how to handle overlapping sprites?

Unity Engine
1

I have a character made of individual sprite parts. The parts itself are animated… i offset each piece a bit on the Z axis so they show in the correct order… but it doesn’t work 100%…

on animation… sometimes the sprites overlap!

I tried assigning layers to the parts so they don’t have to rely on Z, but this doesn’t work because my game world is 3d… when i move the character to the back of another character, having a different layer means it will always get rendered in the front (even when the character is at the back).

how can i correctly show different parts with correct order, while also preserving the correct order when moving around in 3d space?

2

Normally offsetting Z should work, but then you have to move your characters far enough to prevent overlaps. It’s not a great workflow I agree.

What kind of game is this? Something 2.5D or more like the original Doom - full 3D with sprite characters?

3

full 3d with sprite characters.

when the sprites have 0 rotation, offsetting appears to work… but because all my sprites are on an angle to match the camera (about 50 degrees rotated), offsetting doesn’t work… I’ve made as much as .2 in z offset and once animation kicks in the sprites flickers badly.

i am stuck with using layers right now to prevent flickering, but its bad when characters overlap because of front/back position situations.

is there a 3rd option i can try?

4

Another option (which may be a really bad idea) is to expose the render queue in the shader for each item and set them to be different based on the drawing order you want.

Maybe even just use something like this attached to each item:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class SetRenderQueue : MonoBehaviour {
    //
    // set this in the inspector to be some sane value for each item
    //
    public int queue = 1000;  

    void Start () {
        GetComponent<Renderer>().material.renderQueue = queue;
    }
   
}

Note, this may be a very bad solution, but it may work still :slight_smile:

5

what is the negative impact of altering render queue?

is this a heavy operation?

6

I don’t really know the full extent of the impact. I’d imagine it will break/stop any batching on those objects and increase draw calls…

But I’m just guessing here…

I’d say profile before adding this in and then see what changes after. Take note of draw calls and ms to render the frame…

IMO the theory of what might change is far less important than what the net effect is on rendering time :slight_smile:

7

From what I’ve managed to pick up, Sprites have the same depth over their entire shape, since they are meant to be used in 2D only.

You can use a Quad and put the texture you want on top of it to get the same effect as a sprite without the weird overlapping, although it does complicate changing the sprite.

8

Please note, you’re replying to and therefore necroing a 7 year old post.

Please check the dates on threads before replying.

Thanks.

9

And while we are digging up seven-year-old necro posts to common “how does this game engine even work?” questions, here is my stored tribal knowledge about layering:

Three (3) ways that Unity draws / stacks / sorts / layers / overlays stuff:

In short,

  1. The default 3D Renderers draw stuff according to Z depth - distance from camera.

  2. SpriteRenderers draw according to their Sorting Layer and Sorting Depth properties

  3. UI Canvas Renderers draw in linear transform sequence, like a stack of papers

If you find that you need to mix and match items using these different ways of rendering, and have them appear in ways they are not initially designed for, you need to:

  • identify what you are using
  • search online for the combination of things you are doing and how to to achieve what you want.

There may be more than one solution to try.

Additional reading in the official docs:

And SortingGroups can also be extremely helpful in certain circumstances:

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