Project Your Project’s Projection
Video game design blog SIGNIFICANTBits has a very thorough, very top-notch article on projection in video games. They call it a “layman’s guide”, but it’s sort of like a layman’s guide to the care and feeding of Norwegian blue parrots – that is, i don’t think that a layman would particularly care about the subtle mathematical differences between trimetric, dimetric and isometric projections.
Snoooooooooooze.
But for someone like me, who has long wondered at the scientific term for “toppy-fronty” (think Pokémon), the article was enough to hold my interest.
“Toppy-fronty”. It SORTA sounds scientific.
Back when i was working on kids’ virtual worlds, i didn’t understand why isometric seemed to be the de facto standard. It’s a pain to draw, a pain to code, and largely played out.
Habbo Hotel is SO 1987.
It’s likely because Habbo Hotel was so hugely popular and well-known among the Canadian broadcasters, thanks to the MuchMusic/Habbo franchise here in the frozen North. i’m just surprised that isometric views are still so common, what with the biggest players using completely different projections:
Maple Story uses an orthographic projection
Club Penguin uses … horrible artwork that my 3-year-old could have created.
If i were to create a kids’ virtual world – and i’m not necessarily saying that i am actually creating a kids’ virtual world, i’d definitely go with toppy-fronty. That’s if i were to create a 2D kids’ virtual world (which, as we’ve established, i am not actually necessarily doing). If i were to create a kids’ virtual world at all, i’d likely use Unity3D. Which i’m not currently doing right now. At all.
i’m glad we’ve got this straightened out.
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Ah, that guide is brilliant! I needed to look up different methods of projection a while ago and got very confused. Thanks for sharing the link.
Also, is this like the time that you weren’t making an online multiplayer trivia game? :)
Michael – that time, i actually was making a multiplayer trivia game. (…. or WAS i???)
… no. i was.
- Ryan
Exactly!
Great article. I’d love to see more on Unity, though it might be a (long) while until I can actually get it.
Brennon – i’ll definitely be writing some articles on Unity3D, perhaps as early as this week. i worry about alienating people who aren’t using it though.
Hmm. I never really did like isometric anyway. :p
My artist collaborator brontosaurus uses a sort of fronty-sidey projection in his art. You can see an example of it here.
axcho – wow! Reminds me distinctly of Future Wars.
i love maple story!