Does anybody know how the Diablo tile engine was done? I wrote to blizzard but the information was "not publicly available". "Remember, I'm the monkey, and you're the cheese grater. So no fooling around." -Grand Theft Auto, London

Specifically what about the engine do you mean?

Oh, I don''t know. Just, how it was done. If you read LaMonthe''s book, Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus, you''ll see that he had mentioned several ways to do ISO games.

First Method:

Make a complete 2d game and calculate which things will be blitted first based on their precedence which is determined by their location on the screen. The tiles are just drawn at an angle to make it look like you''re looking over the scene at an angle.

Second Method:

Simply make the entire thing in 3d and make the tiles by texturing "plates" of flat surface.

Third Method:

Use 3d Math in the first method. I didn''t really understand his explanation so I''m not going to try to explain it here.

Also, did blizzard do it in D3D or actually do it in kind of a 2D environment? This is what I want to know. And, Although it is impossible, I wish I could get a hold of the source code.
Simply make the en

"Remember, I'm the monkey, and you're the cheese grater. So no fooling around."
-Grand Theft Auto, London

It''s definately tile-set based, and doesn''t require D3D interfaces, so you can pretty much chalk it up to method one or three. From what they''ve let slip on the dev team comments for Diablo II, I''d have to say method one.

Yeah, but have you seen the more recent screenshots of DiabloII? I''m almost sure that they used some D3D/OpenGL.



"Remember, I'm the monkey, and you're the cheese grater. So no fooling around."
-Grand Theft Auto, London

Diablo II does use D3D but if you don''t have a 3d card, it drops to software rendering with lower details.

I haven''t done any 3D programming yet, so how could you do a chrono-trigger type game(using 2d alone)?

"Remember, I'm the monkey, and you're the cheese grater. So no fooling around."
-Grand Theft Auto, London

Diablo II will use D3D only for spell effects and such like, correct me if I''m wrong here - I didn''t really bother to look into it. So, doing a tile engine won''t require any knowledge in 3D programming. Effects can be done in software - just look at Planescape: Torment - and so can everythign else.


"I think, therefore I am...I think"

I remember an interview with the DII developers early on, and they stated it was 2d only. They had planned to use a 3d (originally just Glide, though I imagine considering the changes of late D3D is included too) device for special effects as noted above.

Its a good example that you don''t have to use 3d to do an isometric engine, though info and techniques on doing it via such a method are more available now. It, as in 3D, seems to be the method of choice for newer isometric engines, though I''m a bit biased since thats what I use :-).

I hate to slam it (again) since neither it nor its predecessor are bad games but the Infinity Engine (Baldur''s Gate, Torment) are neat looking not because of the engine but because of the artwork. They are little more than a big bit map scroller with a height map.

Sieggy

The Infinity engine has a really good scripting engine. You can''t knock it, the graphics component of the engine is simple, but the scripting is amazing. Why use an engine you don''t need when you have killer graphics?

[Edited by - Saruman on December 30, 2006 10:42:42 PM]