hi, I am a student in hong kong, working on a game project. My project is a 2D Tiled Based game, which is more or less having the style of Diablo, originally I was thinking to use 2D for all the graphics, including background and sprites, however, i found some new tile-based games started using 3D for their characters with 2D background, the usage of this is the game lets the players to have full on-screen variation of the characters, like the clothes color of the characters. And I wonder if it will affect the game perfermance, because of the interchange of 2D and 3D? Many thanks if anyone can give some ideas about the above mentioned.

Hi I would use a 3D modelling program to render the characters then export the frames to bitmaps or any other image.By doing that you can keep the high quality in the 3D artwork without having to pay for it performance wise by having to have a 3d engine.Many computer rpgs use this technique especially if it has an online mode.The great thing about this is you can use most any 3D modelling software even trial versions to do this. Well good luck on your project.