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TGB Isometric Add-On Pack - Part 5

Name:	Neo Binedell
Date Posted:	Feb 20, 2007
Rating:	5.0 out of 5
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Blog post

- TGB Iso Builder -

Continued from my previous blog post

Something that had bothered me for quite some while was having to constantly switch between the Iso builder GUI and the level editor, and I thought that I should really look into integrating it directly, and when I was asked to participate in the TGB Closed Beta I thought it would make an excellent testing project and it gave me the push I needed to just get it done. The iso builder is now fully integrated with the level builder and I must say it is so much more productive. I will flesh out this plan a bit more later but for now here is a movie and some screenies of the highlights :

THE MOVIE (9MB)

Level Builder Integration

Pixel Perfect Selection

Selection of map elements are pixel perfect (with an adjustable alpha tolerance, etc):

Texture projection

The engine can project a normal square image map or animation onto a terrain tile which saves all the
headaches of converting images and allows one to use existing image maps and animations. Here is an example using the excellent shore animation from the Adventure Kit from the SickHead lads...

And lastly a pretty pic of a quick little getaway for kork at the shore...

I'll update this plan a bit more later in the week, enjoy...

Recent Blog Posts

List:	03/05/08 - Iso-phagus 11/12/07 - Theora Video Seek, Loop And Callback Support 06/17/07 - FX Composer 2 - Public Beta Released 04/27/07 - TGB Isometric Add-On Pack - Part 6: nxAnimator! 02/20/07 - TGB Isometric Add-On Pack - Part 5 11/23/06 - TGB Isometric Add-On Pack - Part 4 08/16/06 - TGB Isometric Add-On Pack - Part 3 06/14/06 - TGB Isometric Add-On Pack - Part 2 - Cont.

Submit your own resources!

Drew -Gaiiden- Sikora (Feb 20, 2007 at 02:48 GMT)

Lookin good Neo. Been following this resource for a while, nice to see an update. Keep at it!

Tank Dork (Feb 20, 2007 at 03:03 GMT)

This is shaping up to be a really cool and powerfull TGB pack!

Tom Spilman (Feb 20, 2007 at 03:09 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Wow... that looks fantastic Neo! Can't wait to see you ship this add-on!

Also i'm curious if the AdvKit AI works in the iso environment. Seems like it could as it doesn't really rely on any special topology.
Edited on Feb 20, 2007 03:18 GMT

Dan MacDonald (Feb 20, 2007 at 03:11 GMT)

This clearly rocks.

Russell Fincher (Feb 20, 2007 at 03:15 GMT)

Nice work! The ability to add square tiles without having to reformat them is genious. Your editor is looking pretty slick, too.

jydog (Feb 20, 2007 at 03:55 GMT)

Continuing to look great.

Matthew Langley (Feb 20, 2007 at 04:45 GMT)

Very, very awesome, great feedback from the beta as well. I know a lot of us have wanted to do this and we've all gotten a huge thrill out of seeing you implement it (and see your progressive plans) and how well you are doing so.

Leslie Young (Feb 20, 2007 at 05:24 GMT)

Nice progress there Neo. When you finish this I will have a reason to get TGB ;)

Tom Bentz (Feb 20, 2007 at 07:26 GMT)

Slick!

Marc Schaerer (Feb 20, 2007 at 14:45 GMT)

Looks very good.
Have been waiting since part 4 for an upgrade. Where would it have ended without the closed beta :D

John McArthur (Feb 20, 2007 at 18:41 GMT)

Cool stuff. TGB needs pixel perfect selections badly - I shouldnt have to click 3 or more times to get the right object selected. Your projected tiles is a very smart choice.

Justin DuJardin (Feb 20, 2007 at 20:05 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

You make my technology tingly stand on end :)

Neo Binedell (Feb 20, 2007 at 20:42 GMT)

@Tom:

I haven't tried it yet but will have a look when I get a chance. If by topology you mean it works in normal TGB screen space, then no. All items are placed with 3D coords and bounds, but from what I skimmed over the aiGoal/Player stuff it would be trivial to change to allow a Z coord, or if the map is not multi-level can just rely on the sub cell blocking (I'll add this to the plan later too)

Something I have not mentioned in the plan (yet) is that all elements can be assigned a class and superclass so it would be quite trivial to port. An iso map is really more like a scenegraph as it owns all the elements in it and manages all interaction. I did not make it a real scenegraph as I wanted to allow users to overlay other scene objects for UI, etc, as well as the fact that you can mount scene objects to map elements and they will follow the element (something else I will elaborate on in this plan), which is useful for displaying user created overlays, health bars, whatever...

