I've got 3 atlases that make up a player in my game. Armor, Weapons and Characters.
Each Adventurer contains child objects for each of these sprites on different z depths to create a layering effect. If the player animated sprite is at Z = 1, the helmet GO with tk2dsprite on it is at -.1 and the chest -.1 and weapon is .1 so that it is behind the "hand" and everything else.
This workflow works great as it's only 3 DCs for a character, but the problem comes when I put one at Z=20 in the world, one in Z=21, 22, 23.. this creates 3 MORE draw calls per character even though the sprites are in the same texture.
Can you please tell me why this is happening or suggest another way to create depth? Each player has to be able to pass the other creating a "this guy is behind this one" type effect when they walk behind, so I need some way to make that happen when they walk over to attack an enemy on the right side of the screen.
Thanks.