Starcraft

[xGTx]

I'm having trouble deciding... is Starcraft 2D or Isometric? I'm thinking 2D.

[WILL]

Umm... Isometric is 2D.

[cairnswm]

Starcraft uses a 2D representation of an isometric view. It does not use a true Isometric view as the tiles are rectangular instead of 'diamond' shaped.

Once I found this out I started working on a similar method of drawing an isometric view. Run-A-War also has this view.

A rectangular shaped tile has a number of advantages
:arrow: easier to code
:arrow: easier to build collision maps
:arrow: easier to work out a z order system that works effectivly

[cairnswm]

Here is a link confirming what I said above:

http://www.battle.net/scc/faq/other.shtml

Why are Locations square, rather than isometric like the tiles?
The isometric look of StarCraft is achieved in StarEdit by combining square tiles that have isometric image characteristics. For performance and technical reasons, StarCraft maintains terrain internally on a rectangular grid.
The Location Properties dialog can be used to make a location apply only to certain elevations, thereby making it conform to the shape of terrain underneath it.

[savage]

:arrow: easier to work out a z order system that works effectivly

By Z order do you mean height so that objects can be seen to be flying?

[cairnswm]

By Z order I mean the order in which the items are drawn (from back to front). If you look carefully at the flying stuff in Starcraft all the flying objects stay at the same height.

[savage]

By Z order I mean the order in which the items are drawn (from back to front). If you look carefully at the flying stuff in Starcraft all the flying objects stay at the same height.

Never played Starcraft and don't own a copy . Screen shot anyone? Do they faked the height then. Do they have variable terrain in SC?

[cairnswm]

Starcraft uses the flying to seperate land vs flying creatures. Land creatures cant fight flying (except by shooting) so the only distinction is to make it clear that they fly (pretty easily done through the use of shadows).

Starcraft height levels are a bit tricky. If you look at the screen shots there is a clear view of multiple heights in the game yet once you understand the flying thiing (being nothing more than shadows) and then look at the games it can be seen that all the levels are actually only made by the tile look and feel and the fact that the units cant cross the level heights. (You can also see this by watching a flying unit travelling the sides of the height levels and the flying unit never chnages its trajectory - indicating a single level of tiles).

By the way - you can also see this in WarCraft. I havn't played WarCraft 3 much but I think that the height views of it are also just tilebased.

Starcraft is the first and last game that I played through all the scenarios. :shock:

[cairnswm]

http://www.gamearena.com.au/games/ti...p?idx=ss02.jpg

http://www.gamearena.com.au/games/ti...p?idx=ss01.jpg

http://www.gamearena.com.au/games/ti...p?idx=ss04.jpg

The last one has a few flying objects - Just below the selected cruiser are some smaller planes that clearly show their shadows. Notice that all the flying objects you can see have clear shadows - and all the shadows are equally far below the actual objects.

[savage]

The reason for my questions is that I am just about to start porting the Siege of Avalon isometric engine over to JEDI-SDL, and I am trying to decide if it is worth doing a straight port or should I try and rewrite it. One of the limiting factors of the engine was that you couldn't really have flying objects. So when we used the engine in the Hero X title, our super heros could not fly. Which probably contributed to lack lustre sales.