Hi sorry this may be long, I''m actually making a Design Document for an Diablo like cRPG. I have written in the past allready more than enough iso and square tile engines. But i''m not sure for this game. I had gatherd in the past a big team together(>20guys), but he project dropped couse all the gfx artists we had wanted to do different gfx styles (map engines) and also couse everyone else wanted to do the game in different ways. After that problems and due time problems we nearly dropped it. We sticked there with an top down iso but noone ever got a good looking tileset together. Now i have written a good maped but it mybe wasted time Now befor i restart the party/team i want to have a design document ready. And so i need to define the engine but i''m unsure what way i shoul use. The main points are that it should be easy for the gfx artists to make the tiles and also i want to include additional gfx (dynamic lightning, alpha blending) etc.. There are several options i have now (like most of you knew allready i guess ): - stick with 2d top down. pro: i can use the maped i''ve allready coded easier to understand for other members (maybe?) con: lightning isn''t easy to implement it won''t look as good than iso hard to find good artists - 2d iso pro: looks better than top down con: maped needs update and lightning - D3D iso (flat objects/chars) pro: looks the best lightning and alpha blend hardware acceleration easy making of tiles (textures) con: rewrite of maped 3d card more coding fixed angle - full d3d pro: any angle con: need to write a full 3d engine or use an existing need to load 3d objects I personally tending to use an D3D iso engine with flat polys for the objects and characters. Anyone has some ideas and/or suggestions? You can visit my site at: http://mindcry.cjb.net or the zdrpg homepage directly at: http://www.cdx.sk/userwebs/zdrpg Btw. what sort of engine uses Diablo 2? Is it a d3d iso map? thank you for your answers and sorry for the bad english Kevin

I''m kind of partial to the D3D implemtation of an isometric engine. It''s kind of like having your cake and eatin it too, so to speak. You get the neat 3d performance and special effects but get to retain the isometric look. Of course, D3D, is a bit harder to work but I''ve enjoyed the 3d aspect a great deal. I''ve been working on an isometric engine and I too, starting in 2d and have since migrated to 3d. So far I have been pleased at the results. I''d say make the 3d jump, I doubt you''ll reget it.

Diablo II has been in the works for a bit now, and I want to venture to say they started it before 3d isometric engines have become popular. It is actually still a 2d tile engine like the previous. The 3d portion is only for some parallax and special effects. Hope that helps!

Sieggy

yea, i like it to. I allready have enough knowledge to code a 3d engine.
The only problem is i don''t want to waste time to write one and then i see it was again for nothing.

It more depends on what is easier to madeby the gfx artists.

thanks for the input

As far as art goes it can be a great deal easier. Tiles for one, don''t have to be the funky diamond shape anymore since D3D molds the texture to the polys for you. That''s something I imagine your artists will thank you profusely for. Buildings and objects could be done a number of ways but I would say the options for your artwork are much greater and perhaps easier as well.

Sieggy

Yea i also thought that way.

Btw. you mentoined the buildings etc. how would you put buildings on the map.

You could either only have 2-3 or more layers and blit the tiles like a normal iso engine, but you also could add a ground tile layer and then (this maybe only work good for walls) draw flat polygones with an 90degre angle, i belive it would look at least good for walls...
i hope you got what i mean...

MC

Well looks like ya need an opinion from someonewho knows the answers HEHE I''m head GFX artist and co-founder of a team so far we have almost 4 skilled 3d artists and some more in training. We decided to go with a Starcraft iso style map mainly cause it seem''s easiest and don''t say its harder for gfx people to do iso cause its not 3d studio max can output a hi-res (hehe we going all out on ours) isometric style unit with a few easy tweeks. I would suggest a nice 3d isometric. Effects are not hard to do now lets say if you want to be able to do the sunsetting (hehe some other features i love promotion) then i would say D3d would do the trick but it can be done in standard 3d iso without to much compromises or setbacks.

Phantam
Fire Impression Gaming Co-Founder, Head 3dArtist

"Drawing of a state of mind", My ex-art teacher

hehe thanks for your opinion ;p

isn''t it harder to make an iso (diamond) tile instead of an square tile?
I know that you could texture a polygon in 3d studio and render it, but what angle you would use? And wouldn''t it be more time consuming.
You see i''m an expirienced game programmer but i lack as an gfx artist

Btw. are you free to hire for an big opensource project?

Im not really an artist... but i tend to use Max alot to render test images for my current iso-rpg-project.
After setting up the angle and the right camera settings I have run into one problem, how to get the size of the rendered tiles to match 32x16(without time consuming editing in photoshop).

I''ve often thought of using D3D to make a tool to render my square tiles as diamond tiles at a certain scale and then saving that back to disk. This would let me control lighting and opacity and exact sizes by creating a triangle quad of X by Y size.

If you''re going through all the trouble of using D3D, though, don''t limit yourself to static tile shapes. I implemented a height field in my iso work and rolling terrian, IMHO, looks so cool. Just a thought!

Sieggy