Question

In DirectX it is possible to set the D3DXSPRITE parameters to be a combination of both:

D3DXSPRITE_SORT_DEPTH_BACKTOFRONT

and

D3DXSPRITE_SORT_TEXTURE

Meaning that sprites are sorted first by their layer depth and then secondly by the texture that they are on. I’m trying to do the same in XNA and i’m having some problems. I’ve tried:

SpriteBtch.Begin(SpriteBlendMode.AlphaBlend, SpriteSortMode.BackToFront & SpriteSortMode.Texture, SaveStateMode.None);

But it doesn’t work and just seems to do them in Texture ordering, ignoring the textures layer depth. Am I doing something wrong!? Or is it not even possible?

Answer 1

SpriteSortMode is an enum and should be combined using the | operator:

SpriteSortMode.BackToFront | SpriteSortMode.Texture

Update: as this article mentions, your scenario is not possible in XNA:

sorting by depth and sorting by
texture are mutually exclusive