Not sure if this has been added yet but...
Q: I'm getting this strange flickering with my objects whenever I move the camera. Sometimes I can see objects that should be behind other objects. What's going on?
A: What is happening with your objects is called z-fighting(aka. shimmering, aka. flimmering) and thankfully there is an easy solution to your problem.
Z-fighting occurs when one or more objects share a depth value. This is due to the fact that the percision of the depth of your objects polygons is less the further they get away from the camera.
You can solve this by setting the near clip plane of your camera to 1.0 or a higher number if necessary. You can do this by using the SET CAMERA RANGE command. The syntax for this command is SET CAMERA RANGE near value, far value.
It is also a wise idea to keep the far clip plane as close as possible. The default camera range for DarkBasic Professional is near value = 1, far value = 3000.
Keep in mind that the percision used for depth values varies from card to card. Older cards are generally less capable of the kind of percision that Newer cards use. What may appear just fine on one machine might look terible on another.
Therefore, it is always a good idea to be as conservative as possible with your camera range and to test your game with different graphics cards. A good rule of thumb is to always have your near clip plane at 1.0 at the minimum, and to have no more than 4 digits in your far clip plane.
For a more in depth and technical explaination of Z-Fighting, you can look here:
http://www.geocities.com/vmelkon/zprecision.html
Any comments, or suggestions on this one would be welcome. I would definately like to know if I was clear enough up there or whether I should have explained what near and far clip planes did.
