2d / 3d ??

Post by **uzurpator** » 04 Feb 2003 10:50

Arathorn wrote:But what's the difference between 3d with a fixed camera and 2d isometric?

Speed - 3d acceleration hardware is cheap
Looks - 3d allows many usefyl things like gouraud shading for instance (fully gridless, almost smooth game world)
Expandability - 3d technology is still in development. Imagine pixel shader made water. arrrr!
Ease - it is much easier to build tons of tiny 3d objects than hundreads tiny 2D objects (i've done both)
Realism - no more quanum phisics like trains making 90 deg turns, better perspective

I've missed any?

Omnislash · Post by **Omnislash** » 04 Feb 2003 11:29

I agree with Adam. Everyone has 3D hardware. It would be a waste to not use it. It will take longer. But it will be much better.

rein · Post by **rein** » 04 Feb 2003 12:04

all eye-candies would be only unnecessary red herrings. The main purpose of the game is to have overview of your tycoon and build great networks, not to empathize in engine-driver's job, not to look round your every city or station and maybe meet dwellers. Who cares about whether there are waves on the see or grass blades on the ground. If you really want to ride a train why don't you just play e.g. Ms Train Sim?

Omnislash · Post by **Omnislash** » 04 Feb 2003 12:11

rein wrote:all eye-candies would be only unnecessary red herrings. The main purpose of the game is to have overview of your tycoon and build great networks, not to empathize in engine-driver's job, not to look round your every city or station and maybe meet dwellers. Who cares about whether there are waves on the see or grass blades on the ground. If you really want to ride a train why don't you just play e.g. Ms Train Sim?

I didn't say that. What would be the point in making another TT that looked crappy!

Hajo · Post by **Hajo** » 04 Feb 2003 12:23

rein wrote:all eye-candies would be only unnecessary red herrings. The main purpose of the game is to have overview of your tycoon and build great networks, not to empathize in engine-driver's job, not to look round your every city or station and maybe meet dwellers. Who cares about whether there are waves on the see or grass blades on the ground. If you really want to ride a train why don't you just play e.g. Ms Train Sim?

You don't need to utilize all features of the 3D hardware immediately. But supporting 3D from the beginning allows to add such things later on.

Doing it 2D you'll never be able to get the features without a major rework of the engine. According to the feedback that I got from Simutrans the visual appearance is very important for the players. One even said "Simutrans is too ugly to be playable" - obviously some players require a minimum of eyecandy top even consider trying the game.

c.u.
Hajo

SHADOW-XIII · Post by **SHADOW-XIII** » 04 Feb 2003 12:29

I really want 3D only for changing camera angle ... rest isn't neccessary

Hajo · Post by **Hajo** » 04 Feb 2003 12:53

SHADOW-XIII wrote:I really want 3D only for changing camera angle ... rest isn't neccessary

2D will not allow to change the camera angle, unless you store many different views of the objects, which boost the size and memory requirements.

I.e. Simutrans needs 16 views for a truck (8 loaded, 8 unloaded). To support two different camera angles two full sets are required == 32 images ... each additional camera angle requires a new set.

IMO such things work best in 3D world. 2D has it's limits.

c.u.
Hajo

SHADOW-XIII · Post by **SHADOW-XIII** » 04 Feb 2003 12:57

if it has to be 3D so who will create main engine

Hajo · Post by **Hajo** » 04 Feb 2003 13:09

SHADOW-XIII wrote:if it has to be 3D so who will create main engine

How about using a free engine like crystal space:
http://crystal.sourceforge.net/drupal/

then you can concentrate on the game and do not need to craete a new engine.

IIRC there are more free 3D engines, maybe better suited to terrain rendering.

OTOH if noone (can) make(s) the 3D engine, the poll is useless and 2D is your only choice ...

c.u.
Hajo

Hellfire · Post by **Hellfire** » 04 Feb 2003 13:11

I can program a 3d engine in either OpenGL or DirectX Graphics 9. And I believe that rein can too. The discussion about who will program which part of the engine should be held amongst the programmers who will work on the engine. And AFAIK the only programmer at the moment is rein...

SHADOW-XIII · Post by **SHADOW-XIII** » 04 Feb 2003 13:26

Hajo ... I see it's nice ... maybe we can use this Crystal

Peter Dobrovka · Post by **Peter Dobrovka** » 04 Feb 2003 13:35

You may download a modified version of 3DTT Beta 4, which has been released by Ubi Soft under the title "Trains and Trucks Tycoon". The demo is about 60 MB and free for download.
Currently I am working on Beta 8 which should introduce curved platforms.

And for this:

SHADOW-XIII wrote:I don't know how you but I only want TTD without limits and with full user-configuration

I think you are served well by Josef´s patch, which is much more than a patch meanwhile.
And you should consider simutrans which is even more advanced (since it is a completely new program instead of some tinkering).

Peter

Arathorn · Post by **Arathorn** » 04 Feb 2003 13:43

Even the patch has limitations, because it's tied to the TTD engine.

rein · Post by **rein** » 04 Feb 2003 13:49

hmm, yes, looking around would be a nice feature... maybe pitching may cause some add to work (if using perspective than occlusion culling will be needed)

I was writing some little programs with OpenGL long time ago, but recently i dusted off some tutorials and downloaded latest libraries...

without doubt sooner or later OpenGL will replace Allegro in this project, so why not? If majority wants it.

if camera angle isn't be fixed in 4 directions, it means that everything must be 3d and we can forget about sprites

until the source release, i'm unfortunately working alone here

but because it's an open source project, everyone will be able to correct mistakes and suggest changes in game's structure (i'm afraid that whole engine will be rebuilt or ever rewritten

)

NOTE: we must organise somehow, how all code changes will go off - everyone posting his small part of source would mess everything up!

ok, before publishing the code needs to be amended and more info added

heh, so what are we ending up on? making 3d, 2d, isometric with free rotation in OpenGL, FPP or a simulator? ow, lets make just a simple board-game, like monopoly

SHADOW-XIII · Post by **SHADOW-XIII** » 04 Feb 2003 13:53

Maybe server FTP with source code ... ??? it is very easy to do ...

rein · Post by **rein** » 04 Feb 2003 14:34

SHADOW-XIII wrote:Maybe server FTP with source code ... ??? it is very easy to do ...

no no, i dont mean where to place it, but how to patch it up

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 04 Feb 2003 14:56

SHADOW-XIII wrote:Maybe server FTP with source code ... ??? it is very easy to do ...

Owen creates a project at sourceforge. It will include a public CVS (a sourcecode versioning system).

c.u.
Hajo

Post by **orudge** » 04 Feb 2003 15:23

Well, thinking about it, I think 3D might actually be quite good. I will have a look at this Crystal 3D engine too.

NOTE: we must organise somehow, how all code changes will go off - everyone posting his small part of source would mess everything up!

As Hajo says, CVS will be available with SourceForge, so we can use that.

Post by **orudge** » 04 Feb 2003 15:25

Take a look at some of these screenshots:

http://crystal.sourceforge.net/drupal/s ... oshot1.jpg
http://crystal.sourceforge.net/drupal/s ... oshot2.jpg

We could still have an isometric system which looks like TTD (but much better!), but in 3D.

rein · Post by **rein** » 04 Feb 2003 15:41

yeah, yeah, it's so cool just because of lighting and shadows - do we really need them in open-space game? (maybe with night-modes - but gourand shading wont help us here - rather alpha sprites)

but i really like the idea of isometric look in 3d fully rotatnig scene, that would be really great (no pitching!)

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