[Gardon]

I've been looking into making an isometric type game, but I want to use 3D models to make it look better than just 2D sprites.

I've been reading up on isometric games, and from what I can tell, all the artwork will look the same no matter where it is on screen. Example: Your character can be at the bottom left, or top right, and he will be the same size. An item on the ground, for example, could be right in front of your character in the middle of the screen, or off on the top right of the screen, and also look the same size.

So if I were to take a 3D approach (using matrices and directX), could this be done? I am trying to think of a way to do this, while using viewports/cameras and worldpositions for items, but I'm going in circles.

Any ideas?




P.S. I think I could have 3D models drawn on screen to look 3D, but use 2D coordinates to map them. This would almost take the purpose out of a 3D world though. I still want that slanted top-down like view (like a diablo)

[Ninkazu]

I think that a simple rotate into the camera orientation you want pre-multiplied with
M = (
1 0 0 0
0 1 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 1
)
would work. Try it out. I don't know the DirectX calls, but in OpenGL it would be glOrtho to set the perspective then gluLookAt to orient the camera.

[Gardon]

Ah of course! I'll try this out later tonight. I'm thinking I have to use all dimensions... duh, moron. :)