Alright folks, so I did some research on this and found a trick (if I understood it correctly), and just had a few questions. I've been considering jumping to 8x16 tiles, which may necessitate 'foreground' background tiles. I understand the NES does not have a way to create a foreground layer, per se, but I also found a trick on the forums that I think I understand.
1. Draw a sprite that is the same shape as the background tile and place it in the same location.
2. Put it 'behind' the background, by making it a back priority sprite (it will be hidden by the background tile)
3. Give it a higher priority than the player sprite, for instance, therefor the player sprite will be drawn behind it.
This would, essentially, have the effect of a background-shaped-hole in the sprite field for anything thats a lower priority. Do I essentially have that correct?
It seems that this would get expensive with sprites, though, if all 'foreground sprites' were drawn to the screen all the time. Would it make sense to update their drawing using a background collision detection method? Only draw the 'ghosting' sprite if an object is present at that position, that way it's not using up sprite resources all the time? A screen could be full of a lot of 'foreground images', but they're only really activated with the foreground ghosting sprite when the player (or other object) is actually in a place where he needs to be affected by one? That's sort of what I've been contemplating...just wanted some advice from folks who may have done something like this before to preempt impending headaches!
Thanks. You guys rock!
1. Draw a sprite that is the same shape as the background tile and place it in the same location.
2. Put it 'behind' the background, by making it a back priority sprite (it will be hidden by the background tile)
3. Give it a higher priority than the player sprite, for instance, therefor the player sprite will be drawn behind it.
This would, essentially, have the effect of a background-shaped-hole in the sprite field for anything thats a lower priority. Do I essentially have that correct?
It seems that this would get expensive with sprites, though, if all 'foreground sprites' were drawn to the screen all the time. Would it make sense to update their drawing using a background collision detection method? Only draw the 'ghosting' sprite if an object is present at that position, that way it's not using up sprite resources all the time? A screen could be full of a lot of 'foreground images', but they're only really activated with the foreground ghosting sprite when the player (or other object) is actually in a place where he needs to be affected by one? That's sort of what I've been contemplating...just wanted some advice from folks who may have done something like this before to preempt impending headaches!
Thanks. You guys rock!