Fixed isometric view?

[Frisk]

 

In 2.5D (3D perspective simulated in 2D usually called isometric, although most games are 3/4 view dimetric projection rather than isometric projection) you have to draw or prerender every single animation frame for every single action, and yes, weapons were usually an overlay sprite that had the same animation frames, nonetheless the effort rises exponentially with each new animation sequence, body shape and new style of armor.

 

Uhm...That might be completely irrelevant to what PE will be doing. It is perfectly feasible to mix regular 3D models for players and monsters with pre-rendered backgrounds.

[AwesomeOcelot]

What's not to understand? The developer provides model and texture, animation base data and an animation sequence, the player provides a card with enough computing power to calculate an image with the current frame of the animation sequence. The main effort in adding a new animation-sequence is adding the gameplay-code to actually activate it

 

In how that possibly relates to game development costs, apart from them going upwards because it takes more experience and man hours to do that then create a game using prerendered assets.

 

In 2.5D (3D perspective simulated in 2D usually called isometric, although most games are 3/4 view dimetric projection rather than isometric projection) you have to draw or prerender every single animation frame for every single action, and yes, weapons were usually an overlay sprite that had the same animation frames, nonetheless the effort rises exponentially with each new animation sequence, body shape and new style of armor. This is why there were overlay sprites for weapons in the first place, or why BG2 mirrors the sprites (player always sees the shield arm) to save developing time and thus costs.

 

I hate to break this to you but real-time 3D still needs animators, actually it's harder to animate in a real-time 3D engine because you have to code for things you could just preset for prerendered animations.

 

Some people claim, like a few people on Wikipedia, that simulating a 3D perspective in 2D is called 2.5D, but that's not its common usage today, and I don't think it ever was its common usage, it's hard to find references to 2.5D in respect to isometric games or parallax scrolling games for that matter, I was a fan of the SimCity and Sonic series in the 90's and no one ever called them 2.5D, never heard it in relation to the isometric RPGs that were made from 1996 to 2004 either. Wikipedia is not perfect. Perhaps it's a non-English speaking reference, possibly from Germany or Japan?

 

I have only ever heard 2.5D refer to two concepts in gaming: real-time 3D games like Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams or Ancients of Ooga that are restricted to 2D gameplay, and games that mix 2D prerendered backgrounds with 3D models like Resident Evil, The Longest Journey, and Grim Fandango.

Edited November 28, 2012 by AwesomeOcelot

[Frisk]

The developers just posted something that basically illustrates the "2.5D" of PE:

 

 

Basically a 2D background - then they add 3D objects to allow creation of walkmeshes and such, but we don't really have the 3D objects in the game - basically just the 2D images from the location of the camera. It might be best to think of the PE areas like a "fold-out" scene - a flat background, 2D structures rising up from it, and a walkmesh that winds its way between the structures.

 

This is less demanding on the graphics card than a full 3D environment - instead of real-time rendering, each environment object only has to be pre-rendered once, but of course the disadvantage is that you cannot "upgrade" the graphics by switching to higher-resolution textures like you could do in some 3D games.

[Game_Exile]

First Ocelot,

What does this have to do with 2D and 3D?

It's a bit much to call something primitive when the renderer behind the images is more complex than real-time 3D engines. I also notice how you have completely ignored my point about not knowing what real-time rendering Project Eternity is going to have, including lighting, animation, filters, real time 3D rendering of characters and objects. Can you say that Project Eternity is going to less complex than Half-Life? No. Is Limbo less complex than Descent? I don't even know what basis you're using to judge.

 

I am talking about the games, not the tools used to create them. A real time 3D engine is part of a 3D game (the major part), and the tools used for pre-rendering the 2D images from 3D ones are not (only the resulting assets are). And 3D environments and dynamic perspectives are more complex than 2D environments and less dynamic perspectives, period.

