[B42] Peek a View
Project Zomboid hides a lot of what’s actually visible to your character behind walls, trees, and floors above. PeekAView extends three rendering passes so your screen catches up with your character’s eyes. Three independent features:
- Wall cutaway: walls are cut away at greater range, so corners and doorways reveal what’s behind them earlier as you approach.
- Tree fade: trees in your view become translucent. Spot zombies behind tree lines where line of sight reaches; safer driving with earlier hazard visibility.
- Stair view: the upper floor renders while you’re climbing, so you see what’s upstairs before you reach it.
Same rules as vanilla. No X-ray, no see-through walls, no enemy outlines. Your character’s line of sight still decides what’s actually visible.
Each feature is independent. Run all three together, just the one you need, or somewhere in between. Every feature has its own Enable toggle, and the wall and tree fade ranges are tunable in the Options menu.
Options → Mods → Peek a View, four sections: Global, Wall cutaway, Tree fade, Stair view. F8 toggles the master Enable in-game (green/red halo confirms; rebindable in Options → Keybind under [PeekAView]).
- PZ Build 42.13 or later
- ZombieBuddy, one-time install for any Java mod
- Safe to add or remove mid-save: no save data touched. Visual effects clear on the next save reload after removing the mod from the mod list.
- Client-side only: each player who wants the effect needs the mod (and ZombieBuddy) installed.
Does it conflict with the Staircast Workshop mod?
No. If both are subscribed, PeekAView detects Staircast at runtime and yields its own stair view so the two can run together.
Does it work in multiplayer?
Yes, client-side only. Every client also needs ZombieBuddy installed.
What does "Fix B42 Wall-Hiding Bug" actually do?
The mod’s wider cutaway amplifies a vanilla B42 quirk where upper-floor walls vanish next to player-built structures, leaving wall holes from certain angles. The toggle (on by default, outdoor-only) suppresses that. Trade-off: a floor-tile sliver often stays visible on one outer-wall cell, and player-built decks attached to vanilla walls render more visibly at the facade. I picked it as the lesser evil for overall immersion. If your save doesn’t have heavy player-built geometry attached to vanilla houses on the camera-facing sides, or if you don’t use the wall cutaway feature, you can toggle it off for closer-to-vanilla rendering.
I accidentally declined PeekAView in the ZombieBuddy approval prompt. Can I undo it?
ZombieBuddy keeps each decision in %USERPROFILE%.zombie_buddymod_approvals.json. Open the file, find the "id": "PeekAView" block(s) where "decision": false, flip false to true, save, restart PZ. If editing JSON sounds risky, just delete those PeekAView blocks instead and ZombieBuddy will re-ask on next save load.
Does it affect performance?
Several caches keep the runtime cost close to vanilla. Standing still and walking on foot are the cheapest paths. Lower the range sliders if your hardware struggles.
This mod is feature-complete for my use and no longer actively developed. Last tested against PZ build 42.18.
PeekAView is MIT-licensed and fully open source. The patches only touch specific PZ rendering classes. Forks and improvements are welcome and encouraged. If a maintained successor appears, I’ll link to it here.
- PeekAView: https://github.com/armakupub/PeekAView
Issues and PRs will be read but I can’t promise response times. If the mod breaks in a future PZ version and I’m not going to fix it, I’ll remove it from the Workshop rather than leave a broken version up.
- Cutaway-on-stairs idea + FakeFrameState pattern + choice of patched render classes: copiumsawsed/pz-Staircast[github.com] (MIT, original Workshop mod).
- Read-path implementation fork: armakupub/staircast-rp[github.com] (MIT).
- PeekAView extensions on the staircast-rp foundation: upper-floor zombies stay visible throughout the climb, as long as they’re in your character’s line of sight.
Workshop ID: 3710281407
Mod ID: PeekAView
Workshop ID: 3710281407
Mod ID: PeekAView
