Isometric Rendering

[Mille]

Well - I have some general questions toward the art developers and contributors.
Playing around with 3D rendering for portraits i was hit by the question if there aren´t other things for Wesnoth, that could be rendered.

E.g. building and even units.

Indeed i even found out how to render in isometric view. The problem seems to me, that Wesnoth isn´t true isometric.

Am I wrong in this. If not, is there a description somewhere, which settings of angle to use. Searching the forum didn´t help me somehow.

Look here, to see what i mean:

http://reinerstileset.4players.de/deutsch.htm

Applying from there on a Wesnoth map in Gimp for a general testing of the result seems odd in repect to perspective.

[Telvannia]

when i make things for spacenoth, i tend to do them at an angle of 45 degrees, in isometric view, but then again it is not much of a problem for spacenoth, so i cant tell you how to fit it in with wesnoth.

[Mille]

when i make things for spacenoth, i tend to do them at an angle of 45 degrees, in isometric view, but then again it is not much of a problem for spacenoth, so i cant tell you how to fit it in with wesnoth.

Yes - I see that it is no problem for spacenoth at all.
At least for the space maps. But in panet view similar to Wesnoth you will have the same problem i think. If i understand this right, you would see a lot more of the backside of a building in a real isometric view than you do in Wesnoth. Follow the link above and you might notice what i mean i think.
The look in Wesnoth building seems to be from a lower point o view somehow.

Beside - You render with blender, don´t you?

[allefant]

Reiner's renderings are not "true isometric", they are what he calls "4:3 format", or an angle of 48.6 degree.

Isometric means, all 3 coordinate axes have the exact same shortening, which would be when rendered as tan(30):1 or from an angle of 35.3 degree.

Most classic isometric games use 2:1 or an angle of 30.0 degree. Another common choice is sqrt(2):1 which is an angle of 45.0 degree.

For Wesnoth, another likely candidate for the view angle would be so the connection of 4 hexagon centers would form a square, which would mean 3:2 shortening or an angle of 41.8 degree.

[Mille]

Reiner's renderings are not "true isometric", they are what he calls "4:3 format", or an angle of 48.6 degree.

Isometric means, all 3 coordinate axes have the exact same shortening, which would be when rendered as tan(30):1 or from an angle of 35.3 degree.

Most classic isometric games use 2:1 or an angle of 30.0 degree. Another common choice is sqrt(2):1 which is an angle of 45.0 degree.

For Wesnoth, another likely candidate for the view angle would be so the connection of 4 hexagon centers would form a square, which would mean 3:2 shortening or an angle of 41.8 degree.

Well - thank you first. This helps a bit, but not completely.
Do you mean, that renderings for Wesnoth need the 41,8 degree.
I´m not really sure of the consequence for renderings in Wesnoth.
Does sqrt means postprocessing in gimp or so?

Indeed you are right about the "TRUE ISOMETRY". The correct word in both cases might be DiSYMETRIE or something like that, if i remember correctly.

[Telvannia]

here are a few test, i made and rendered a few angles for you
I include the human village with it for you to see.

Personally i think 35 is the best.

[Mille]

here are a few test, i made and rendered a few angles for you
I include the human village with it for you to see.

Personally i think 35 is the best.

O cool- Thank you. Wow - U already have a building modell?

OT: How his Spacenoth progressing. Anything in work- Haven´t heard of it for quite a long time now.
Can i support Spacenoth with portrait renderings in style like in my 3D rendering experiment? Don´t know if it is good enough already

[Telvannia]

here are a few test, i made and rendered a few angles for you
I include the human village with it for you to see.

Personally i think 35 is the best.

O cool- Thank you. Wow - U already have a building modell?

OT: How his Spacenoth progressing. Anything in work- Haven´t heard of it for quite a long time now.
Can i support Spacenoth with portrait renderings in style like in my 3D rendering experiment? Don´t know if it is good enough already

i houses surprisingly simple to produce. so it does not take long.

Spacenoth... well we intend to get a version of the demo out soon, hopefully in time for 1.4. But we do lack portraits, and if you think you can produce nice portraits for spacenoth, pop down to our forum and im sure you will be very useful.
And im pretty sure they are good enough, well by my standard they are, also spacenoth has gone for a different look to wesnoth so i think the 3D versions would be good, and fit in well.