 

Did I say that Project Eternity, as a whole, would be less complex than Half-Life? That is not even a proper comparison, asshat. You want to tell me Devil May Cry is less complex than any scrolling 2D brawler? And fyi, Half-Life is miles more complex than any 2D fps (can you even remember any?). And Limbo and Descent? Where the hell were you going with these examples, and what does it have to do with whether '2D' is more or less primitive or complex than '3D'? Is Limbo supposedly more complex than Descent because Limbo is in 2D? Is Project Eternity going to be more complex than Half Life because it's backgrounds are in 2D? You are not answering the question you are pretending to answer.

 

But P:E will surely be more primitive than GTA5 and Far Cry 3, for the reasons I have already mentioned. Some games are showing the path to the future, some are not. What is so hard to see about this?

Just because every possibility for 2D games hasn't been explored yet, doesn't mean that 2D games somehow have just as much or more future than 3D games.

You morons are acting like I'm trying to trash P:E, when I'm only stating things that are obviously true about '2D' and '3D' games.

 

 

Now, Hassat

Handpainted backgrounds or 3D assets used over over and over and over.

 

Surely the first is more lazy, right?

 

Troll harder, you still won't be right, Exile.

The fixed perspective allows objects to look good or passable with much lesser attention paid to the graphical features. That is the whole reason for doing it.

 

Guess why people use 3D assets "over and over", like you say? Hint: see my quote directly above for the answer. You have not contradicted a single thing I said, so what does it have to do with my being right or not? Idiot.

[PrimeJunta]

I have only ever heard 2.5D refer to two concepts in gaming: real-time 3D games like Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams or Ancients of Ooga that are restricted to 2D gameplay, and games that mix 2D prerendered backgrounds with 3D models like Resident Evil, The Longest Journey, and Grim Fandango.

 

Back in pre-Unreal Engine days, 2.5D was used to mean an engine like DOOM's, Wolfenstein's, Duke Nukem 3D's, or Marathon's. They cut a few corners with the arithmetic, which meant that the vertical axis was restricted: when you pointed the camera up or down (if the engine allowed it at all, DOOM and Wolfenstein didn't), verticals remained perfectly vertical on the screen, without perspective distortion. Like so:

 

 

Compare -- here the verticals are perspective-distorted as they would in a photo of the same space in real life:

 

[AwesomeOcelot]

I have only ever heard 2.5D refer to two concepts in gaming: real-time 3D games like Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams or Ancients of Ooga that are restricted to 2D gameplay, and games that mix 2D prerendered backgrounds with 3D models like Resident Evil, The Longest Journey, and Grim Fandango.

 

Back in pre-Unreal Engine days, 2.5D was used to mean an engine like DOOM's, Wolfenstein's, Duke Nukem 3D's, or Marathon's. They cut a few corners with the arithmetic, which meant that the vertical axis was restricted: when you pointed the camera up or down (if the engine allowed it at all, DOOM and Wolfenstein didn't), verticals remained perfectly vertical on the screen, without perspective distortion.

 

Yeah, you're right, the Build engine is referred to as 2.5D. Also the characters were 2D in these games.

[Enclave]

Fixed isometric isnt any more archaic than any other perspective.

Yes it is. Scrolling 2d is more archaic than any dynamic 3d perspective, period. Anyone who says differently is talking out of their ass, and anyone with half a brain should know why.

 

Different doesn't mean better. 3D isn't inherently superior to 2D. People like you are part of the reason why the gaming industry is not making some excellent genres anymore.

[rjshae]

I suppose the argument here is comparable to whether you like oil paintings or sculpture. Both forms of media can be used to produce beautiful art, or they can generate ugly garbage. It all depends on the skills of the artist. Personally I like both forms: each has their own strengths in communicating an emotional experience to the viewer.

 

What I'm hoping for with the fixed isometric perspective of PE, besides it being an enjoyable game, is that it can provide a successful and engaging role-playing experience at a cost that is within reach of a smaller indie studio. If a AAA 3D game costs US$25 million and a AA 2.5D game costs US$4 million, that's a significant factor in whether a game idea reaches the market.

