Forums » Impact Engine » Suggestion: Multiple Entity Layers

I was thinking it would be nice if there were multiple Entity layers. That way you could have for example: a background layer that some entities would be able to go under while other entities could go above it.

What's wrong with just changing the zIndex property of your entity as you place it on the screen in Weltmeister?

Does that work? I mean I'm not talking about entities going under other entities. I mean like, think of it as a sandwich with one entity layer, then a background layer, and then another entity layer. Entities on the first entity layer are always drawn above the background layer and entities on the second layer are drawn below the background layer. My idea is for instance in a top down game there is a background layer with a bridge that the character can walk under but above the background layer with the bridge there are bird entities that can "fly over" the bridge.

Something like Super Paper Mario then, how the player moves through the world depending on the dimension-depth. I know what you mean, I mentioned it to Dom a little while ago. :)

Ah, I misread what you were saying. Yeah that's not possible out of the box. Sounds like it may be too specific of a thing to add into the core though... how many games would really need that?

@paularmstrong I don't know, I think it'd be quite handy to have. I can think of quite a few instances where it'd be useful.

Take a look at the ig.Game code. There is an array which holds all of the entities. It should be possible to create multiple entity arrays. You would then need to update and draw each in sequence. You would also need to ensure that each function is aware of which entity array it is working on. As I see it, you would need to make some significant changes to ig.Game, bit it is doable.

theres lots of good reasons for this .. fog or mist, for example.

You know you can apply a backgroundMap in front of the entities, right (and that's even specifiable in Weltmeister)? I realise it's not quite the same thing but that would allow for fog or mist easily enough.

im at 7 layers of parallax :-)

This thread is getting a bit old but I'd like to cast a vote in favour of multiple entity layers.

I'm trying to setup a contextual menu system for a game prototype of ours and not being able to have an extra entities overlay forces me to write things in code, as opposed to laying out the EntityButtons in WM, which would have been nice.

Might be though injection though, but would rather not open that pandora's box.

I would also like to point out that multiple entity layers would allow more complex levels and another thinking of creating entities for the programmer. It would allow certain purely logical entities to be placed ( like nodes for pathfinding and such ) without wasting space on the entity layer.

EDIT: Maybe someone can give me some hints about how to change the editor and the main code to allow multiple entity layers?