STUNT CAR RACER?

[emkay]

i only stated that char mode is not that bad... and has it's advantages even in mimic bitmap...

There is a little advantage on the C64.

[Heaven/TQA]

That is nitpicking...

How many games of today do real 3D calculations? Please name some.

 

 

In Starraiders you can rotate the camera in x, y - axis while flying the z-axis. But the Objects were simple 2D.

Is it 3D or not?

Good point.... but clearly 3d even when Reading the source code (of part 2 in that case )

 

Ace of Aces? Imho clearly 2d.

[+MrFish]

Is the nearest part of the playfield rendered larger than than the most distant part for accurate perspective? No! All tiles on the Isometric playfield look the same size no matter how far away they are.

 

Perspective doesn't define what 3D is. Perspective defines how the 3 dimensions are projected in relation to one another.

 

 

Can you rotate the camera a full 360 degrees on an isometric playfield? No! If you are lucky, sometimes you can view it from 4 different angles like spindizzy, but many iso games don't even allow that much.

 

You could. Just because it's not common practice with isometric games doesn't mean it's not possible for isometric rendering.

 

 

You can't do any of this because it's not real 3D at all. It's a 2D-tile based projected in a way to look 3D. Not that there's anything wrong with that, for a long time 3D games looked like crap, and isometric engines looked much better because they have much lower processing requirements.

 

None of it is real 3D because it's all rendered on a 2D surface. It's all simulated 3D.

 

Perspective just simulates how humans perceive 3D. Isometric is more real than perspective 3D from a particular aspect. Are things really smaller when they're far away? No: That's why isometric view is used in drafting, because they want to show the real dimensions of objects and parts of objects in relation to one another, not the perceived dimensions.

Edited March 13, 2018 by MrFish

[snicklin]

What is 3d is like the question of what is retro.

 

At the end of it, it is projected onto a 2d screen ignoring CRT curvature.

 

I have programmed a full 3d engine too and there are lots of things to consider.

 

But still, it is projected onto a 2d screen.

 

In other words, there are many ways to reach a 3d illusion. Each involve their own complexities, but at the end of the day, none of these are 3d.

[zzip]

That is nitpicking...

How many games of today do real 3D calculations? Please name some.

 

 

Almost all of them! Today's VR would not be possible without this. You can move the camera about freely and rotate from any angle. The CPU/GPU recalculates the entire image on the fly. You simply cannot do that in an isometric engine

 

And I don't understand why everyone is so defensive over this. As I said before there is nothing wrong with isometric games. when done well they can look gorgeous. Certainly miles better than games based on real 3D calculations on an 8-bit system. But to pretend there's no difference between these and games based on polygons and 3D calculations is ridiculous.

[zzip]

What is 3d is like the question of what is retro.

 

At the end of it, it is projected onto a 2d screen ignoring CRT curvature.

 

I have programmed a full 3d engine too and there are lots of things to consider.

 

But still, it is projected onto a 2d screen.

 

In other words, there are many ways to reach a 3d illusion. Each involve their own complexities, but at the end of the day, none of these are 3d.

 

yes it's all projected on a 2D surface, I guess what I meant to say is one is based on 2D bitmaps designed to look 3D while the other is based on 3D polygons. Using polygons is a lot more versatile but it requires vastly more horsepower to look good.

[zzip]

You could. Just because it's not common practice with isometric games doesn't mean it's not possible for isometric rendering.

You really can't. If you see this done, chances are they used a 3D engine rendered in an isometric style, or some hybrid engine.

See Powermonger for example of a hybrid engine. The land appears 3D, but the objects on the land are isometric bitmaps. When you "turn" it,

it animates the turn, however the objects on the land don't rotate correctly because again they are isometric bitmaps. And even though it

animates the land spinning, you can only play at the 4 90-degree angles. Because to allow the arbitrary rotation of a world in even a hybrid

isometric engine is a major pain in the butt.

[Gunstar]

What is 3d is like the question of what is retro.

 

At the end of it, it is projected onto a 2d screen ignoring CRT curvature.

 

I have programmed a full 3d engine too and there are lots of things to consider.

 

But still, it is projected onto a 2d screen.