[Archaven]

Just found out that the camera is fixed. Pretty disappointing. Why can't they make it like Wasteland 2? If it's not a difficult feature to make, please have an option to allow the players to rotate the camera angles that the players want.

 

Again those who dislike it can always choose not to use it. Please have an open conversation and not selfishness. Example.. i dislike respeccing in a game hence i strongly against it and will flame and screw whoever forumer who dares to request for it. This is an example of alot of closed-minded folks mentality. Just because they don't like it everyone shouldn't have it.

Edited February 10, 2013 by Archaven

[Zeful]

Just found out that the camera is fixed. Pretty disappointing. Why can't they make it like Wasteland 2? If it's not a difficult feature to make, please have an option to allow the players to rotate the camera angles that the players want.

 

Again those who dislike it can always choose not to use it. Please have an open conversation and not selfishness. Example.. i dislike respeccing in a game hence i strongly against it and will flame and screw whoever forumer who dares to request for it. This is an example of alot of closed-minded folks mentality. Just because they don't like it everyone shouldn't have it.

Different game, different rendering system. Different way of handling environments.

 

It's quite literally impossible to rotate the camera when all the backgrounds are little more than pictures drawn from one perspective. The only way it would be possible is to have all the images drawn from a perfect bird's eye view, which would make the rotation worthless. Please do research on the differences between the games before making comparisons. Wasteland 2 will have fully 3d environments and their reason for not initially wanting to add a rotating camera was worrying about art assets and how long it would take to fill out all sides of the various environment assets. Project Eternity has nothing in common with Wasteland 2 in terms of environment design, what with the world being hand-drawn images that has collision maps attached to them.

[Archaven]

I had always like an isometric view party-based RPG and was delighted to hear a game called Project Eternity in development. Unfortunately, my honest opinion (i do know alot of forumers here do like static hand-painted background) using a static background compared to Wasteland 2 which you can rotate is truly a step backward.

 

I saw the hand-crafted 2D background and in all honesty it's not even more prettier than any latest 3D games in the market. You could possibly argue this 10-15 years ago when 3D graphics were just a newborn. I agree they were ugly, pixelated and hand-drawn 2D background are far more superb and beautiful compared to 3D. This is not true anymore in 2013.

 

The inherent problem with static background is the blocking of player characters, items, bodies by certain objects (most noticeably buildings) that could occur dynamically (eg. a scripted NPC may approach the party and it happens that the party is traversing half way that was blocked by a building. This can only be rectified by making part of the building transparent or even removing it. There is no such problem IF the background were in 3D.

 

Again i like to emphasize i agree during the 90s 2D hand-drawn backgrounds are far more beautiful compared to 3D. I would have preferred 2D background IF we are still in the 90s. However this is no longer true in 2013. With more than $4M of pledges and they are still taking the easy way out (argue how much you may like, 3D is far more complex and complicated than 2D).

[Hassat Hunter]

I often find even today in 3D engines rotation is required to see your men, unlike BG2 or similar who where made not to obstruct your teammates most of the times.

 

So I have to disagree at that point.

[Zeful]

With more than $4M of pledges and they are still taking the easy way out (argue how much you may like, 3D is far more complex and complicated than 2D).

4 million USD wouldn't fill out an art budget for "modern quality" models and textures, so what you're talking about here wasn't even on the table.

 

Besides, part of the pitch to kickstarter was EXACTLY what they are doing now. 3D character models on a 2D background, with a special layer on top of it to show where the party can stand. It's what I bought into when I pledged, it's what a lot of people bought into when they pledged. If you were somehow under the mistaken impression that you were getting a full 3D game, do everyone a favor; ask for your money back, and leave.

[obsidiansquid]

I have no problem with what PE is doing. My guess is that the backgrounds will look beautiful.

[Archaven]

I have no problem with what PE is doing. My guess is that the backgrounds will look beautiful.

 

I'd hope so. In time we will all see if it's otherwise. Until you have really played the game and experienced on the annoying building, environment and object blocking you wouldn't really feel a needle is poking you and understand about it.

 

We will see and i hope the latter. Cheers

Edited February 11, 2013 by Archaven

[Hassat Hunter]

It's what I feel about modern RTS... I have no freaking overview having to rotate around all the crap they put in.

 

Can't honestly say I like a single 3D RTS. Shame since I loved 2D RTS. Fortunately, 3D-ifying hasn't been so horrible for RPG's though.

In Baldur's Gate or PS:T I never felt the need to rotate. In modern games where there is rotate, sure, I do. But only because since they have the rotate feature, they no longer care for making maps carefully for overview...

[Chel]

While I do like the camera style of BG2, I am a little surprised that they're not doing something similar to whan XCOM: Enemy Unknown do. The defauls is *like* the fixed isomeric camera, however you can rotate the camera through 90 degrees, to each 'corner' or the environment. As that is a proper turn based game also, it works very well.

 

I guess it needs the 'real' 3D, rather than 2.5D, to make that work? Shame really, as I can't see that anything would be lost - or would it be at the expense of the fancypants scenery?

[Co0n]

In fact, this can make the game look truly incredible.

For showing some bitmaps, you dont need super awesome computers. The image is already 3d rendered and your pc doesnt need to do that work again.
So PE can use super high quality images to create an awesome world.

 

And the best part:
It makes the game easier to mod :D (my favourite point ^^)

Edited February 19, 2013 by Co0n

[Alexjh]

I think the thing here where people are bandying around the word archaic is that there is a difference between something being technologically archaic and something being actually archaic.

 

I could paint a picture using my wacom, or I can paint a picture using my oil paints. The former is a technology that is a couple of decades old, the latter is over half a millenia old.  What this doesn't mean is that my digital painting will be modern or prettier than the oil painting purely on virtue of being a modern technology.  I can use really oldfashioned techniques with the wacom painting and very contemporary ones with the oils, or vise versa, and modern oils have improved in versatility since their original creation.

 

Realistically, 2D prerendered has the potential to have far higher detail in it than is economically viable for 3D to do anyway.  You have to bear in mind that modelling and texturing is a slower process than painting for detail AND it has to work to constraints, hence why Eternity is using modelled scenes and then painting over them for details.  Which isn't to say 3D games can't be pretty, but, if I can even just making a game-suitable 3D scene of my field of view and a painting of the same thing, the 3D version wouldn't be able to afford, say, the texture on my camera strap, the slight bits where the veneer has been chipped off a corner of my desk, the dust patterns and paint splatters on my monitor stand and so on.  You could do it in 3D sure, but it wouldn't be a worthwhile investment of time or resources to carefully do these things over, say, an afternoon when a few brushstrokes would achieve the same thing in a painting which uses less system resources to load.

[Frenetic Pony]

 

With more than $4M of pledges and they are still taking the easy way out (argue how much you may like, 3D is far more complex and complicated than 2D).

4 million USD wouldn't fill out an art budget for "modern quality" models and textures, so what you're talking about here wasn't even on the table.

 

Besides, part of the pitch to kickstarter was EXACTLY what they are doing now. 3D character models on a 2D background, with a special layer on top of it to show where the party can stand. It's what I bought into when I pledged, it's what a lot of people bought into when they pledged. If you were somehow under the mistaken impression that you were getting a full 3D game, do everyone a favor; ask for your money back, and leave.

 

"Modern Quality" models and textures don't require the money you think they do. Budgets are spent on every level having high quality UNIQUE assets, and re-working those a dozen times over, and debugging, and voice acting, and etc. In point of fact they're already building all these assets and textures you'll be seeing in 3D anyway, they're just then baking them into a background.

 

Which really might be a mistake. Unity 4.0 can look pretty good really quickly, it would probably be faster today to just build a straight up 3d game than what is being planned. With baking everything into a background, they gain performance but have to figure out all these things like animating water and grass, and etc. that's all solved in a 3D game. You also have to bake everything again and again and again to see what it looks like, which takes time. While a 3d game can be modified and played instantaneously. This is a timesaver not to be underestimated.