[allefant]

Well - thank you first. This helps a bit, but not completely.
Do you mean, that renderings for Wesnoth need the 41,8 degree.
I´m not really sure of the consequence for renderings in Wesnoth.

No, it just looks like it might work, to me.. the actual angle has to be decided by artists (which I'm not).

Does sqrt means postprocessing in gimp or so?

No, square root. Just was mentioning all the angles and ratios, as I find this quite interesting myself. For example the choice in old games for the 2:1 ratio was only because they could easily pixel that way, and likely not so much because they thought a viewing angle of 30° was superior to true isometric or a steeper or flatter angle.. same why I think the choice in Wesnoth for the hexagon-fitted-into-72x72-pixels over true hexagons was how easy those are to deal with, and not necessarily because true hexagons (or true hexagons viewed from some angle, e.g. isometric) would look worse.

[Mille]

Well - thank you first. This helps a bit, but not completely.
Do you mean, that renderings for Wesnoth need the 41,8 degree.
I´m not really sure of the consequence for renderings in Wesnoth.

No, it just looks like it might work, to me.. the actual angle has to be decided by artists (which I'm not).

Does sqrt means postprocessing in gimp or so?

No, square root. Just was mentioning all the angles and ratios, as I find this quite interesting myself. For example the choice in old games for the 2:1 ratio was only because they could easily pixel that way, and likely not so much because they thought a viewing angle of 30° was superior to true isometric or a steeper or flatter angle.. same why I think the choice in Wesnoth for the hexagon-fitted-into-72x72-pixels over true hexagons was how easy those are to deal with, and not necessarily because true hexagons (or true hexagons viewed from some angle, e.g. isometric) would look worse.

Yeah indeed. Its defintely interesting. But i think 35 degrees or even fewer might be really a better degree for wesnoth in regard of a practical stetement.

[Mille]

O cool- Thank you. Wow - U already have a building modell?

OT: How his Spacenoth progressing. Anything in work- Haven´t heard of it for quite a long time now.
Can i support Spacenoth with portrait renderings in style like in my 3D rendering experiment? Don´t know if it is good enough already

i houses surprisingly simple to produce. so it does not take long.

Spacenoth... well we intend to get a version of the demo out soon, hopefully in time for 1.4. But we do lack portraits, and if you think you can produce nice portraits for spacenoth, pop down to our forum and im sure you will be very useful.
And im pretty sure they are good enough, well by my standard they are, also spacenoth has gone for a different look to wesnoth so i think the 3D versions would be good, and fit in well.

Thats sounds cool. I will continue this thread on spacenoth and look what i can do. Indeed it would be helpful to know some things you will need portrait for, both alien and human.

One hint to Spacenoth in general. The spaceship models are just fine, especially for the small unit graphics. But i would encourage you to add UV-Mappings/Textures to the models. This would make them more usable for bigger images. I already tried around abit with animating them, so i would like to hear if video support for storyline animations is planned. )

[Telvannia]

i houses surprisingly simple to produce. so it does not take long.

Spacenoth... well we intend to get a version of the demo out soon, hopefully in time for 1.4. But we do lack portraits, and if you think you can produce nice portraits for spacenoth, pop down to our forum and im sure you will be very useful.
And im pretty sure they are good enough, well by my standard they are, also spacenoth has gone for a different look to wesnoth so i think the 3D versions would be good, and fit in well.

Thats sounds cool. I will continue this thread on spacenoth and look what i can do. Indeed it would be helpful to know some things you will need portrait for, both alien and human.

One hint to Spacenoth in general. The spaceship models are just fine, especially for the small unit graphics. But i would encourage you to add UV-Mappings/Textures to the models. This would make them more usable for bigger images. I already tried around abit with animating them, so i would like to hear if video support for storyline animations is planned. )

You are not the only person interested in animated storylines, i have always wanted to do a short animation in blender to begin a level.

But we will have to wait and see about that.

[Mille]

Thats sounds cool. I will continue this thread on spacenoth and look what i can do. Indeed it would be helpful to know some things you will need portrait for, both alien and human.

One hint to Spacenoth in general. The spaceship models are just fine, especially for the small unit graphics. But i would encourage you to add UV-Mappings/Textures to the models. This would make them more usable for bigger images. I already tried around abit with animating them, so i would like to hear if video support for storyline animations is planned. )

You are not the only person interested in animated storylines, i have always wanted to do a short animation in blender to begin a level.

