Iso 2D

[zamoth]

Hi,

I'm a french player, i didn't played since a long time, i come back.
I just wondered why Battle for Wenoth don't use iso 2D ?
I coded that in a old game ...
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x51l5j ... videogames

Is there a french forum here or not ?
Thanks for all

[iceiceice]

Hi Zamoth,

I think we are using isometric 2d? Maybe I don't understand, what would be different if we were doing this?

I think it's even the case that our hexagons are a bit short and squat, perhaps to contribute to this effect.

[zamoth]

Explication par l'image ...

[iceiceice]

I see.

I think basically what we are doing right now is

Rotation(0)
Scale(1,.75)

or something like this.

You just want to have the rotations?

Edit:

I guess the difference also in your picture is, that it's tilted more and the trees can obscure neighboring hexes. Our system is mostly set up so that that doesn't happen. But since you can't rotate the board around currently that seems like a good thing.

Edit:

Yeah, it would be kind of nice if we could have elevation.

[zamoth]

You will find many map in real iso 2D ...
It's more beautiful than only identity ...
(And the characters are in iso 2D too ... it's a bit strange to have characters with one perspective and the map with another ...




Need to see the code to see if it's difficult to change the perspective ...

[iceiceice]

It might be easier after migration to the SDL GPU library is complete, not sure...

http://sdl-gpu.googlecode.com/svn/docum ... amera.html

Also it depends on if the "terrain builder" code needs to change much, that would become a significant part of the work. I think no one knows how that code works anymore.

[zamoth]

Humh,
Need to see this by myself ...
How can i download the code ? I don't know a lot how to use svn ...

[iceiceice]

I don't know a lot how to use svn ...

Yeah, me either.

The SDL GPU transition is lipk's wip, he imported all the code into our repo in src/SDL_GPU.

https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/tree ... rc/SDL_gpu

[lipk]

It might be easier after migration to the SDL GPU library is complete, not sure...

Huh, no, this barely has anything to do with how we draw sprites. It's about what sprites we draw - currently our tiles are almost perfectly hexagon-shaped. With an isometric view, we'd need the kind of distorted hexagonal shapes you can see in zamoth's pictures. And that's the point why we don't have isometric 2D: a lot of art would need to be redone. It's possible to automatically convert flat surfaces for sure, but first I don't know if the results would be deemed good enough by Jetrel & co. and second non-flat stuff like trees, houses, castles and such would need to be redrawn entirely.

[zookeeper]

Why does Wesnoth have orcs? Why is it not real-time? Why is it not 3D? Why are people spending time on these kind of questions?

[iceiceice]

Huh, no, this barely has anything to do with how we draw sprites.

Okay, thanks for clarification, I know next to nothing about SDL gpu.

With an isometric view, we'd need the kind of distorted hexagonal shapes you can see in zamoth's pictures. And that's the point why we don't have isometric 2D: a lot of art would need to be redone. It's possible to automatically convert flat surfaces for sure, but first I don't know if the results would be deemed good enough by Jetrel & co. and second non-flat stuff like trees, houses, castles and such would need to be redrawn entirely.

So actually I see where Zamoth is coming from here, I think actually we might not have change all of this art, because in a way what we have is iso2d but with mixed perspectives as he points out. The terrain is drawn as though we are looking almost straight down on it, but the castles, and houses, and forests, and units, are drawn as though we are looking from the side. I'm not sure but I think you could make something that looks like what zamoth has, (obviously without any terrain elevation though) and you would only have to change the sprites for grassland vs hills vs mountains.

(Not that that's not a big job, but it's at least plausible to me that you could do it without redrawing everything.)

[zamoth]

Why does Wesnoth have orcs? Why is it not real-time? Why is it not 3D? Why are people spending time on these kind of questions?

1. Because orcscare fun, and it's part of a world popularized by JRR Tolkien, Dungeon & Dragon ...
2. Because turn based mecanisms are more intereting for the strategy than real time game ...
3. Because 3 game need A 3D rendering engine to do ... But iso 2D look like 3D game, you just can't turn the map ... Old games like Doom were in iso 2D i think ...
4. Because people want to improve the existing ... And before to do something, it's good to ask questions ...

It might be easier after migration to the SDL GPU library is complete, not sure...

Huh, no, this barely has anything to do with how we draw sprites. It's about what sprites we draw - currently our tiles are almost perfectly hexagon-shaped. With an isometric view, we'd need the kind of distorted hexagonal shapes you can see in zamoth's pictures. And that's the point why we don't have isometric 2D: a lot of art would need to be redone. It's possible to automatically convert flat surfaces for sure, but first I don't know if the results would be deemed good enough by Jetrel & co. and second non-flat stuff like trees, houses, castles and such would need to be redrawn entirely.