[anek]

The inherent problem with static background is the blocking of player characters, items, bodies by certain objects (most noticeably buildings) that could occur dynamically (eg. a scripted NPC may approach the party and it happens that the party is traversing half way that was blocked by a building. This can only be rectified by making part of the building transparent or even removing it.

 

Have of ever played one of the Infinity Engine games?

Blocking wasn't a problem there.

 

First of all it didn't occur all that often, as the maps were intelligently designed for the static isometric usecase from the ground up.

 

And when characters did get (partially) obscured behind objects, the blocked parts would shine through using semi-transparency / dithering / silhouette-highlighting.

 

You'd get used to it pretty quickly. I, for one, didn't feel like it reduced the fun of playing those games in any way.

 

What *would* have killed the fun, though, would be having to rotate the camera all the time to play the game. This happens in all games that support camera rotation - the engine and map designers take this feature into account and stop worrying about blocking - so for the users, constantly managing the camera becomes a mandatory chore. It takes attention away from the actual combat and world exploration, messes with your sense of direction, etc.

All this just because it's more "modern"? No thanks.

[DakkonZerth]

Pardon my ignorance but does that mean no camera angle changing or zooming or anything? Seems pretty archaic to me if this is what you plan to spend $4M on... :/

It's simply a forced perspective.  Frankly, calling it archaic is a little bit of a low blow, considering forced perspective is popular, at any time, in most mediums.  The reason this game will use a forced, fixed perspective, is for a couple of reasons: first, if you want to play the same game with a 3D camera, Neverwinter Nights is always available, Dragon Age also.  The big issue with those games, is that the camera gets in the way more often than not, so you find yourself always managing it.  A lot of 3DS games on the other hand, still use the flat backgrounds, which seem to have aged just fine, and are intrusive to gameplay.

 

Frankly, I'm glad they are NOT spending much of the 4 million dollars on 3D camera, and focusing on art, game design, and content.

[DakkonZerth]

Fixed isometric isnt any more archaic than any other perspective.

Right, how much did Diablo cost to make?  $40 million?

[forfs]

Pardon my ignorance but does that mean no camera angle changing or zooming or anything? Seems pretty archaic to me if this is what you plan to spend $4M on... :/

 

If you think about it, fixed isometric view is completely novel compared to free 3D view.  We had 3D in our lives for millions of years whereas isometric projection cannot be older than the oldest human drawings So it's kind of state of the art perspective, I guess that's what kids do nowadays, playing them games isometrically...

[Archaven]

Pardon my ignorance but does that mean no camera angle changing or zooming or anything? Seems pretty archaic to me if this is what you plan to spend $4M on... :/

 

Sorry for breaking this to you but in all honesty i'd always felt that Obsidian, inXile and Bioware are similar. They are just good storytellers and good in writing stories. They were never good in technology, visuals/art or game engine. Their mindset are still sticking to the 1990s on 2D, "tilesets" and the best at you can call "Infinity Engine". While the engine may be "ground-breaking" and state of the art during the 1990s but to them it's still state of the art and ground-breaking even as of today as we are speaking .

 

Bioware is exactly the same. With their used of old, rehashed game engine they could not come with a game that truly "immerse" you visually but best is at "immersing" you with their "text writing". In all seriousness, i'd feel they should stop making games and perhaps writing "books" could probably more successful.

 

Back in Dragon Age 2.. The graphics were already "dated" during launch. And when you compare it with an "Indie" developer CDPR (who license Infinity Engine for their 1st Witcher game). Witcher 2 and Dragon Age 2 are heaven hell. Both even visually and story-wise. Rotatable, top-down isometric 3D is no worst than 2D.

 

I honestly think Obsidian and inXile (which they went 3D with Wasteland2 is the right direction) should start thinking about going forward than going backward.  In all seriousness.. folks who think 2D is superior perhaps Crytek (Crysis 3) developer, CDPR (Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077), EA SimCity should all just design their games in 2D?

 

Is it not Obsidian?