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Posted: 08 May 2007, 00:10
by Crush
Platyna wrote:Erm 404
The site went down. Too bad, it explained the difference much better than wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_projection wrote:Isometric projection is a form of graphical projection — more specifically, an axonometric orthographic projection. It is a method of visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions, in which the three axes of space appear equally foreshortened, of which the displayed angles among them and also the scale of foreshortening are universally known, and each angle between two of the three axes is 120°.
[...]
The projection used in videogames usually deviates slightly from "true" isometric due to the limitations of raster graphics. Lines in the x and y axes would not follow a neat pixel pattern if drawn in the required 30° to the horizontal. While modern computers can eliminate this problem using anti-aliasing, earlier computer graphics did not support enough colors or possess enough CPU power to accomplish this. So instead, a 2:1 pixel pattern ratio would be used to draw the x and y axes lines, resulting in these axes following a 26.565° (arctan 0.5) angle to the horizontal. (Game systems that do not use square pixels could, however, yield different angles, including true isometric.) It should therefore be noted that this form of projection is more accurately described as a variation of dimetric projection, since only two of the three angles between the axes are equal (116.565°, 116.565°, 126.87°). Many in video game and pixel art communities, however, continue to mistakenly refer to this projection—as well as other forms of axonometric projection—as "isometric perspective"; the term "3/4 perspective" is also commonly used.
Posted: 03 Jul 2007, 10:50
by FoxSix
Sorry for the delayed reply, I had started making an isometric sprite sheet and had it on a spare hard drive and a couple of the hard drives pins got bent, so I had to throw it away. They were looking good to..
Anyway my idea was to go for a endless-online and dark ages kind of look.
Posted: 04 Jul 2007, 14:02
by Pajarico
At least you did learn the importance of backups, didn't you?
Posted: 04 Jul 2007, 14:36
by FoxSix
Yeah, I thought I had backed it up on a disc, looked all over my room for it, but it's no where to be found.
Posted: 05 Jul 2007, 14:54
by JoshLangley
functionality first, eye-candy second. I would like to see our 2D overhead looking and playing like a complete product before we moved to different graphical formats.
Perhaps then we could skip ISO, and move to 3D eh?
WIth iso we would probably need to movbe to 8 directions of movement, which will also take a toll on our graphics teams.
Posted: 05 Jul 2007, 18:53
by Saphy
JoshLangley wrote:functionality first, eye-candy second. I would like to see our 2D overhead looking and playing like a complete product before we moved to different graphical formats.
Perhaps then we could skip ISO, and move to 3D eh?
WIth iso we would probably need to movbe to 8 directions of movement, which will also take a toll on our graphics teams.
3D looks ugly, and is a bigger toll for graphics artist.
Posted: 06 Jul 2007, 11:38
by JoshLangley
Saphy wrote:JoshLangley wrote:functionality first, eye-candy second. I would like to see our 2D overhead looking and playing like a complete product before we moved to different graphical formats.
Perhaps then we could skip ISO, and move to 3D eh?
WIth iso we would probably need to movbe to 8 directions of movement, which will also take a toll on our graphics teams.
3D looks ugly, and is a bigger toll for graphics artist.
Only if you have poor 3D modelers and artists. Graphics artists from my understanding don't have a huge knowledge about 3D modelling, they would suit the concept phases. 3D modelling is tricky to do and is a profession on it's own. Anyway this would take the project in a completely new direction, which would probably be unsuitable to add to this current one, perhaps branching into a new one.
However I wouldn't mind seeing some The mana world 3D art, maybe a few pieces would give us new ideas, that inspiration couldn't hurt.
Migrating to 3D would change allot of the engine and some of the server, which would just be too much work, and would be straying from the project goals, so I wouldn't worry.
Posted: 08 Jul 2007, 06:45
by FoxSix
Actually a 2D tile-based iso wouldn't be as hard as you think, 4 directions and mirror the images.
Posted: 08 Jul 2007, 10:41
by Crush
A 4-way iso sprite has the advantage that it you can mirror two directions instead of just one resulting in only 66% of the animation phases. But on the downside isometric sprites are harder to create. I would estimate the net worktime to be about the same.
