tile based isometric games possible?
by bigredron · in Torque Game Builder · 11/19/2009 (7:55 pm) · 11 replies
Hi,
I have been playing with various other game creation tools over the years trying to find one that is powerful and easy enough to make a 2D RTS game similar to age of empires 2.
I want my game maps to be diamond shaped isometric and my terrain will be built with iso tiles 64x32px in size.
I have had a quick look at the TGB demo and see there is support for square tile maps, but I cant see anyway to change from standard square grid to iso grid. I know the maths and concept behind isometrics, so thats not really going to be a big problem for me providing I can code it all via torque script.
All my map info is going to be stored as some sort of array file saved externally (I will make an editor to do this). I want to load this map file at runtime and then build by world from that, so all this needs to happen at run-time if possible.
I am a bit confused as to how TGB handles a lot of the graphical stuff so I have some questions I hope some of you experts can help answer.
1. How do I draw my map? Do I place a whole heap of sprites around my world or can I do something with tilemaps?
2. Does TGB handle the drawing itself? What I mean by this is if I have a map say 200 x 200 tiles in size, do I place every 40,000 tiles in my world and will TGB handle what needs to be drawn automatically and ignore all teh off screen tiles? Or do I need to approach it in a different way that I need to always tell TGB which tiles to draw?
3. Can I do real-time alpha-blending to create nice terrain transitions between tiles?
4. Does the a* pathfinding work based on square tilemaps? If so how does one adapt this to isometric? Would I need to have a layer dedicated only to obstacles and use this for the pathfinding and then convert to iso coords?
Thanks in advance. Looking forward to some positive answers.
NOTE: I am hoping to do this without modifying the source code itself if possible.
-Cameron
I have been playing with various other game creation tools over the years trying to find one that is powerful and easy enough to make a 2D RTS game similar to age of empires 2.
I want my game maps to be diamond shaped isometric and my terrain will be built with iso tiles 64x32px in size.
I have had a quick look at the TGB demo and see there is support for square tile maps, but I cant see anyway to change from standard square grid to iso grid. I know the maths and concept behind isometrics, so thats not really going to be a big problem for me providing I can code it all via torque script.
All my map info is going to be stored as some sort of array file saved externally (I will make an editor to do this). I want to load this map file at runtime and then build by world from that, so all this needs to happen at run-time if possible.
I am a bit confused as to how TGB handles a lot of the graphical stuff so I have some questions I hope some of you experts can help answer.
1. How do I draw my map? Do I place a whole heap of sprites around my world or can I do something with tilemaps?
2. Does TGB handle the drawing itself? What I mean by this is if I have a map say 200 x 200 tiles in size, do I place every 40,000 tiles in my world and will TGB handle what needs to be drawn automatically and ignore all teh off screen tiles? Or do I need to approach it in a different way that I need to always tell TGB which tiles to draw?
3. Can I do real-time alpha-blending to create nice terrain transitions between tiles?
4. Does the a* pathfinding work based on square tilemaps? If so how does one adapt this to isometric? Would I need to have a layer dedicated only to obstacles and use this for the pathfinding and then convert to iso coords?
Thanks in advance. Looking forward to some positive answers.
NOTE: I am hoping to do this without modifying the source code itself if possible.
-Cameron
About the author
#2
11/19/2009 (11:50 pm)
It's possible but not easily done depending on your needs. There was talk of a kit becoming available sometime in the future but that may or may not ever happen.
#3
I didn't really want to modify the source code, im not a c++ programmer.
Its a bit sad that no game making program has native isometric support which would make it much easier.
With the alpha blending, I meant that I would place my grass tile for example, then I want to draw a dirt tile over the top of that using an alpha mask saved as a greyscale image, load the mask into the alpha channel and do the blend on the dirt tile. The result is a grass/dirt transition. Is this kind of thing possible?
And Joe, I have seen the isometric kit being worked on for the last 4-5 years. While it looks fantastic I am not holding my breath.
11/20/2009 (1:42 am)
Hi guys thanks for the reply.I didn't really want to modify the source code, im not a c++ programmer.
Its a bit sad that no game making program has native isometric support which would make it much easier.
With the alpha blending, I meant that I would place my grass tile for example, then I want to draw a dirt tile over the top of that using an alpha mask saved as a greyscale image, load the mask into the alpha channel and do the blend on the dirt tile. The result is a grass/dirt transition. Is this kind of thing possible?
And Joe, I have seen the isometric kit being worked on for the last 4-5 years. While it looks fantastic I am not holding my breath.
#4
I've placed tiles with alpha from the Adventure Kit on top of other tiles and got the right results. There are partial dirt tiles in there designed to fake transitions like that. It's just a matter of using some clever art and transparency.
I also wish there was an isometric kit, but I think that I might as well look into doing that little project with T3D and some camera changes. The RTS micro-tutorial in the docs is already a great start.
11/20/2009 (10:43 am)
Just a note: TGB isn't so much a game-making program as a game engine ;)I've placed tiles with alpha from the Adventure Kit on top of other tiles and got the right results. There are partial dirt tiles in there designed to fake transitions like that. It's just a matter of using some clever art and transparency.
I also wish there was an isometric kit, but I think that I might as well look into doing that little project with T3D and some camera changes. The RTS micro-tutorial in the docs is already a great start.
#5
Perhaps we will see something along that line with T2D
11/21/2009 (8:29 pm)
the really sad thing is that there once was an Iso Editor project by a user that somehow vanished.Perhaps we will see something along that line with T2D
#6
I can't find the blog at the moment by the fellow who originally posted about this, but it involves doubling the height of the camera and your art assets. For the ground you can use a normal tile map, tilted at an angle. However I think you have to compensate for screen coordinate distortion and I'm not sure how you'd do things like walls (I never got farther than sprites).
Not as useful as native iso support but you don't have to make any engine changes.
11/22/2009 (1:43 am)
Not sure if this helps but there is a way to fake iso projection by distorting the screen resolution: I can't find the blog at the moment by the fellow who originally posted about this, but it involves doubling the height of the camera and your art assets. For the ground you can use a normal tile map, tilted at an angle. However I think you have to compensate for screen coordinate distortion and I'm not sure how you'd do things like walls (I never got farther than sprites).
Not as useful as native iso support but you don't have to make any engine changes.
#7
http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/17141
11/23/2009 (1:45 am)
@aaron: i think you're referring to this...http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/17141
#8
11/23/2009 (8:52 pm)
That's it Aditya. Thank you. 
#9
www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/18159
11/23/2009 (9:14 pm)
There's also this on the horizon.www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/18159
#10
but aside of this posting I don't think it has really resurfaced so I have little hope to see it happening with TGB at all but instead with T2D
11/23/2009 (10:49 pm)
thats what I was talking about actually :)but aside of this posting I don't think it has really resurfaced so I have little hope to see it happening with TGB at all but instead with T2D
Torque 3D Owner Marc Dreamora Schaerer
Gayasoft
You would have to get TGB Pro to implement a isometric tilemap using the source.
1) Both, you can have tilemaps for underground for example and add objects on top of it.
2) Tilemaps are handled smart. only whats on screen is beeing renderer
3) alpha blending basing on the alpha of the texture itself yes. In that case you would use multiple tile layers. The adventure kit shows includes documentation that show pretty well on how to do this to generate nice looking stuff :)
4) it would still work. quad based grid is quad based grid independent if it is visually skewed or not :)