But we will have to wait and see about that.

Well - I´m hoping, hoping begging. I even have asked Dave already some time ago in regard of Wesnoth:)

But if you are interested in animations you should defintely take a look at Bryce and DAZ. Even if I prefer Open Source, both programms have definetely very good points and you can use your Blender objects as well.
And the best is, you can get both programms without cost. Additionally Bryce allows you extremely easy to create more Planet graphics in just a few minutes.


If you have some money left Vue and Poser are even more powerful.
)) There is a PLE of Vue and thats really amazing. Especially if you see the automated wind animations of clouds and even plants in Vue Infinite.

Ah, if you want to try something really overpowered, have a look on Houdini. They just released a Learning Version for their Master Software as a free trial or for 99 bucks even without watermarks, HD support and such stuff. Unluckily it isn´t usable for open source projects, as it is limited for non commercial use. (Hey there is also a linux version i think:)))

[Jetrel]

Well - I´m hoping, hoping begging. I even have asked Dave already some time ago in regard of Wesnoth:)

Sometimes less is more - if something we add is of low quality, then it actually degrades the game, rather than improving it. This is in fact why I joined wesnoth - wesnoth was looking pretty good at version 0.4, but went significantly downhill when they added several bad portraits. Adding them was a bad choice.

In terms of 3d animation, you'll essentially need to do as good of a job as Starcraft I's animations were; preferably better, if they are to be accepted into mainline. Anything less, despite the fact that it might have taken a lot of work, and was done for free - it still looks like [censored].

Doing good quality 3d animations is hard. I will say, though, that if you were to complete something, it would be very educational for you, and would probably look very nice on a resume. Many people do projects like this without expecting their work to be used for anything, or paid for by anyone; they just do it to build a portfolio. The chance of it being used for wesnoth is an added bonus.

[Mille]

Well - I´m hoping, hoping begging. I even have asked Dave already some time ago in regard of Wesnoth:)

Sometimes less is more - if something we add is of low quality, then it actually degrades the game, rather than improving it. This is in fact why I joined wesnoth - wesnoth was looking pretty good at version 0.4, but went significantly downhill when they added several bad portraits. Adding them was a bad choice.

In terms of 3d animation, you'll essentially need to do as good of a job as Starcraft I's animations were; preferably better, if they are to be accepted into mainline. Anything less, despite the fact that it might have taken a lot of work, and was done for free - it still looks like s***.

Doing good quality 3d animations is hard. I will say, though, that if you were to complete something, it would be very educational for you, and would probably look very nice on a resume. Many people do projects like this without expecting their work to be used for anything, or paid for by anyone; they just do it to build a portfolio. The chance of it being used for wesnoth is an added bonus.

I had to read this three times to get your point:), but
I underline most what you said.
Indeed
how hard it is to do good 3D animations is debateable.

In fact it realy depends on what you want to do.

- Complete Storyline for Wesnoth animations

This is indeed very very hard. More than that if it should include detailed character animations and things like this, even more if you want to have good looking emotions. Even then you haven´t done anything about sceneries, effects, lightning or anything else.
At least in some regard this might be easier for Spacenoth perhaps.

- Animated portraits

Thats a point that might be a lot easier, as there are some cheap tools out, which allow you to make lipsynced aimations really easy. Apply some additional emotional expressions and it already looks quite good.

- Animated units

What is done for Wesnoth is amazing. There are a lot of pixelanimations that i really love. To be honest i think animating pixel art is really diifficult and to some parts simply magic. Things you and others have done here are really beatiful, but there a lot of people like me i think, that would make own unit animations for user campaigns or scenaries, but are still not able to do so.
In fact i think 3D animation of rigged models is much easier than pixel animation, which simplyseems magic to me.

Well, i try to practice on animations, because i really find it interesting and it makes a lot of fun. Indeed a lot of better things i had tried the last days i simply didn´t posted as animated gifs look really ugly compared with the original framerates and borders. Perhaps i mighth post someadditional animated tries, once i can make mngs, if this would lookbetter.

So generally i repeat my sentence. I would love to see a basic support for major animations in Wesnoth, even if there would be not immediately support for this fast. Indeed i don´t want to put any pressure on a developer, but its one of my personal wishes for Wesnoth and Spacenoth