Adding the ability to display panels behind views would allow for pre-rendered backgrounds of the sort found in the playstation 1 generation of Final Fantasy games (FF7-FF9). The idea would be to have 3D models rendered on a transparent background placed over a pre-rendered 2D panel, giving the illusion that the models and the background are part of the same 3D space. The purpose is to create scenes not possible within current real-time polygon count limits.

If this is currently possible, please correct me. I saw in the entry for view.layer that "Panels and texts will always be displayed over all views independently of their LAYER values." Can this be changed? Is there another way to do what I am trying to do?

Oops. I realized that what I'm trying to do should be possible by rendering the view to a bitmap with view.bmap and then displaying it on a panel, though I am having difficulty in so doing.... Help would be much appreciated. (Move this to a different part of the forum?)

Yes. I will move it to the Engine forum, where you can get additional help from there.

The fact is dont really think that rendering a view to a bit map is the answer...in fact i dont see how that would work at all for what you want.

The much easier way to do what you need is simply to make you pre-rendered background a texture, map it onto a flat polygon mmodel, and position this is such a way as to fill up the screen, and make sure you set ambient to 255.

Then simply put all your 3d models and stuff in front of this plane.. you will have to mess wiht it a bit to get it right, but there is no resaon this cant work the way you want.

Matt Aufderheide,

Thank you for the reply. I've thought about trying it your way, but I foresee a few problems. There is no easy way to pan the screen, as the "arc" (focal length) of the camera will distort the background. There will be a loss in video quality as the background is re-rendered, re-filtered, and changed in resolution.

Ultimately, you may be right. Still, I'd like more information about how view.bmap works. Do I need to lock or unlock the bitmap after it is rendered to display it correctly? Right now, I get this: