Hiya all, I''m looking for a good tutorial how to make a working isometric game. Including things like different heights and maybe even shortest-path-algorhythms. Is there anything on the planet being able to explain that to me ?? It would help me soooo much. Thanx

Well, I can help with the shortest path, but basically it depends on your actual setup. I won''t explain them here, because it takes a while and it''s done better elsewhere. However, knowing some of the names means you can look for them on the net. A lot of these pages have little java applets that animate the algorithm, which really helps in understanding what it''s doing.







A simple approach is a Bredth First Search (BFS, might be listed under BFS tree). It will run in O(V+E) time, where V is the number of vertices (or paths between tiles on your map) and E is the number of tiles on your map. DFS (depth first search) is related but might end up with worse running times for your maps. Think of it this way: trying to get from A to B, BFS looks in concentric circles around A for B. Once it finds it, its finished. DFS tries individual paths until it finds one, saving state on a stack whenever it reaches an intersection.







Another approach is Dijkstra''s algorithm, which is only really useful if you use a weighted graph (that is, you assign different values to the links between tiles based on some criteria). With a weighted graph, you can get your "things" to favour certain paths over others. An example might be to give a different weight to each terrain type. Roads or grass get a low value, while things like mountains get a high value, so if in your game moving over mountains is a lot slower than other terrain types, your "things" will go around the mountains instead of over them if it will be faster. Dijkstra''s algorithm is a bit slower though, because of this added work, and takes O((V+E)logV) time.







There''s also the A* method, which is sort of like a DFS except it''s a little "smarter", and tries to predict which way it should go. I''m not sure what the running time of A* is but I''d imagine it''s somewhere near the DFS time.






Hope this helps

Well, I can help with the shortest path, but basically it depends on your actual setup. I won''t explain them here, because it takes a while and it''s done better elsewhere. However, knowing some of the names means you can look for them on the net. A lot of these pages have little java applets that animate the algorithm, which really helps in understanding what it''s doing.







A simple approach is a Bredth First Search (BFS, might be listed under BFS tree). It will run in O(V+E) time, where V is the number of vertices (or paths between tiles on your map) and E is the number of tiles on your map. DFS (depth first search) is related but might end up with worse running times for your maps. Think of it this way: trying to get from A to B, BFS looks in concentric circles around A for B. Once it finds it, its finished. DFS tries individual paths until it finds one, saving state on a stack whenever it reaches an intersection.







Another approach is Dijkstra''s algorithm, which is only really useful if you use a weighted graph (that is, you assign different values to the links between tiles based on some criteria). With a weighted graph, you can get your "things" to favour certain paths over others. An example might be to give a different weight to each terrain type. Roads or grass get a low value, while things like mountains get a high value, so if in your game moving over mountains is a lot slower than other terrain types, your "things" will go around the mountains instead of over them if it will be faster. Dijkstra''s algorithm is a bit slower though, because of this added work, and takes O((V+E)logV) time.







There''s also the A* method, which is sort of like a DFS except it''s a little "smarter", and tries to predict which way it should go. I''m not sure what the running time of A* is but I''d imagine it''s somewhere near the DFS time.






Hope this helps

Hmm double posted, that was odd.

Hi,
yes it does really help me. Thank you very much.