I made my first Iso engine last week. I was so proud. Then I played Total Annihilation for an hour and thought, "hey" I''m thinking that instead of making some stupid 8-directional sprite system for my new cool iso engine that maybe I should implement a simple object-based 3D engine, replacing prerendered bitmaps with 3D objects... Since it''s object-based, it wouldn''t require many changes to the code that draws the sprites in order, and i can seriously cut some z-ordering corners... and I could definitely implement a primitive Z-axis very quickly and easily, but there just seems to be something dirty about mixing 2D and 3D. Should I do it? Please help to guide me... I''m tired and I need sex.

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Abort, Retry, Fail?

quote:

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but there just seems to be something dirty about mixing 2D and 3D. Should I do it?

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lol...are you concerned about the moral implications of mixing 2 different species together (2d and 3d)?

relax a bit, if you can do it and it works...then go ahead. dont ask for permission and ask if its a "dirty thing" to do or not...thats pretty ridiculous ..dont you think?

Visit my planet: Planet John
Capt. James Tiberious Kirk -- hmm, didnt know ole Capn was a tiberia fan.

No. You can''t mix 2d and 3d. I tried it with TI-BASIC and it''s impossible.

Ben
http://therabbithole.redback.inficad.com

You can mix 2d and 3d, one use is called billboarding which invovles using 2d sprite objects in a 3d world. You seem to want to use 3d objects in a 2d world? This is also possible, but you might as well just go total 3d with a fixed view point. you might want to read some articles about it.

Lep

Perhaps I should expand on my plight. What I''m concerned about is framerate... I forgot to mention that I''m writing this engine in pure quickbasic 4.5 code... although I''ve already started it and it looks like speed won''t be much of an issue. Anyway, my other question is this: how does Total Annihilation do it? Is it a 2D map with 3D objects on top of it like my new engine will be, or is there something more?

QuickBASIC? I used QB to learn 3D. Are you planning on wireframe or are you going to try texture maps. I know the latter is possible since I've seen demos. I just never looked into doing it myself.

All you need to do is place the 3d objects on top of the 2d stuff. It's pretty easy to make the switch.

Yes it will be very slow. QB doesn't do graphics well.

Ben
http://therabbithole.redback.inficad.com





Edited by - KalvinB on March 6, 2001 6:02:56 PM

You can most likely do those kind of graphics in 2d, I havent played the game much but from the screen shots they look like they are 2d. Id have to take a look at the special effects etc to see if they are rendering the terrain in 3d. You might want to take a look at brackets article here on gamedev about mixing 2d and 3d. I doubt that the game is total 3d but if then they have a very fixed point of view.

TA, AFAIK, used tiles for the terrain and 3d models for the units...

HTH,

Dak

The previous post is correct. They used a 2D style (probably billboarding) for the terrain. They mapped the terrain and saved it''s properties. Then when they go to render the units (in 3D) they check those properties... that''s why when tanks try to go up a hill they actually invert and roll off... planes twist in the sky and do dynamic aerobatic maneuvers... explosions are pretty different based on the destruction of the unit... Lighting on the billboard... etc...

If you look at their map editor and unit editor most of this becomes apparent.

my $.02

E.D.