Any way to render a scene without perspective?

[VWTornado]

I am making a 2D video game (racing game) in an "Isometric" view. Thats a view like Zelda: Link to the Past or RC Pro AM.

Here's an example of the view:

http://vwtornado.baked.net/PICs/rcproam_game.gif

I want to make a game like the image above but I am going to make 3D modeled tracks and cars and stuff for the game. I want to model the tracks for the game in Lightwave also, but if I render the track with perspective things will look weird. I basically need to render the whole track from the same angle...without perspective. Like a screenshot of the whole track from above. The only other way i could do it is render elements for the track and put them together as a 2D image in photoshop but i'd rather render the whole track as one huge image if possible.

Thanks

[FenrirWolf]

You can render everything flat and then programmatically isometricize it at runtime -- by skewing the 2d image 45 degrees. This only works if you want flat 2D tiles, but if your racing track will have hills or crests, this method won't work.

Instead, you can use something like Eki's PlugPak (http://www.kolumbus.fi/erkki.halkka/plugpak/) which contains an isometric camera script that will let you render an image with no perspective.

I've used the second method for a gaming project I was working on, but due to time constraints, had to put aside. Here's a screeny:

http://www.lofty-bearing.org/artwork/wmgame_ss1.jpg

Everything was rendered in LW and then just imported straight into the game as 2D isometric tiles. The method works rather well.

[VWTornado]

first thing, i love you name! (i wear Mjolnir around my neck) and have a bunch of Wolf tattoos. check out my site...i call my logo "Little Fenris". http://vwtornado.baked.net/Fenris_Web/index.htm :D

Anyways...how do I go about rendering them "flat" as you say? I am using Game Maker 5 to make my game. Its a game making program that requires a lot less programming than something from scratch. www.gamemaker.nl I have no programming skills whatsoever...I am an artist trying to make a video game on his own. Mostly for myself. Here is the game I have so far: http://vwtornado.baked.net/Files/VW_Pro_AM.exe I wanna model a whole track and render it so it looks 3D, but it can't have perspective since its an isometric view, ya know? Any help is greatly appreciated. Nice looking screenshot BTW. :)


ps my track won't have hills...not on the track part itself at least. just flat track with turns. if i have hills it would be off the track and have no effect on the player of computer racers.

[FenrirWolf]

Thanks. :) Fenrir has been my handle for ages online. Though I've never rendered him! That'd make a cool picture...

Anyway, when I say rendering your images flat, I mean doing so in isometric. So, you get images that will tile easily. There's a way to do this by scaling your camera at just the right angle, so there is no distortion from perspective. The Fake_Isometric plugin from Eki's pak will do that for you. Then, break your image up into repeating tiles. You talk about leaving it as one big image, which I suppose you could do, but that eats up a lot of memory and will not be that efficient to render.

You can either render the whole thing at super-size resolution, or move the track around and just render what's visible by the camera. To keep my game tiles within a certain width/height, I clipped the camera to a set width (in that case, 140 pixels) and then scaled my model carefully until it fit within that width.

It would be easier to show you my setup in LW, but I don't have Lightwave where I am now, so it will have to wait.

The fact that your track is all flat greatly simplies your track's layout.

BTW I like your artwork! The mixture of cartoony and realistic works rather well.

[VWTornado]

Originally posted by FenrirWolf
BTW I like your artwork! The mixture of cartoony and realistic works rather well.

Thanks I appreciate it. :D

I looked at the plugin page for that fake isometric camera plugin but didnt really understand it much. can i fake the isometric in Lightwave w/o a plugin? Like it said something about if the camera ratio is set at 1 and is 1000 meters away or something...if make it seem as there is no perspective...can you give me some settings that would do this? Or is there a tutorial for that plugin? man I didn't think rendering this stuff would be so hard. :(

[Matt]

yes, all Fakemetric Camera does is move your camera far away from your object and then zoom in.

but Eki has put some maths behind it to make the settings work out nice.

[VWTornado]

any way i can just do that myself without spending $50 on a plugin?

