Impossible in MMF?

[Sebaceous]

In striving for 100% accuracy in a Megaman 2 remake, I have stumbled on this paradox. Behold. Impossible layer logic.

A>B
B>C
C>A ?!



In motion:

http://www.easy-share.com/1909047810/Layers%20Paradox.avi

(a bit too fast to see, the emulator recorded normal speed when I slowed it down and I couldn't be bothered to edit the video with my buggy software).

Now the question, how to achieve this kind of layer swapping and impossibility in MMF? I will mail a Jaffa Cake to the successful answer.

[DavidN]

Is it possible that the "Display as background" property is checked on one of those counters, causing them not to update quite correctly when scrolling? Turn that off, if so.

[Eliyahu]

No DavidN, that's not an MMF2 screenshot, he WANTS to achieve that odd layering.

[Jeff]

What if the cloud was not one big object but a bunch of small objects then small parts of the cloud could be put above or behind what ever object you wanted them above or behind.

[N64Mario]

Maybe try doing something like this?

Always = Toggle Flag 0

Flag 0 is off = Bring to Back

Flag 0 is on = Bring to Front

I think basically its trying to give a "middle" layer effect that doesn't exist. So yea. The only thing I can think of is just to keep rotating the objects sprite priority to front and back.

[xyzzy]

iirc the nes (and therefore its emulators) draw sprites in tiles as opposed to huge chunks like mmf

if you got megaman, the health/energy bars, and the cloud all to overlap the same exact area this effect likely wouldn't show up

so basically this is the same effect as if you used a ton of backdrops or active objects to represent the cloud; some might show up in front of an object while that object is infront of another object that is covering ANOTHER area of the cloud

EDIT: so yeah basically what jeff said

[DavidN]

Oh, never mind, yes - the cloud's two separate objects, or treated as such by the underlying graphics engine.

I thought it looked eerily accurate!

[Sebaceous]

Maybe try doing something like this?

Always = Toggle Flag 0

Flag 0 is off = Bring to Back

Flag 0 is on = Bring to Front

I think basically its trying to give a "middle" layer effect that doesn't exist. So yea. The only thing I can think of is just to keep rotating the objects sprite priority to front and back.

The problem is not an inability to swap layers every frame, I already have that implemented. It works fine 'til you introduce Airman's level. In airman's level the stage is always above Megaman, the clouds are always above the stage, and the lifebar is always above the clouds, yet Megaman and other objects can switch between being behind and infront of the lifebar despite remaining behind the cloud and stage at the same time. That is impossible in reality as it violates logic assuming each thing mentioned exists as a flat object (see original post).

The problem is in achieving the kind of illogical layering in Megaman 2 (as shown in the pic) where the lifebar stays above the cloud at all times, megaman stays behind the cloud at all times, yet megaman swaps between being infront and behind the lifebar. I think Jeff is on the right track (the cloud is being considered as many objects, or individual pixels) but I'm struggling to think of a good way I can recreate it. I guess I'll have to experiment with breaking the cloud into small blocks of actives, and perhaps the same for the lifebar and stage. I'll leave it for now and work on the other levels.