problem blending alpha (due to order of drawcalls)

[drifting plaza]

yeah, that's how alpha works. It can only blend with pixels allready in the frame buffer. You can't 'slide' an image under something that is there and have it blend.

the depth buffer is just a yes/no test, it doesn't change blending.

you have two main options.

1. draw back to front
2. use a shader that discards fragments when they are under some alpha threshold so they don't write to the depth buffer.

option 2 does not require sorting, but it can only do a hard edge cutoff, since it's still just a yes/no test.

[lusty shale]

hmm, thats a tuff choice

[drifting plaza]

yeah

that's just how graphics work with blending

[lusty shale]

does a 2d game like stardew valley suffer from sorting? will it make it slow?

[drifting plaza]

I would not say it 'suffers' from sorting

it does sort for sure

sorting is very common

tilemap systems like stardew valley store data pre-sorted

using layers

[lusty shale]

i am verry bad at predicting process time lol

[drifting plaza]

and it knows it's going to draw from Y0 to Y+

[lusty shale]

i alwayts think things take way longer then they actually do

[drifting plaza]

so it stores the data in a way tht makes it easy to use.

generaly you sort once, then keep the sort

at least for data that is relativly static

[lusty shale]

i mean, stardewvally probably has the alpha choice anyway, because its fiels

[drifting plaza]

then just resort the parts as they move.

all tilemaps sort in some way

layers are the most common

it stores the data in sorted layers

then just draws them in order.

[lusty shale]

hmm, maybe i will make a static and dynamic texture object, where the statics get sorted once in a big list (trees and flowers)
and the dynamics get then get placed inside that big list in the correct spot (the player, and other moving things)
is this a good selution?

[drifting plaza]

you can also sort on the Y value

[lusty shale]

yea, thats what i ment by sorting woops

[drifting plaza]

larger Y values tend to be 'closer' to the camera

[lusty shale]

but that i dont have to sort everything every iteration

[drifting plaza]

yeah for a tilemap you want to sort your movers into the layers of your static things.

[lusty shale]

ah okay, then i am going to implement that, thnx!