Tearing hear out over Order. Proper way to do it?

[Outcast]

I always get loads of problems with order of objects if not using tons of layers. Is there some definite good and simple way to handle ordering of objects that works? What I am doing now is having an event that goes through all sorts of objects and moves them to the back, so I start with the objects I want in front and go down the list. For example if I want the grass to be in front, the player to be in the middle and the trees to be in the back it looks like this:

Run event once:
Move grass to back
Move player to back
Move trees to back

This does not work very well though and often objects seems to still not be in the right order, especially if they move around in the frame later.

I know there is the Layer object, I dont want to have an event running ALL the time though sorting the order of things because I have heard that can be very heavy on performance?

[Outcast]

Hm maybe found a better way with ForEach by doing a loop for all objects once.. but still maybe easier way that don't require so many events? (and I am not 100% sure yet this works 100%)

[Konidias]

use the Layer Object. It doesn't sort constantly, only when you want it to.

You could have it sort once when the level is created, and of course it's going to need to sort if objects move around.

[Outcast]

use the Layer Object. It doesn't sort constantly, only when you want it to.

You could have it sort once when the level is created, and of course it's going to need to sort if objects move around.

Sort with Layer Object how? I need to specify in what order I want them to sort somehow

[Paul_Boland]

The Layer Object has a Sort Object By command. If you set up

Always
>Sort Objects By Y Decreasing

They will be layered right. You'll have to work with the object Hotspots to ensure layering works right. If you want a quick tutorial example on it send me an email to pkb@iol.ie and I'll send you an example file.

[Outcast]

The Layer Object has a Sort Object By command. If you set up

Always
>Sort Objects By Y Decreasing

They will be layered right. You'll have to work with the object Hotspots to ensure layering works right. If you want a quick tutorial example on it send me an email to pkb@iol.ie and I'll send you an example file.

Yes but that is not how I want to sort the objects. I am trying to do different "layers" without using layers. Like trees, player, enemeis, grass and so on. They will have the same Y because it is a sidesrolling platformer. It will be really clumsy if I have to adjust all the hotspots on every item, what if I create a new item and need that sorted, then I need to go into every object again and adjust the hotspot again on all items to make it right. Also I dont know of any way to do scaling that is not dependent on where the hotspot is positioned (like if you want to scale up an object equally on all sides you need to have the hotspot in the middle as far as I know)

[AyreGuitar]

Outcast - The Layer object is definitely the way to go IMHO.
You can have the objects sort on an alterable value using the Layer object if you don't want to use the Y coordinate, so you could set all your trees Alt Val A to 1, grass to 2, enemies to 3, player to 4, etc

[Outcast]

Outcast - The Layer object is definitely the way to go IMHO.
You can have the objects sort on an alterable value using the Layer object if you don't want to use the Y coordinate, so you could set all your trees Alt Val A to 1, grass to 2, enemies to 3, player to 4, etc

I tried that but did not work. I guess because how could it know how to sort them when so many objects have the same value?

[Shabadage]

Do the reverse, bring stuff to front, not send to back.

Move trees to front
Move player to front
Move grass to front.

[Konidias]

Outcast... you'll need to post an example or a screenshot or something. Without us knowing what your game looks like, we can't advise you any more on how to set up the layering.