Posted: 09 Jul 2007, 02:12
by FoxSix
The view TMW uses right now seems to be equally hard. There aren't that many 2D iso games out there and even more so there is a huge lack of engines. Personally I love the way 2D is looks in these games.
Heres some Eo screen shots.
http://eohacks0.tripod.com/sitebuilderc ... jaileo.jpg
http://test.endless-online.com/shots/001.jpg
http://www.gameogre.com/endlessonline2.jpg
Heres of darkages.
http://www.gameogre.com/darkages.gif
http://www.darkages.com/screenshots/images/s_b_11.gif
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c57/X ... od0481.jpg
TMW is kinda close to how these 2 look with the sprites, I think you guys could do it pretty easy. But again, this is an idea. If you don't want to make tmw 2D iso, you could always do it as a side project. On my part at least as a sort of request.
Posted: 10 Jul 2007, 06:00
by Saphy
I also perfer 2D game with anime-ish characters, such as this
But I doubt we can create anything of this quality. I just finished my big project, so I may have some time to create iso spirtes. However, the pace of this game is going is discouraging; graphics seems to be the least concern when the rest of the system are far from complete.
Posted: 10 Jul 2007, 06:48
by FoxSix
I've got an idea.
Alot of people requesting popular game engines to modify the engine to support isometric. TMW supports diagonal movement, well since thats so, maybe TMW could take out the up, down, left and right and replace them with diagonal movement.
Example: Instead of pressing up/right for diagonally moving right, you'd just press the up key. Down/left you'd just press the down arrow key, and so on and so fourth.
As for the maps, players could create a tile sheet for their isometric server, and then use the map editor to put them in place. Since the tiles would probably missing areas in the corners, the map editor supports blocks, so you could just put blocks in those areas. I don't know how far this goes in coding, but it seems a more simple yet detailed way of making the game engine isometric.
Posted: 10 Jul 2007, 09:24
by ElvenProgrammer
Saphy wrote:However, the pace of this game is going is discouraging; graphics seems to be the least concern when the rest of the system are far from complete.
Still there is a lot of space for graphics development. Most of the required graphics is independent from code advancement. The problem here is mostly the lack of artists and probably the lack of a proper management of resources. Code is slowly progressing while unfortunately graphics development seems to have reached a stop.
Posted: 10 Jul 2007, 20:31
by Saphy
ElvenProgrammer wrote:
Still there is a lot of space for graphics development. Most of the required graphics is independent from code advancement. The problem here is mostly the lack of artists and probably the lack of a proper management of resources. Code is slowly progressing while unfortunately graphics development seems to have reached a stop.
I see. But the basic character sprites aren't final either. There was many changes needed for the characters, such as the sitting positions as well as the postures. So creating armour and pants were out of question for now, until the sprite is finished.
Moreover, communicating via IRC isn't really the best idea because of time zone problems. Perhaps we should organize the wiki or such so that anyone can pick up creating sprites by registering themself after getting their draft approved? Currectly, it seems like the graphics artists have to go through a lot of trouble just to figure out what should be picked up. Of course, I can create any random sprites or tile, but what is the priority of it? And if it will only get used when another tile/sprite is completed, then one should assist another one instead.
Regarding art styles and such, it is not difficult for artists to adapt to other's styles, so it isn't like two people can't work on the same task at once. And it would be nice if there is a calender to make the deadline for each, so that one can expect when a sprite/tile is completed. And if someone missed the deadline, there should be some follow up and maybe asked another to help.
Posted: 10 Jul 2007, 22:18
by FoxSix
Sounds like this is just a problem of not many people knowing about the project. I'm sure there are many developers, programmers, and pixel artists thriving for a change. TMW has a bit of uniqueness. Post about the tmw project in forums such as eclipse engine, elysium, mirage and vbgore. It's sure to rack in people wanting to help. I've even seen the eclipse engine modified to iso. It's called Collapse-Online.
http://collapse-online.com/static/Screens.html
Looks rather amazing really. But the best thing to do is let people know... no.. MAKE them know about TMW. It's a nice project, if more people knew about it there would be more ideas more artists willing to help, more programmers, etc...
