Isometric sprites and artwork standards

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Started by gstv87 7 posts View original ↗
  1. I'm hitting a bit of a literal wall here when it comes to making... well.... walls.
    The problem is not the wall itself, but the way the sprites would contrast against it and the floor.

    I'll put the context within spoiler tags to not make this a wall of TLDR.
    Spoiler
    I've decided a while ago to make the art style similar to that of Baldur's Gate or Commandos: quasi-isometric, rendered 3D sprites and photographic textures. I've made myself a rendering jig where I can control the camera angle, lighting and framing, and I'm running a battle plugin with animated *everything*, so each character gets unique animations and variations, on huge sprite sheets that I've already designed and measured accordingly. So, any changes in any variable of the design, is adjustable and inheritable down the line, so *changing* things is not a problem. The problem is keeping things simple, because larger sprites take more memory, and there are instances of battles involving 20+ different battlers, with the worst case being 20+ unique battlers, meaning 20+ huge sprite sheets loaded in memory, each sprite sheet being a good 10Mb uncompressed in memory.
    Now, on *that* note, is that I established that I should keep the character sprites within 48x64p for characters, and 100x100 for battlers (being that battlers would have their weapons and gear visible, and be animated, and they need space to move), and *that* measurement would limit the vertical size of the sprites, and therefore the *angle* at which I would have to place the camera, and from *there*, the fake perspective I'll have to use.

    Here's the dilemma.
    cam.jpg nuevo-4.jpg

    This is a mockup because the floor tiles are actually 3:2 ratio, so the characters wouldn't align like this, but, just assume they would.
    The characters are rendered at 35 and 40 degrees declination, and you can kind of clearly see how that affects the way they seem to "stand" onto the floor and coalesce with the wall: apparently realistically, or not.

    What I can't decide on, is what combination of wall size, sprite size and floor design to stick with, because *all* of them I can edit and change, and I've been changing and trying combinations for months and I need a fresh perspective on this.
    (...... no pun intended.... )

    35º and 2-size wall? 40º and 2-size wall?
    35º, 3-size wall? 40º, 3-size wall?
    something else? neither?
  2. I feel that it is between 35 and 2 wall or 40 and 3 wall. Deciding this will be based on what you want in the game. Big walls or a more standard fit.
    I don't see much different with the 40 and 2 wall, except the character looks bigger. but then that make me feel like the character is something like 8 feet tall. And the 35 and 3 wall makes it seems like he's a dwarf.
  3. Roninator2 said:
    Deciding this will be based on what you want in the game. Big walls or a more standard fit.
    walls can be engineered, as can the characters, but one of the main problems I've found is that in order to "paint" a convincing wall, I'd have to use "counter" type tiles, so that columns and other protrusions would protrude onto the floor.
    now, that being said...... I'm just starting to think I could fake those protrusions with layered tiles, but that would need to be further engineered so that it fits correctly, and that'd require building each scene as a 3D scene and sectioning out what needs to go as an overlay, much like how you'd design and cut a website for CSS.

    the main pro point I found with RPGM is that it enabled me to quickly change and redress scenes through the multiple combinations of tiles you can come up with.
    I can't exactly rebuild a 3D scene in five minutes.


    post-mortem EDIT:
    Ok, I've spent the last few hours dissecting pictures of Baldur's Gate and Commandos (*actual* pictures from the internet, which I *should* have consulted long ago) and by looking at different landmarks and character cursors I've come up with a framing angle of 40 to 50 degress (Commandos 1 is about 44, while Commandos 3 is a solid 50, and BG has slight deviations from 43), so I guess I'll stick with 42, because it makes sense.
    Somehow I had settled with 35 for a reason, but I can't for the life of me remember why.
  4. bump

    I think I got it.
    square-and-a-half walls, 3-tile set, floor (plinth and/or pedestals), wall (plain and/or pillar), and capital (with actual top masked out), at 40º

    nuevo-7.jpg

    it'll still require me to build the whole 3D scene first, but with this arrangement and the amount of tiles available in the tileset, I have cutting space to spare, I can give each unique combination it's own tile.
    ......gonna be a nightmare to put the puzzle back together in Ace, tho..... but it looks alright at last!
  5. @gstv87 If you have future queries like this, they might be better in Resource Support.
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    Thanks.
  6. gstv87 said:
    bump

    I think I got it.
    square-and-a-half walls, 3-tile set, floor (plinth and/or pedestals), wall (plain and/or pillar), and capital (with actual top masked out), at 40º

    View attachment 102752

    it'll still require me to build the whole 3D scene first, but with this arrangement and the amount of tiles available in the tileset, I have cutting space to spare, I can give each unique combination it's own tile.
    ......gonna be a nightmare to put the puzzle back together in Ace, tho..... but it looks alright at last!

    so you wanna try to make a current for 3D stage replacement for RMVXA and to make things 3D set by default ?
  7. mostdeep said:
    so you wanna try to make a current for 3D stage replacement for RMVXA and to make things 3D set by default ?

    I want to find a set of variables that make sense when applied to VX's engine, with my set of assets.
    *WHICH* is quite something, when you look at this.

    nuevo-2.JPG

    the character is shot at 40º.
    the monument is at 32º.

    I just don't know anything anymore.
    (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