That's because the sprite data underneath no longer exists, instead Nicole's cape replaced it. Here in Guardian Heroes, Nicole's cape is translucent, it's a sprite that has been set to half-transparent.Д«ut when she overlaps with another sprite, her cape вЂњswallowsвЂќ that sprite's data, still showing through to the background scene and not the sprite underneath. If two sprites in the frame buffer overlap each other and both are opaque, then no big deal, the second sprite's pixel data replaces the first sprite's data in the buffer.Д«ut if the second sprite wants to be half-transparent, it will still occupy that section of the buffer and clobber the previous sprite, but the data now sports a transparency flag. The Saturn is not capable of handling transparency effects between sprites.

The VDP2 can only do transparency effects across layers. It's as if all the sprites join forces to become a single VDP2 layer. When adding sprites to the frame buffer, at the end of the day they all come together into one pile of pixels. The VDP1's frame buffer is only one вЂњlayerвЂќ If a pixel in a higher priority layer is set to half-transparent, the final pixel will be the result of averaging the pixels from both layers together. When the VDP2 is composing all the layers together, it's also taking transparency into account. The VDP2 doesn't know of or care about sprites, it only sees pixels.

Technically the priority in the VDP1 frame buffer is per pixel, not per sprite. This allows different sprites to end up behind and in front of different layers. Each VDP2 layer has a priority set, and each sprite in the VDP1 frame buffer also has a priority. When it comes time to compose all the layers together into an image to display on the screen, priority is used to decide on order. The background layers can be stacked in any order, scrolled independently, some can be rotated and scaled, and some can be scaled on the z-axis accomplishing вЂњmode 7вЂќ a la the Super Nintendo. It also has the job of taking the VDP1's frame buffer and incorporating it into the final image, in a sense the frame buffer is a sixth layer. The VDP2 is responsible for managing 5 background layers (they are officially called вЂњscenesвЂќ, but I will use the term вЂњlayerвЂќ as I think it's clearer). The developers didn't have to create a second meshed version of the sprite, they just added the mesh flag to the command and the VDP1 responds by adding every other pixel into its buffer. Whenever you see a вЂњmeshвЂќ in a Sega Saturn game, the VDP1 was responsible. When sending a sprite draw command to the VDP1, you can tell it that sprite's pixels should be fully opaque, half-transparent or a mesh (along with some other options that I'm glossing over). Both 2D and 3D games use the same command primitives to build up their scenes on the Saturn. As far as the VDP1 is concerned, a sprite is really just a textured polygon. Of the many commands it understands, several are for drawing sprites and polygons. To use the VDP1, you send it commands, which are 32 byte chunks of data that tell the VDP1 what to do. The VDP1 has access to two frame buffers, it builds the next frame of the game in one buffer while the other one is being displayed. It is capable of drawing sprites and polygons into a frame buffer. The VDP1 is responsible for вЂњhighly dynamicвЂќ graphics. Of the Saturn's 8 processors, 2 are dedicated to drawing graphics onto the screen, the VDP1 and the VDP2. So what's up with the spotlights? A Tale of Two Processors It's technically there on the Saturn too (you can just see the beginnings of it) but the mesh approach does not allow it to display.ДЄnd if you just walk forward a little bit, you find your character encased in a transparent glass tube, showing transparency works just fine on the Saturn! Notice the Saturn is missing the second orange spotlight? It comes through fine on the PlayStation.

Mega man x4 sprites