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Isometric Projection in Game Development

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Re: Isometric Projection in Game Development

#51

Post by kragen »

twelvechairs wrote: post #26
boredpudding wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which... is also in the article.

It's a relatively recent convention though. Isometric means "equal measurement". The measurement along each axis has nothing necissarily to do with angles. The only difference is if you "stack" tiles vertically they slightly offset in 2d space from ones that are offset 1x+1y.

i would say calling this projection isometric is 'a relatively recent error'

in an isometric projection all the edges of an axis-aligned cube are the same length. in the axonometric projection discussed here, which is dimetric rather than isometric, the vertical edges are of length 1 while the horizontal edges are of length √(1 + ½²) ≈ 1.118

is the fact that this projection is not isometric the reason zaxxon was called zaxxon and not zisom?

Re: Isometric Projection in Game Development

#52

Post by kragen »

kookamamie wrote: post #22
Animats wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a really clever hack. Who first used it?

It's been widely used since the 80s or 90s - just kind of a clean way of doing it, as the other choices are not as pleasing, visually. Although, e.g. Ultima Online went with 1:1 military perspective, which looks pretty skewed in some ways.

since 01981 i think

> The use of isometric graphics in video games began with Data East's DECO Cassette System arcade game Treasure Island,[6] released in Japan in September 1981,[7] but it was not released internationally until June 1982.[8] The first isometric game to be released internationally was Sega's Zaxxon, which was significantly more popular and influential;[9][10] it was released in Japan in December 1981[11] and internationally in April 1982.[8] Zaxxon is an isometric shooter where the player flies a space plane through scrolling levels. It is also one of the first video games to display shadows.[9]

(...)

> In 1983, isometric games were no longer exclusive to the arcade market and also entered home computers, with the release of Blue Max for the Atari 8-bit computers and Ant Attack for the ZX Spectrum. In Ant Attack, the player can move forward in any direction of the scrolling game, offering complete free movement rather than fixed to one axis as with Zaxxon.

Re: Isometric Projection in Game Development

#53

Post by 998244353 »

danielheath wrote: post #33
MrGilbert wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any alternative to Google?

Kagi (I'm a customer) works much the same way google did in 2010 or so.

As a customer of Kagi, it's better than the current Google but it's still not the Google of 2010. Google sponsoring irrelevant results is one thing, but the bigger issue remains: in 2024, creating a trove of worthless "articles" and optimizing the crap out of search result performance is a viable business model. Even if the SEO is done with mostly Google in mind, Kagi still picks up enough of this junk to be a nuisance. No doubt the same is true for all alternative search engines.

Re: Isometric Projection in Game Development

#54

Post by kragen »

hooby wrote: post #37
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #13

I have generally ignored game development but I honestly it’s not for lack of respect - most of computer science is represented in good game dev

I used to say that video games do everything you might find in any other kind of software - only difference being, they do it 60 times a second.

they don't kill people when they crash

Re: Isometric Projection in Game Development

#55

Post by redbell »

Let me express my deep nostalgic feeling seeing Donkey Kong Country from 1994 being mentioned!

I was a huge fan of this game. When I was playing this game, I was always wondering how they were able to achieve such stunning 3D visuals where almost all of the other games in the SNES console couldn't. It turned out they are pre-rendered, as per the article.

Re: Isometric Projection in Game Development

#57

Post by darby_nine »

MrGilbert wrote: post #20
meiraleal wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in my days, Google worked. Now it is a waste of time. Someone that wants to hold himself to the notion that Google was/is good really looks like someone having issues getting old

Any alternative to Google?

Kagi is solid

Re: Isometric Projection in Game Development

#58

Post by darby_nine »

998244353 wrote: post #53
danielheath wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi (I'm a customer) works much the same way google did in 2010 or so.

As a customer of Kagi, it's better than the current Google but it's still not the Google of 2010. Google sponsoring irrelevant results is one thing, but the bigger issue remains: in 2024, creating a trove of worthless "articles" and optimizing the crap out of search result performance is a viable business model. Even if the SEO is done with mostly Google in mind, Kagi still picks up enough of this junk to be a nuisan…

> Even if the SEO is done with mostly Google in mind, Kagi still picks up enough of this junk to be a nuisance

It seems to be responsive to which sites you want ranked higher/lower. For instance I have wikipedia pinned which resolves a longstanding issue google has had where seo is prioritized over relevancy.

Re: Isometric Projection in Game Development

#60

Post by viraptor »

fouronnes3 wrote: post #42
dgb23 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've become a paranoid link hoarder because of this. I'm Pretty Sure these things are true in comparison to the past: - There is much more high quality content on the web than was ever before. - The signal to noise ratio is _much_ smaller. - Search results are getting cluttered by SEO spam, some of which is straight up copying from organic social media style sites (forums, SO, reddit, Github issues etc.) It's extreme…

I agree with your observations. The time is just right for a Google search killer. There might be some AI in it, but the fundamental goal should be a massive increase of the SNR of search results.

Kagi's done that for me. Most is prefiltered and setting some domains to never appear again sorts out remaining spam. No generative AI, would recommend. The SNR is amazing compared to google.

On the other hand like the sibling comment mentions, perplexity is great at digging out obscure stuff sometimes. Provide enough details and use the pro type search and you may be surprised.

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