The ever so savvy "creating a java game" post

Question

Hey, I'm creating a java game, and I did research, and found that this question has been asked many, many times. But my question unfortunately did not match up with any of these posts :( So here goes...
Im creating a java game, which will run as....kind of a mix between a 2d game, and 3d game (no i am not insane). I dont want the original zelda look, and i dont want the first person shooter look, I want my character to be viewed from an angle, like tibia - if anyone has ever played that. And I also want to leave open the door to changing the view within the game. I figured I can just get my graphics friends to draw things in 3-d, (draw a house [draw the 4 sides and the roof]), and then somehow skew these images to accomodate for a different view.
I am more than willing to code some kind of graphics engine if what I need is not available, I have looked at a couple and found no such luck.
So what is the most efficient way to create this game? By just sortof getting all the graphics to be from a certain percpective, and then somehow modifying them with java.....
or by using some kind of graphics engine that allows me to change views? If so any recomendations?
Thanks a lot - wow this was long, oh yea a couple Dukes for this too thanks again
-Mark

Answer 1

you don't need to do any skewing. Here's what I'd do. I'd store all the tile information in a matrix (Object[][]) with a custom tile class that has the information it needs to retrieve its appropriate image, and certain game related data like slow down factor when a person walks over a certain type of tile, and whether it can be collided with. I'd draw them based on however you decide to angle your tiles. But the important part is you go in this order:
[0, 0], [0, 1], [1, 0], [0, 2], [1, 1], [2, 0], etc., etc....
The idea is if you're turning the floor 45 degrees clockwise, to give the correct illusion of depth, you'll want to draw the furthest back tile first, and the furthest tile forward last. Whether you start on the left or right depends on what angle you decide to work with. At a 45 degree angle, it obviously doesn't matter whether you start on the left or right. But if you guess wrong with your rendering, it will show because tiles that are closer to the "camera" will be overlapped by tiles further from the "camera".
for (int i = 0; i < tiles.length; i++) {
     for (int j = 0; j < tiles.length; j++) {
          graphics2D.drawImage(tiles[i].getImage(), i*horizontalSpacing - camera.getX(), j*verticalSpacing, camera.getY(), null);
}horizontalSpacing and verticalSpacing will be determined by the angle of your tiles. Set those to match however you make your art.
Drawing moving sprites will be a bit trickier because you'll have to decide which set of axes to follow... meaning, do you follow the axes of the screen, or the axes of your "rotated world." Give that some thought and once you understand what's happening with the perspective here you'll be able to see which is easiest.
So there's your engine ;)
Now, as for the art itself, make them in png format, so that you can have the base of your images be diamond shape, but of course tiles for players and walls and stuff will extend above that diamond. Just don't let them get below the base of their diamond otherwise the tile that gets drawn below them will cut them off. And you don't want a character's feet cut off by the "floor" as he runs ;)
For your final question, don't let java skew the sprite. The only possible way to make it decent is if when you pick an angle, a 3D render takes your 3D world and it's 3D models and re-renders them at that angle; skewing is simply not capable of creating that illusion. The closest you could get is to simply squish the hight of your art to give the illusion that the camera is moving up, but since you can't expose things higher, like the top of your character's head (since the data doesn't exist in the "lower" version), it will be obviously funny looking.
Hope that answers your questions, and good luck! I would definitely like to see what you come up with.