**sigh** it's me again. Perhaps some people think I'm spamming the forum, but I really do have serious questions, and I suppose it just shows I'm committed :D ... or stupid lol. Anyway, my question this time has to do with a graphic design. As I have said before, the game I am develpoing is a top-down 2D action-RPG. Now one of the snags that I have just hit again is more of a decision than anything else. world interactivity VS detailed graphics Now keep in mind that this is 2d, so rendering power isn't the problem here. The problem is angle. The origional game plan was to make objects movable and rotatable. For instance, if someone is trying to break down your door, you can move a dresser in front of it to block them. However, this is where it gets tricky. what should the angle be when it comes down to gameplay?. I want about an 80 degree angle, but that makes it so larger objects cannot be rotated without looking really weird. Obviously, if the dresser was viewed fully top down, it would just look like a board (not very exciting). And since the characters rely on smooth animation and are fully rotatable, this begs a problem as well. My question is, how do I set up the angle of the game. 1. do I just make the characters top-down and not worry about seeing their detailed bodies. 2. Do I make buildings and large objects at an angle, but sacrifice some world interactivity. 3. are their any alternatives (besides 3D) that can be used to have larger objects at an angle, but make them be picked up and rotated without tham looking REALLY akward and lob-sided? Perhaps include samples from other games if you know any... PS: sorry for the corney title, I needed to attract attention :) [Edited by - TheKrust on July 14, 2007 2:03:26 PM]

I love your title.

Either way, you could look at Wikipedia about projections. Either way, isometric or dimetric projections (the Diablo franchises) generally look fine.

Not quite what I'm looking for but thanks anyway. Remember that in diablo, you can't interact with items in the world all freelance style. Not even to mention that would take an ungodly amount of pictures to create.

The gameplay is more important. If you render at any angle other than top-down, you could obscure details that the players need to see. It's also irritating to move around in a world based on squares which are rotated relative to the viewer because the four cardinal directions on the controller or keyboard don't line up with the angle of the game objects.

You'll more or less have to go with models of some kind for things like this, or limit possible moving angles to some number (4 or 8). Easiest will be top-down obviously, but as you say, it can be very hard to see what kind of objects etc are in the room. For this reason, I ('m going to) have a little window at the bottom right corner of the screen showing whatever the mouse is over from other angles.

Interesting idea with the window thing, although be careful that your players don't end up feeling like they're useing CAD.

anyway, perhaps some kind of SUPER pimitive model would be good, but I was also thinking that some objects would be stapled to walls, just for the sake of being pretty.

Most 2-D games like that use a broken perspective. The floor plan is as if you are looking at it from above, but each object is drawn how it appears from the side.

If you look at these

http://www.zelda.com/universe/game/past/


notice how the walls and floor appear as though you are looking down from 90 degrees and the objects in the room look about 45 degrees. 90 and 0 are also combined in some games. You don't have to pick just one.

Unless you have a really good reason to need to be able to rotate lots of things, I'd say the graphics are more important. Action RPG makes me think the gameplay is primarily about fighting and exploring and talking to people in towns, and I don't see the strong need for rotatable objects in any of that.

well makeshift, yes that is a typical action RPG and I can see where you would think that. However, one of the things I was hoping to do was make the physics a part of the combat system

for the sake of simplicity and me not explaining an hour of crap. Lets say I have a "gravity gun". I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. And lets say their is someone shooting at me infront of a box. I shoot the box and it rolls over on him and crushes him.

By roll in this example, it would be more as just the overhead box moving and rotating very fast. This would create a good enough effect.

I was thinking about the Zelda solution, but I have never done very well with making things blend. I'll have to research it.