Rendering a 3d world isometricly isnt a problem, as that's just one of many method for projecting the scene onto screen. What 3d gives your isometric engine is the true 360 degree freedom, hardware alpha, lighting, filtering and multitextureing support. I dont think its there is any point in developing a 2d isometric engine anymore. With rudimentary knowledge of D3DRM one could get a reasonable isometric engine up. The benifits outweigh the cost in going 3d for your isometric engines. Perhaps we could start an open source isometric engine project, i dont think it would be too difficult. What do people think? I know i dont have the time to make one from scratch right now, but if everyone contributied alittle we could complete it in a reasonable amount of time.
-ddn

It's all in the matter of detail. 3D engines uses textures while 2D uses images. There's a world of difference in detail there.

Standard isometric is cool. 3d isometric is pretty cool, too. I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that a 2d iso engine is more effective for slower paced games. As you start adding 3d elements into the engine it adds more of an action theme.

UO is pure 2d, and it works just fine. Revenant (I think thats it) is a 3d iso game and it looks like it plays more like a 3d action shooter.

I would say that it depends on what you are using your engine for that determines if you should be using 2d or 3d.

Yes, i neglected to address the detail part. Many 3d game designers are thinking in the quake mentality, of using repeatbale tilable textures to cover large expanse of space, thus they usually make their textures smaller than the visible screen area they usually occupy. Then on top of they they throw in mip mapping and bilinear filtering which pretty much makes any fine detail moot. Thats the reason why all the FPS games look so similar. Even when they arnt making a FPS game, many designers emulate the most successfuly and well known model the FPS, in their texture designs. The trick to getting really good 3D textures, as good as 2d, is to match your screen pixel area and texture detail as much as possible. This is easily achived, its just a matter of recognizing the problem. Oh, also i dont think being 3D forces your game to be fast pace, just more flexible 8^)

-ddn

I'm not saying that 3d forces your game to be fast paced. It just seems like thats the pattern they all follow.

IMHO making a 3D iso engine is a great idea. It allows you to make all kinds of cool effects and allows access to nifty features in the hardware (assuming your using Direct3D or OpenGL).

What I'm wondering is where you draw the line with 3D usage? Do you make the characters and items 3D objects, or do you just keep them as sprites? And do you limit it to and Isometric view, or can you use a first person view or a behind the back view?

Thoughts?

--TheGoop

I think from the other threads, its a known fact that 3d hardware has trouble with textures changing quickly. This might change in the future but unlikely, so the best bet is to go all 3d, characters, animation, backgrounds, lights, the whole enchilida, taco and bean dip too!

-ddn

Good point, I wan't thinking about the overhead of state changes. Still, if your careful drawing sprites wouldn't cause too many state changes. I personally think that using 2d sprites in a 3D Iso engine would work well: you get detailed images without a huge amount more overhead.

BTW, when I say 2D Sprites, im really talking about textured quads (made from two triangles).

--TheGoop

Bottom line, how do you create one that is 3D?

er... what about the other way around?

i'm currently trying to develop an iso with 2d tiles for the scenery and 3d (without perspective correctness - tis quicker) scenery and objects. i see little point in swivelling the landscape.. if you want this you may as well go the whole hog and use 3d - cose imho 2d sprites look poo in 3d landscapes.

3d objects (cos theres not that many) can be quite detailed... throwing around the scenery in 3d would take *ages*. it also means smooth movement and adaptable objects (real time transformations and the like).

anyway, just a thought.

dom