Men & Entities not visible through windows

[dm 9]

This has been around since OFP1.

All the more reason for it to not be in ArmA .

Would require a different texture format to be used in order to prevent the issue. Nothing BI can do about it, short of re-writing their graphics engine to use a different format.

@Metal Heart - close the z buffer is part of the issue here, its caused by a flag which is set in the model file its self, which alters the "order" (zbias) with which textures are rendered behind alpha. Those textures with "high order" will be rendered normally, those with "low order" will most likely be hidden.

Its done this way for 2 reasons:

1. Thats just how the format is.

2. It allows for things to be hidden by alpha (when its desired by the artist) I can only assume that this is one (non technical) of many reasons why it hasnt been fixed in the format. That I do not know.

Ok, here's the dealio.

This sorting issue is caused by a flag set in the model, which relates to the z-buffer for rendering.

The flag in the old OFP MLOD format had 4 options: none, low, middle and high.

A face order (or flag) of "low" (setting face order to "bottom" in O2) will cause the alpha to hide everything behind it.

A face order (or flag) of "high" (top in O2) will show everything behind it.

Everything else is essentially in between.

This is, however, on a per model basis. So what is set to high in one model may still hide something on another model. Its one of those 70% skill, 30% luck things.