Hi. I am currently experimenting with an isometric game in Flash 5, and i have some really basic newbie questions in the matter of isometric theory. In my game, my character in positioned in the center, and the "landscape" (scene) and objects move in different directions. My problem is a matter of depth (i.e when is the character behind or in front of objects) Currently, i set the depth of an object equal to the objects y position in the scene, and constantly updating the characters depth equal to the scenes y position. (so that if the scenes y position is greater than an objects y positon, the depth of the character will be higher than the objects, and hence the character is in front of the object.) This works fine, but this can only be done with 1 tile objects (where the lower side corners are on the same y axis, like the box in the example) So if i wanted to do a new box, with the length of 3 of my boxes, i actually have to set 3 boxes on the stage... Is this a normal way of doing isometric games? Or how do you normally calculate, when the character is behind or in front of stuff? Best regards, Tim. Edited by - timster on July 20, 2001 9:23:35 AM

It''s usually based on the position in the map array not position on the screen.

Ben

In your case you can calculate the mid position of the objects drawn to the screen, so when the pass halfway it is draw over them....

I think it makes the most sense to make depth proportional to the y position of the BOTTOM of a sprite (because it''s BOTTOM is what touches the map "plane").