesystem.
It uses the many [ResourceFormatLoader] classes registered in the engine (either built-in or from a plugin) to load files into memory and convert them to a format that can be used by the engine.
[b]Note:[/b] You have to import the files into the engine first to load them using [method load]. If you want to load [Image]s at run-time, you may use [method Image.load]. If you want to import audio files, you can use the snippet described in [member AudioStreamMP3.data].
An optional [code]type_hint[/code] can be used to further specify the [Resource] type that should be handled by the [ResourceFormatLoader]. Anything that inherits from [Resource] can be used as a type hint, for example [Image].
Once a resource has been loaded by the engine, it is cached in memory for faster access, and future calls to the [method load] method will use the cached version. The cached resource can be overridden by using [method Resource.take_over_path] on a new resource for that same path.
Loads a resource at the given [code]path[/code], caching the result for further access.
The registered [ResourceFormatLoader]s are queried sequentially to find the first one which can handle the file's extension, and then attempt loading. If loading fails, the remaining ResourceFormatLoaders are also attempted.
An optional [code]type_hint[/code] can be used to further specify the [Resource] type that should be handled by the [ResourceFormatLoader]. Anything that inherits from [Resource] can be used as a type hint, for example [Image].
The [code]cache_mode[/code] property defines whether and how the cache should be used or updated when loading the resource. See [enum CacheMode] for details.
Returns an empty resource if no [ResourceFormatLoader] could handle the file.
GDScript has a simplified [method @GDScript.load] built-in method which can be used in most situations, leaving the use of [ResourceLoader] for more advanced scenarios.
Returns the resource loaded by [method load_threaded_request].
If this is called before the loading thread is done (i.e. [method load_threaded_get_status] is not [constant THREAD_LOAD_LOADED]), the calling thread will be blocked until the resource has finished loading.
Returns the status of a threaded loading operation started with [method load_threaded_request] for the resource at [code]path[/code]. See [enum ThreadLoadStatus] for possible return values.
An array variable can optionally be passed via [code]progress[/code], and will return a one-element array containing the percentage of completion of the threaded loading.
Loads the resource using threads. If [code]use_sub_threads[/code] is [code]true[/code], multiple threads will be used to load the resource, which makes loading faster, but may affect the main thread (and thus cause game slowdowns).