Base Layer Rendering Bug: Player + Objects Disappear When Moving Right

GDevelop general Bugs reports
1

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a platformer in GDevelop and I keep running into a major issue across multiple levels.

The problem:

  • When I preview my game, everything works at first.
  • But when the player moves to the right and reaches a certain spot, the entire base layer disappears.
  • Only the UI and background textures remain visible.
  • This happens in Level 1, Level 3, and other scenes

What I’ve tried so far:

  • Disabled all effects (Drop Shadow, 3D, Glow, etc.)
  • Moved the player to other layers (UI, Gameplay). Sometimes it works, but then the player is invisible or hidden.
  • Turned off “render layers as separate textures.”
  • Checked that all objects are on valid layers.
  • Tested in older GDevelop versions:
    • Old version → level shows, but some sprites/animations are missing.
    • New version → level disappears when moving right.

Debugger findings:

  • Objects still exist in the Debugger “Objects” tab when they disappear → suggests a rendering bug (not deletion).
  • Console logs show errors like:
    • drop-shadow-pixi-filter.js parameter warnings.
    • RenderTexture created for every layer.

My suspicion:
This seems like a (Base Layer rendering issue) with newer GDevelop builds, possibly related to render textures or effects.

Questions:

  • Is this a known bug with the base layer?
  • Should I avoid placing gameplay objects on the base layer and always use a custom “Gameplay” layer?
  • Any workarounds until the engine team fixes it?
  • My project has multiple layers: Background, Semi-Middleground, Foreground, UI, etc.

Thanks for any help :pray: My whole project depends on this, so I’d really appreciate some direction.

2

Hi!

Is your first project with GD?
If not, have you tested other GD project and constated the same problem?

A+
Xierra

3

Can you post events that deal with the player movement?

If the same issue occurs with earlier versions of GDevelop, it suggests that maybe it’s your events that could be causing the issue. Because there’s no one else who’s reported this problem.

4

I feel like some layers are bugged. I have GD tilemaps that go semi transparent when dragging the camera past a certain point. Then when I pan back again it goes opaque. Or similar thing with zooming, zoom in, it goes part transparent. It can be different tile maps that do this. But if I put it on another layer it’s fine. Or make a new layer and that bugs too. There’s no layer effects on the relevant layers. I’ve restarted GD, made no difference. Sorry if it’s unrelated but the trigger seems similar.

LayerGlitch

5

Did you ever find an answer to the transparent tile map issues? I’m having the same problems which I seem to remember might be related to lighting.

6

Nope. I even converted everything to use LDTK maps instead. And still had the same problem. It was also a problem when doing a wifi preview on my phone. Eventually I changed everything back to the GD tilemaps cos I like them better. At the moment, I don’t have the problem but I don’t know why or exactly when it changed as I’ve been working on an experimental thing in a test project for a few days.

What is your lighting idea from?



Update:
Actually the opacity bug/problem is still happening for me.

Update 2
Ooh you’re right, it’s the lighting layer causing it. I moved all my lights to a different layer and deleted the lighting layer and made a new light object to force a new lighting layer to be made. The problem is still there, sigh.

2 Likes
7

@Dw00k

See my reply here Lighting Layer + Tilemap Object giving visual issues - #2 by Bubble

The workaround solution from one of the devs on Github is to add a 3d box object.

8

I completed some more debugging on this and I nailed the problem down specifically to creating a light object on the layer directly below the tilemap.

  • When a light object exists
  • When the light object is visible (not hidden)
  • When the light object is exactly one layer below the tilemap

I tried the 3D box workaround but it didn’t change anything in my case, only changing the layers.

9

Oh, that’s a shame the 3d box didn’t work.

Here are my layers, they don’t match the conditions you’ve found.

A few layers
Lighting
Base layer
Affected tile map layer
2 other layers
Affected tile map layer
Other layers
Unaffected tile map layers

10

Me again. This bug gets weirder…

I completed a major refactor of my code, including moving to a new scene with a new layer hierarchy. In this case everything loaded fine but during runtime the tilemaps starting appearing and disappearing again. I disabled all lights, checked my layers etc and nothing could fix it.

In desperation I tried the 3D box trick and it worked! Who knows what is going on here but there is certainly a complicated bug around lighting, tilemaps and 3D objects.

11

Wow, just as well it worked if even disabling the light layer didn’t.

Once again I’m working on a test project but I opened my main project with the 3d box yesterday to check something and the tilemap tranparency thing happened! Not at the usual predictable places though and I didn’t have time then to check it out further.