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[Lap]

I'm really having a hard time visualizing a full scene in "alter". I agree that Toady should never waste time with an actual 3d engine, but if a Graphics API of some kind were released there's not really a reason that someone couldn't make a 3d engine though it would either have a lot of weird looking sprites or it would take years to make enough proper models.

[Neonivek]

"I'm really having a hard time visualizing a full scene in "alter""

Well then perhaps a visual would be nice!

[Mike Mayday]

Yeah yeah, give me a few hours, I'll post proper mockups of all versions.

[Solifuge]

As always, I love your Pixel work, Mike.

I must admit, I have never thought of or seen the Clever method for Iso displays. From a design standpoint, that is an extremely crafty way of depicting Iso graphics without obscuring tiles.

Even so, I think the Clean Alternative (Alter) is my favorite: it has the same obfuscation as the Clean method, but the walls look more solid. Beyond that, natural solid tiles that project into a chamber (for instance, rough-walled stone caves, etc.) would look like thin walls using the Clean method. Also, if viewing a wall from the Top-Left in Adventure Mode, the entire square (including the floor underneath the thin wall that would be out of sight) would be lit up as though in Line-of-Sight, which would look strange.

The only concern would be that semi-obscured sprites (such as Dwarves, or the unit of Meat in the example) would be visible and recognizable. This could be mitigated by using careful sprite design, partial cut-aways for the foremost wall tiles, and/or 90° display rotation.

I'm really excited by the prospect of a real graphical representation of DF like this... such Graphics are entirely feasible, and would look really sharp and intuitive. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that DF modders/hackers realize how feasible it would be to implement such a project... and moreover that Toady begins to weigh the intuitiveness of a good Iso graphical display against the obscure and exclusive nature of ASCII graphics and keyboard-only interfaces.

EDIT:
On the subject of Isometric Interfaces: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=35050.msg537495#msg537495

[Mike Mayday]

Ok, first mockup done, I already don't like the "alter" method (or "fatwall", as I like to call it).


Rotated 32px square tiles, all the walls are exactly 32px high. From left to right- clever, clean (moved to the middle, as per Sunken's suggestion) and fatwall.
Please remember- these are just mockups, they show how things would WORK, not how they'd look.
Also, Solifuge- none of those are my sprites

[Sean Mirrsen]

Clean is the best so far, except the walls themselves should be a tad thicker. Like, twice as thick.

Also, the fatwall method will work much better if it has the walls merged (interior of a wall must be solid black, tiles mustn't be immediately distinguishable), and if the dwarf's sprite is positioned to have its feet in the center of the tile.

[Mike Mayday]

Also, the fatwall method will work much better if it has the walls merged (interior of a wall must be solid black, tiles mustn't be immediately distinguishable)

That would just take me too long to make mockups (of course it'd be easy to implement in an actual program). I did this for this first mockup then, just for you

and if the dwarf's sprite is positioned to have its feet in the center of the tile.

Fixed... don't know what made me place him that way... though I left him decentered in the "clever" method, as placing his feet in the middle of the tile made him look like walking along the upper wall.

[Urist McDetective]

Assuming there would be some image shadow when blocking dwarves / ham / other, I'd like Alter. Especially if the game reaches a point where wall thickness is an issue.

[Silverionmox]

A wall in the game is a square full of stone, so the graphics should represent that: Alter. It gives a better sense of walking in a stone corridor. The top of the walls should either be entirely black, or show the stone entirely, by the way.

[Solifuge]

...Also, Solifuge- none of those are my sprites

Do you know who did the sprites then? I found it uploaded on your webpage before, so I had assumed.
Still, the tiles are nice.

I'm also going to have to remain in support of the "fatwall" method, since it would honestly look better when portraying natural scenes. Try it out on a cave with rough walls, and you should see what I mean.

[Sunken]

This is perhaps non sequitur, but has sprite facing direction been proposed as a game mechanic (or simply a display mechanic)? That is, which way the dwarf is "pointing". Could be simply from the direction of the last step he took, without any gameplay effects, but it would make isometric views more believable. (It would also make them cost at least twice as much...)

[Tormy]

A wall in the game is a square full of stone, so the graphics should represent that: Alter. It gives a better sense of walking in a stone corridor. The top of the walls should either be entirely black, or show the stone entirely, by the way.

I absolutely agree...which is why I like "alter" the best.

[Volfram]

Quick question for all fans of Isometric: have you ever played Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 or 2?

How about Final Fantasy Tactics?

Tactics illustrates a bit better than RCTycoon, but both illustrate quite well that it's really easy to get into situations with Isometric where you just can't see all of the needed information, no matter what your wall tiles look like.  The problem is made considerably worse when the player is allowed to change the terrain itself.  I've occasionally spent several minutes rotating terrains to figure out where exactly things are.

[Duke 2.0]

 Indeed. Such isometric games that have heavy dependency on vertical levels have problems with knowing where the heck things are, and seeing some pieces of terrain/objects obscuring other objects. However, those games lacked the ability to view slices of the terrain. As long as we can see the current level as a slice and lower, we should be fine.

[Mike Mayday]

A wall in the game is a square full of stone, so the graphics should represent that: Alter. It gives a better sense of walking in a stone corridor. The top of the walls should either be entirely black, or show the stone entirely, by the way.

Wha... But in the long run, the display method doesn't matter except for one-tile thick walls (which, when carved roughly out of rock don't have to look like on those mockups). For thicker walls, it won't matter (see this- http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/~mayday/upload/rotcav6.png done with the clever method).

Do you know who did the sprites then? I found it uploaded on your webpage before, so I had assumed.
Still, the tiles are nice.

I'm also going to have to remain in support of the "fatwall" method, since it would honestly look better when portraying natural scenes. Try it out on a cave with rough walls, and you should see what I mean.

All of the sprites are from Ultima 7, except for the dwarves- done by Chris Hildenbrandt from SpriteAttack.

I'll post a mockup of a cave with all those methods soon, so you guys will see.

Volfram- that is exactly why I'm NOT using an isometric projection.