 

In other words, there are many ways to reach a 3d illusion. Each involve their own complexities, but at the end of the day, none of these are 3d.

Amen. I've been preaching this fact for years. There is no such thing as TRUE 3D without holography. it doesn't matter what 3D math is used, when it ends up on a 2D screen anyway.

[+MrFish]

You really can't. If you see this done, chances are they used a 3D engine rendered in an isometric style, or some hybrid engine.

See Powermonger for example of a hybrid engine. The land appears 3D, but the objects on the land are isometric bitmaps. When you "turn" it,

it animates the turn, however the objects on the land don't rotate correctly because again they are isometric bitmaps. And even though it

animates the land spinning, you can only play at the 4 90-degree angles. Because to allow the arbitrary rotation of a world in even a hybrid

isometric engine is a major pain in the butt.

 

Yes, it would be moving through various parallel projections to get from one isometric view to another. If it were just a transitional effect, and gameplay was still done in isometric view, I'd still consider it an isometric game.

 

As far as your particular example, well, I'm not talking about using someone else's limited engine and graphic designs that were built to suit it: I'm talking about what could be done.

Edited March 14, 2018 by MrFish

[VladR]

Jesus Christ. What happened here ?!?

 

Iso? Holograms? Seriously?

 

 

The game is 3D, if it uses 3D camera to render animated images of the game world composed of polygons.

 

If that game cheats here and there by using 2D bitmaps, it doesn't change the fact that the game world is composed of 3D polygons and a 3D camera is used to select the particular portion of game world.

 

Hell, it's been almost half century, yet we still experience level of detail popping and other visual glitches. So, how exactly does occasional 2d bitmap disqualify 3d engine ?

[Rybags]

Flat bitmaps don't really make a difference. Wolf3D and Doom used them. Even later games like Far Cry use flat sprites for distant objects.

It comes down to keeping the framerate up. Many games will even have console commands relating to draw distance and level-of-detail changes that occur at different z-depths.

[emkay]

Almost all of them! Today's VR would not be possible without this.

Yeah, the "Room" is 3D, the "moving objects" were 3D.... but then there is a rasterizer clamping all together.

 

I mean Raytracing, where the scene is calculated all fitting together. After that, there were still the 2D displays. But that isn't the problem as the eyes also only get 2D images each

[Jacques]

Didn't read the latest posts too carefully, but is it about doubting A8 being able to handle 3D scenes?

How about Tomahawk?

[R0ger]

Guys plz .. get a room. By which I mean thread.

[emkay]

Guys plz .. get a room. By which I mean thread.

I tried already

[zzip]

Flat bitmaps don't really make a difference. Wolf3D and Doom used them. Even later games like Far Cry use flat sprites for distant objects.

It does make a difference. Those are not completely 3D games either. You can't build a bridge in the Doom engine that you could both walk over AND under because it cheats with its 3D. All the monsters are bitmaps, so whatever angle you view them from you see the same thing.

[zzip]

The game is 3D, if it uses 3D camera to render animated images of the game world composed of polygons.

 

If that game cheats here and there by using 2D bitmaps, it doesn't change the fact that the game world is composed of 3D polygons and a 3D camera is used to select the particular portion of game world.

 

Hell, it's been almost half century, yet we still experience level of detail popping and other visual glitches. So, how exactly does occasional 2d bitmap disqualify 3d engine ?

We're talking isometric engines that don't use a single polygon. Spindizzy to be exact. Some people say that's 3d, I don't

[VladR]

We're talking isometric engines that don't use a single polygon. Spindizzy to be exact. Some people say that's 3d, I don't

- Spindizzy only looks isometric, because it was a new bling at that time.

- But compared to all other typical isometric games (e.g. Diablo), you have Y-axis differences. It's not all on flat land - as the environment is created from vertices.

- and yes, those vertices are snapped to a regular grid, but this is 8-bit so it's OK as a cheat

- highly likely they even managed to draw it using char mode, as a neat optimization

- the camera view is simple - no perspective projection, but that's actually a plus, as at that resolution, the perspective would look ugly

 

I'm not gonna argue that Spindizzy has far less 3D-like features - especially compared to something like SCR - but its environment is undoubtedly fully 3D and it uses a camera to render the environment, properly handling occlusion and draw order (maybe not 100% correctly, but then again, which game even on something powerful like PS3, does).

