Lots of units in 8 directions
Author
Hi
Is there any good way of having lots of units in a warcraft-style fps (isometric view)? I have lots of them and they can carry many different guns and go in 8 directions, making the animations multiply like flies on manure.
Is there any way to do this without actually using a 3d-engine where i can simply change the unit-model (put weapon x on unit y, rotate it any way)
Why i ask is becouse im using a 2d engine (hge) i like and i my attempts with a 3d engine (irrlicht) slowed down everything like UI, particles etc so much i took all the fun out of promgramming.
Is there maybe a way to combine an relatively primitive engine such as hge with a "model-renderer" couse thats all the 3d this project would need (maybe thats a lot, i need to write animated and textured meshes to screen, need no light or anything else 3d).
Thanks a lot
E
Starcraft used between 4 and 32 directions for the different units, while warcraft used 8. If you have access to a good pixel-pushing engine, you can try to implement a voxel system, which works pretty well for arbitrary rotations without requiring a 3D engine.
Otherwise, you're stuck with wads of prerendered sprites (which you can prerender with a 3D modeling program, as was done with Diablo 2).
Otherwise, you're stuck with wads of prerendered sprites (which you can prerender with a 3D modeling program, as was done with Diablo 2).
Author
well i can rotate sprites allready (if that was what you talked bout) but it doesnt help unless the view is really top-down (you only see head and shoulder of the guys) and that view is hard to use for gamplay and it looks bad also.
Is there any way to include a simple renderer into another engine? i fear thats what i need (or at least it would be really helpful...)
E
Is there any way to include a simple renderer into another engine? i fear thats what i need (or at least it would be really helpful...)
E
Voxel technology allows you to rotate your "sprites" around an axis that is not perpendicular to the screen (see, for instance, the tanks in Red Alert 2 or Tiberian Sun). Voxel technology can be done easily to create sprites on the run by projecting the voxels one by one on a background surface (whether the screen, or a sprite to be used more than once). All you need for this is the ability to write pixels to a surface.
Quote:Original post by ToohrVyk
Voxel technology allows you to rotate your "sprites" around an axis that is not perpendicular to the screen (see, for instance, the tanks in Red Alert 2 or Tiberian Sun). Voxel technology can be done easily to create sprites on the run by projecting the voxels one by one on a background surface (whether the screen, or a sprite to be used more than once). All you need for this is the ability to write pixels to a surface.
Basically with Voxel technology you CREATE your sprites from a 3d isometric viewpoint. This is done in starcraft, red alert 2 and so on. That is why those games although obviously being 2d only look 3d.
However as far as your rendering is concerned the images are still flat
Quote:Original post by dawidjoubert
Basically with Voxel technology you CREATE your sprites from a 3d isometric viewpoint. This is done in starcraft, red alert 2 and so on. That is why those games although obviously being 2d only look 3d.
I'm not sure that voxel images qualify as sprites until the very moment they're rendered from a given point of view.
Quote:However as far as your rendering is concerned the images are still flat
That's the case for anything rendered to a good old flat 2D monitor, isn't it?
Author
so i use meshes and during runtime they are "converted" to a 2dsprite in a certain rotation and then i can draw em to screen? Is that right about right?
I cannot find much o nthis on this site. Any tips on where to start? Is there any plugin i could use that handles this?
Thanks
I cannot find much o nthis on this site. Any tips on where to start? Is there any plugin i could use that handles this?
Thanks
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