I completely agree with tanstaalf in this matter, 3d is great for some kind of games but the detail you can achive using 2d iso engines is beyond the current state of the art in 3d engines. Also isometric view is great to me for many games, not only RTS or pseudo-RPG ones, also for arcade (any one remebered Zaxon, Sigma-7, etc..?)

The major problem of using 2d backdrops, tiles, etc... with 3d objects (characters, props, trees etc..) is the clipping problem. Most cards use a zbuffer to sort their polygons, but this requires you to draw the polygon ( it can be completely alphaed out so you dont actually have to see it, but it will write to the z buffer, and this will allow you to clip 3d objects against the 2d scenery). Now if your actually going to use this technique your still taking the hit of drawing the backdrop with invisible polygons, then blit on your 2d tiles, then draw your 3d objects. Many people dont advocate mixing 2d and 3d routines since it stall the 3d hardware, but i dont know if you can get around that unless your going all 3d. Good luck!

-ddn

Hi,
you normally should do all the 3d stuff before using the blitting routines. It's just that the hardware normally renders faster than blitting the stuff.

3D ---> AI ---> 2D Blitting

If you don't do it this way, you can get some bad results, I never had this problem, but a guy of Creative Asylum told me, and he never told me something wrong, so I believe him.

It's easy to do, believe me. We use 3D to created craters and stuff like that, it looks nice, and the buildings on it look nice because they're pre-rendered.

CU

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Skullpture Entertainment
#40842461

I just thought of two games that combine 2d and 3d, quite well. Think of FF7 and Resident Evil. Instead of creating an isometric view using tiles you could use big pre-rendered bitmaps and draw your 3d objects on top of it. I don't know the specifics of how those games work, but it seems to work well.

Both of those games, had to manage their own zbuffer or clip their polygons to the scene in some other way. Same problem, im not saying it cant be done, just you'll have to be aware of it. Furhter to the point how would you go about making a 3d isometric engine?

There isnt any point in writting a new engine, since almost any 3d engine which supports hardware acceleration would do. I would suggest using D3DRetained Mode, with acceleration and some smart management of frames, you can get quite reasonable frame rates and effects. There are many other issues involved ofcourse, but we can discuss those in another thread as this one is getting kinda long.

-ddn

Hello everyone,

I've written a small 3D isometric engine which currently has support for floors, walls, and objects. It's by no means complete (just a preprealpha), but should give people some idea on what can be done. You can download at:
http://members.xoom.com/mutex0

Included is a Readme, be sure to read it to get the keys. You can also switch between fullscreen and windowed by pressing 'D' and Alt+Tabbing works without crashing. I don't want to spam the board, so if you want more info posted, just ask =)

- Bao Nguyen

Bao, you should know that defyengine.zip at your site is messed up.

I'm so sorry about that, just a bad link. It should work now (I downloaded it and ran it). Thanks for the notice =) I also found out one of the files (DDFVIEW.EXE) was debug, fixed that. I'm so messy =)

Tried your demo, but it said it couldnt run unicode atl on win 95. The strange thing is im on win98. Might want to take a look at that, looking forward to seeing your demo!

-ddn

Ditto for the Nine-five.