[emkay]

- Spindizzy only looks isometric, because it was a new bling at that time.

- But compared to all other typical isometric games (e.g. Diablo), you have Y-axis differences. It's not all on flat land - as the environment is created from vertices.

This defines Spindizzy "more 3D" than DooM.

[zzip]

- Spindizzy only looks isometric, because it was a new bling at that time.

- But compared to all other typical isometric games (e.g. Diablo), you have Y-axis differences. It's not all on flat land - as the environment is created from vertices.

- and yes, those vertices are snapped to a regular grid, but this is 8-bit so it's OK as a cheat

- highly likely they even managed to draw it using char mode, as a neat optimization

- the camera view is simple - no perspective projection, but that's actually a plus, as at that resolution, the perspective would look ugly

 

I'm not gonna argue that Spindizzy has far less 3D-like features - especially compared to something like SCR - but its environment is undoubtedly fully 3D and it uses a camera to render the environment, properly handling occlusion and draw order (maybe not 100% correctly, but then again, which game even on something powerful like PS3, does).

I created an isometric engine for the RPG game I was working on. It is capable of displaying any trick I've seen in Spindizzy. --Spindizzy was one of my references on how to display things correctly in fact. In no way is my engine a 3D engine. I would be laughed at for trying to pass it off as one. To game developers it would be "2.5D" or "pseudo-3D" at best.

 

Look at it this way, people wouldn't drop hundreds of dollars on 3D GPUs if isometric was the "same thing". Isometric games like spindizzy are typically tile based and can be displayed competently with a cheap 2D renderer or without using a single 3D feature of the card.

[VladR]

This defines Spindizzy "more 3D" than DooM.

You'd, however, have a very hard time finding somebody who would actually state that Spindizzy "looks more 3D" than Doom. Can't beat the first-person view, regardless of the technique used (raycasting, ...).

[VladR]

I created an isometric engine for the RPG game I was working on. It is capable of displaying any trick I've seen in Spindizzy. --Spindizzy was one of my references on how to display things correctly in fact. In no way is my engine a 3D engine. I would be laughed at for trying to pass it off as one. To game developers it would be "2.5D" or "pseudo-3D" at best.

 

Look at it this way, people wouldn't drop hundreds of dollars on 3D GPUs if isometric was the "same thing". Isometric games like spindizzy are typically tile based and can be displayed competently with a cheap 2D renderer or without using a single 3D feature of the card.

2.5D ? Sure, I can take that, but Spindizzy is far from 2D (even if it has tile rasterizer).

 

But this is like arguing about:

- which woman is prettier

- which HW expansion crosses the boundary for "Atari experience"

 

Much as I hate to use the beholder's eye cliche, we all have those boundaries elsewhere...

[snicklin]

Maybe we can all agree that the British boy band, "One Dimension" are terrible?

[emkay]

It's more like : As soon as any 3 dimensional movement is needed, the game is 3D.

Whether the game is build on logical or calculated software routines, is another chapter.

 

Ever thought of a single drawn line?

 

It's aimed to be a one dimensional line.

The viewer of that line can only perceive the line by it's two dimensional appearance.

But the line itself is a 3D build line, as the depth of the line makes it possible to see it drawn on a paper.

 

On a screen , the one dimensional line never reaches the 3rd dimension, as there is no additional depth needed to show the line.

[Gunstar]

It does make a difference. Those are not completely 3D games either. You can't build a bridge in the Doom engine that you could both walk over AND under because it cheats with its 3D. All the monsters are bitmaps, so whatever angle you view them from you see the same thing.

Umm...yes the DOOM monsters are bitmaps, but what do you mean by "from whatever ever angle you see the same thing"? The engine uses 8 angles (or 8 2D bitmaps for each monster of 8 different views/angles, the monster move in 8 directions and a different view/angle for each one is used, at least in the DOOM's I've played you do NOT see the same "thing" from different angles).

Edited March 15, 2018 by Gunstar