[mattclary]

Yep, just move your camera back a long way and zoom in on the object.

[Lightwolf]

try the special projection engine:

http://www.arrakis.es/~juanj/

Cheers,
Mike

[mattclary]

Here is a simple illustration of why this works with a little exageration. As you can see, you may really need to back the camera off quite a bit.

[Matt]

erm, yes, move your camera far away from your object and then zoom in (camera->properties->zoom factor)!!!

:rolleyes:

[Matt]

woah! was replying to your post and two people pushed in front!!!

now I look silly repeating what someone else said!!!

:)

[VWTornado]

Originally posted by Matt
erm, yes, move your camera far away from your object and then zoom in (camera->properties->zoom factor)!!!

:rolleyes:

hmm, no need to be mean about it. I've never done something like this...sorry I'm not an expert like you yet. :rolleyes:

[Phil]

I don't think that was intended to be mean. I certainly didn't read it as such. :)

[Matt]

sorry dude, wasn't meant to sound off at all!!! and I'm no way an expert in LW by any stretch of the imagination!!!

:)

[VWTornado]

Originally posted by Matt
sorry dude, wasn't meant to sound off at all!!! and I'm no way an expert in LW by any stretch of the imagination!!!

:)

Its cool, sorry I took it that way. :o So do you have to have the camera REALLY far from the object to lose the perspective? Guess I should just try it and see :)

[mattclary]

Yeah, you just need to try it, really depends on the scene, I think.

[VWTornado]

I tossed together a real quick scene of a race track to see how it works out for my game. Here's the game so far: http://vwtornado.baked.net/Files/VW_Pro_AM.exe (2.7 MB)

Its the very beginnings of the game so no comments yet. ;) I was testing out the cars driving mechanics as related to the original game...and just threw in the rendered 3D scene of the race track to spruce up my test game. :)

[FenrirWolf]

I'm no expert on this, but I believe it works but canceling out the perspective math that the camera does automatically when translating a 3D point into 2D space -- by moving it far away and then zooming in really high, you simulate a camera that only sees parallel rays of light.

Eki's PlugPak can be used without registration, but you will have to endure some nag-screens. Lightwolf, those plugins look interesting, I will try them out!

EDIT: VWTornado, good start for a game. The car can drive over the trees, though. :) You might want to clip those out and put them in a higher Z-order layer.

[Lightwolf]

FenrirWolf (finally another Wolf on the board :D )
The only disadvantage of SpecialProjection might be that it doesn't render auxilliary channels (like the alpha channel...) properly. Also Lens flares and image filters won't work properly with it (including glow).

[VWTornado]

Originally posted by FenrirWolf
VWTornado, good start for a game. The car can drive over the trees, though. :) You might want to clip those out and put them in a higher Z-order layer.

Yeah, like i said i just tossed in the background real quick. I am actually gonna render the trees as seperate objects so the car will go behind them when he drives behind them. Im not sure yet but I will either have it so the car can't go off the track at all...or I will let the car go off the track, but it will drive slower and be able to hit the trees. but thanks for pointing that out anyways. :)

[FenrirWolf]

Originally posted by Lightwolf
FenrirWolf (finally another Wolf on the board :D )
The only disadvantage of SpecialProjection might be that it doesn't render auxilliary channels (like the alpha channel...) properly. Also Lens flares and image filters won't work properly with it (including glow). LOL! Have you noticed, we even have the same custom title tag. Well, close. :)

Ouch, that sucks. But the ortho mode sounds really handy. Well, time to play with it and see what I can come up with...

VW, driving off the track would be cool, but would complicate the game logic. (You'd have to make sure the user drove through invisible goalposts along the track, otherwise they could just loop back around and cross the finish line...) However, it would be more realistic!

[VWTornado]

true about the cheating in the game. I don't even know how I'm gonna do the computer racing AI for my game. I am REALLY new to programming. And I'm using a program that helps make the game...I'm not programming it from scratch, so I couldn't do research on how to program it in C++ or anything ya know? I just hope someone in the programs forums can help with my computer controller racers' AI.