Tom Spilman (Feb 20, 2007 at 20:57 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

@Neo - That makes sense. I'll have to think about how to abstract the coordinate system from the implementation next time i update so that it may be used in cases like yours.

Neo Binedell (Feb 20, 2007 at 21:05 GMT)

Perhaps provide an environment interface base class that can be overridden for different spaces, e.g. queries are done on that interface and and implementation can be made for the default TGB screen space and leave the others up to the integrators ;p

To explain a bit, instead of querying the sort point directly you would have a method that found the distance to another object, leaving the implementation up to the connectors.

Tom Spilman (Feb 20, 2007 at 21:24 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

@Neo - Yea... have some sort of pluggable "navigator" object that takes care of all coordinate stuff and distances between things.

Rob Riddell (Feb 28, 2007 at 12:46 GMT)

This looks like a lot of fun.

How does the adventure kit and this project relate. I thought the adventure kit is isometric also.

Can this add-on have altitude for flying items where as the adventure kit does not?

Both look great, I can hardly wait until I have time to work with these add ons.

Super work.
Edited on Feb 28, 2007 12:48 GMT

Neo Binedell (Mar 01, 2007 at 17:04 GMT)

@Rob:
The Adventure Kit is a top down engine that shows how to use TGB sprites, tilemaps, etc, to full effect and provides a good bunch of imagery too. It has some images that are rendered in a psuedo isometric perspective but all movement and world space occur in normal TGB 2D screen space.

The Iso Kit is a full C++ source engine that provides an isometric map which is more like an isometric scene graph and all map items exists in a full 3D space, so yes flying items, multi-level structures, stacking etc are all quite easy.

Rob Riddell (Mar 01, 2007 at 19:07 GMT)

Thanks for the clarification. The multilevel aspect would be so much fun to work with. The story possibilities are huge. I remember how engrossing a game called Zaxxon was because it had an isometric view and the hieght indicator, which played an enormous factor into completing a level.

Good luck with this, looking forward to it.

smiles . . .

Mark De Ruijter (Mar 05, 2007 at 15:01 GMT)

If this sees the light of day in a workable fashion, then wow, just wow!

I've been dying to get my hands on a good Iso engine, something that you can use to build the likes of X-Com, Arcanum or Fallout with. Keep it up. Also, is it possible to download this resource somewhere or is it strictly payed for?

Neo Binedell (Mar 05, 2007 at 15:39 GMT)

@Mark:
It is not a resource but an entire iso engine built on top of TGB and will be well worth the cost (and then some). ;p

Mark De Ruijter (Mar 08, 2007 at 08:28 GMT)

I do believe that is so, Neo. I do believe that is so.

My favorite games have always been the X-Com, Fallout, Arcanum etc type games. Not to mention Masters of Magic, all of those use isometrics.

Keep up the good work, and if you need any help just let me know. Otherwise, I'll just wait.

Chris Kim (Apr 05, 2007 at 20:03 GMT)

I got to this blog following XNA thread from some place else. This is totally awesome!!!
I was going to develop a XNA game but this something making me to stay with TGB.
Is this something that's going to be ported to TGBX sometime in the future?

Keep the good work!!!

Neo Binedell (Apr 05, 2007 at 21:56 GMT)

@Chris:

Yup, already have an alpha XNA version and will be adding TGBX components when I get to it later.

Daniel Staub (Apr 11, 2007 at 14:21 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Neo, will we have to have TGB Pro to use this add-on? I have TGB and can't wait.
If all we need is TGB I will be first in line for the early adopter release.
Thanks,
Dan

Neo Binedell (Apr 11, 2007 at 14:35 GMT)

Well the engine is all custom C++ code so should GG not wish to ratify my idea of doing binary builds of the iso builder as well as stock TGB then Pro would be the only way. However I will be discussing the merits and issues involved with GG and hopefully find a solution.

Daniel Staub (Apr 23, 2007 at 20:08 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

I know I am being a pest but how are things going? I can't wait get my hands on this.
Dan

Neo Binedell (Apr 23, 2007 at 20:14 GMT)

Hehe, you're not being a pest at all, I know I tend to forget to blog as I tend to work instead of talk ;p
I've been very busy implementing the new kick ass visual system and will be posting a plan in a day or two. Keep an eye out for it.

Neo Binedell (Apr 27, 2007 at 01:46 GMT)

@Daniel:

You can check it out here ;p

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