Trees and houses wouldn't have to be redrawn, because ... THEY ARE ALREADY IN ISO 2D, but castles yes ...
You just currently use a mix between iso 2D and tiles which are not ...
Just wondered if it was because
1. Developpers didn't have the idea to make iso 2D
2. Developpers didn't know the formula to code iso 2D
3 Iso2D is more difficult for graphist ?
4. Players don't like iso 2D ?

[doofus-01]

Trees and houses wouldn't have to be redrawn, because ... THEY ARE ALREADY IN ISO 2D, but castles yes ...
You just currently use a mix between iso 2D and tiles which are not ...
Just wondered if it was because
1. Developpers didn't have the idea to make iso 2D
2. Developpers didn't know the formula to code iso 2D
3 Iso2D is more difficult for graphist ?
4. Players don't like iso 2D ?

Look at screenshots from old versions. Wesnoth just sort of evolved, I don't think anyone intentionally set out to make it exactly as it is today.

I believe lipk's point still stands because terrain transitions are a big part of the graphics. It would be a shame to toss all that out, and I don't think it would be trivial to replace.

Yeah, it would be kind of nice if we could have elevation.

Just want to note that there already is elevation, at least to a limited extent - look at keeps vs flat vs water.

[iceiceice]

You just currently use a mix between iso 2D and tiles which are not ...
Just wondered if it was because
1. Developpers didn't have the idea to make iso 2D
2. Developpers didn't know the formula to code iso 2D
3 Iso2D is more difficult for graphist ?
4. Players don't like iso 2D ?

zamoth, I'm not around as long as the others but I can give my own perception of the answer.

I think basically, wesnoth from the beginning has a very strong sense that being realistic, or even having an intelligible sense of scale in the graphics, is not important, the game is a cartoon fantasy. You might want to read both the "wesnoth philosophy" page, also in this section of the "frequently proposed ideas" page: http://wiki.wesnoth.org/FrequentlyPropo ... _.28FPI.29

Two very important acronyms to understand some of this are WINR and HAPMA:

WINR: Wesnoth Is Not Realistic. If you want a realistic game, search the Internet for "wargame". Wesnoth is not a wargame.
WIN: Wesnoth Is Not (based on any other game*). For example, multi-hex ranged attacks (see below) are in most other strategy games, but they are not in Wesnoth.
* Actually, it is based on the game Master of Monsters, but it is different from MoM in several aspects (such as MHRA).
KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid: Keep things easy to program, or you will have to program them yourself...

Other relevant acronyms:
HAPMA: Hexes Are Possibly Miles Across: However, WINR. See http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1882.

There are often threads where people ask about the sense of scale, what is my unit? It is a batallion, or a single soldier? Why is the village just one house and why is one soldier enough to capture it... etc. etc.

The answer is not just, Hexes are possibly miles across, it's actually, "it's a batallion, when we feel like it, and later it might just be a single soldier, when we feel like it. A hex might be miles across sometimes, or maybe just a corner in a house at other times." If you play the mainline campaign "Descent into Darkness", there are scenarios where you fight with your army on an open field, making battle lines with soldiers and archers protecting castles and such, then in the very next scenario you move this same army inside of a house, and fight in an apparently RPG-style scenario in the corridors of a house, where your units now make the most sense to be understood as a single soldier. Later you fight as armies in an open field again. This is not the only example.

The important part is just that it's fun to play, and it looks charming. If it turns out that we have implicitly embraced some kind of "cubism" in our graphics, that's fine. If that kind of thing will really bother you, then there are other things that are going to bother you much more when you play later.

That being said, I don't think Iso 2d is a bad idea, or incompatible with wesnoth. I think it might possibly be interesting to make an alternate client which is compatible with the first, or an alternate mode of the first client, which uses iso 2d graphics with a more uniform perspective. It's actually fairly common for people to ask "when is there going to be a 3d wesnoth" and this is always shot down, because the answer is, we are never going to redo all the sprites in blender or whatever. This iso 2d thing is something completely different though, it seems like a much more reasonable goal. (Although surely still a lot of work, and sure to be controversial.)

Trees and houses wouldn't have to be redrawn, because ... THEY ARE ALREADY IN ISO 2D, but castles yes ...

Okay, I think what it is is, the walls of the castles are in Iso 2d, but the floors / roofs ? of the castles are not.

Edit:

I think another way to explain the conflicting perspectives might just be practical. Practically speaking, you need to be able to have a nearly top down view so that you can see how all the units are positioned and order them around easily. If you take a steeply slanted view then they start to obscure eachother.

However we don't just want to draw the heads of the units, we want to have nice pixel art sprites for them that show their whole bodies clearly. So we draw them more from the side. This way you have nice pixel art sprites, and you didn't sacrifice usability, and you didn't force the player to switch constantly between two different views, which technically would have been complicated anyways.