I'm helpless with isometic games. (And one more thing...)

Right now I'm currently working on the Mario Creator.

I've always been able to make top-view games. Shooters. Platformers. Etc.

But I SUCK at iso. I was hoping someone could teach me. Please teach me as much as you can. I'd love to make an isometric game.


I understand the whole depth = -y and the whole drawing part. But I suck at collision checking, grids, and just about everything else.

Also, one thing I never understood was dynamic path finding. You know, user clicks and object creates a path for itself which has no obstacles. If you guys could teach me that as well it would be great! Heck, once I understand it if you could teach me how to do it on an isometric grid it would be even better!

Sorry to ask for so much
Hope you guys can help!

THANKS!

Hm... I always make my own system for everything, except for drawing 3D

When it came to ISO, I (once again) decided to do this my own way. My own way happened to be, take a standard topdown view sprite, rotate it 45 degrees anti-clockwise, and half the height. So, you get an Isometric (ish) image, and you can use all the standard GM functions such as mask for collisions etc. Now, in saying that, this means that your depth etc will be different, and you can't just use depth = -y;

This is because, i was smart enough to set up the axis so that they have the normal 3d axis, so i could no longer use GM's standard collision functions, which didn't really mater as this was for a MMORPG and the server was to be written in C++... My depth was this:
depth = -z - y;

But, ofcourse it really depends... This probably will not help much, but some of it might

Still stumped XP
Still, interesting post. I don't want to jump into the whole z-axis yet.

I just want to use 2D methods.

Well, if you want to use the normal methods for Iso i can't help sorry

But, if you use the way i described, then I could help to a certain level

Well when I'm done with this Mario project I'm going to work on an Iso game. I want to make SOMETHING in isometric view.

I was thinking about making a Sims game for two reasons. I'll learn from it and my girlfriend loves The Sims.

I can get down all of the hard parts like the personality and building. I just need to movements and other things described above.

Hm... Well, i think you should look up the mp functions in the help file (I'm assuming that you are using GM), this can get your motion planning working.

John, research something called A* (A-Star) Pathfinding.

I actually made my own system of A* a while back. I'm gonna go through my other hard drives and see if I can find it for you. It's simple to use, and simple to learn from.

Alright thanks Luke!

I'm still gonna look for mine, but in the meantime:

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=286307

That's a DLL I used a long time ago for A*

Pathfinding is...pretty complex. It's basically coordinate math and AI. GM has it's own built in pathfinding, if you wanted to use that.

As for isometric, it's really about the perspective. You can't use the collision events normally; instead, you need to give the objects "shadows" that represent the depth they take up, in the form of masks. Just make a duplicate of the sprite when you're done with it, and add in the so-called "shadow", which is actually just a solid black shape representing the depth and shape of whatever part of the sprite touches the ground. For example, a person's "shadow" might be rectangular, while a ball's shadow would be round. Then after you've drawn in the solid black shadow, get rid of the rest of the sprite and set the object's mask to your new shadow.

Assuming no object in your game jumps, those shadows are what you need to use for collisions to avoid e.g. a person's head colliding with another person's toes just because the sprites touched (whereas in real life, the people would be at two completely different depths). If there is jumping, well then that makes it a whole lot more difficult because you have to keep track of a separate z variable for each object's height, draw the sprite at the appropriate height, test the height against the height of another sprite during a shadow collision, etc.

I had a lot of experience in this back when I was working on an iso rpg, which unfortunately never saw the light of day because I quit GM before finishing it...=p

Soul, I'm sorry but I don't quite understand you. XP
God, I'm sorry to ask for so much, especially since you quit programming, but would you be able to make an example for me maybe?

You don't have to but it sure would help.

Thanks in advance. :]

John wrote:Soul, I'm sorry but I don't quite understand you. XP
God, I'm sorry to ask for so much, especially since you quit programming, but would you be able to make an example for me maybe?

You don't have to but it sure would help.

Thanks in advance. :]

Hmm...Yeah I guess I could make a quick example for you. Won't be ready until later today though =]

Ah! Thanks man! Loads of help!

Hey Soul, you alive?

John wrote:Hey Soul, you alive?

Sorry John, had a bit more going on than I expected. Anyways, I'm literally getting started right now as I type. Shouldn't take me very long, though I hope you aren't expecting good graphics...or okay graphics...or even poor graphics...=p

Erm...eheheh...Seems my programming skills are a bit rusty. This thing has been giving me depth and collision problems and I can't figure them out. Isometric of the 45 degree sideways angle (which is what I'm assuming you want for a Sims clone) has always given me problems...what I have been able to create, is an rpg-style 45 degree view such as in chrono trigger. My mistake...=/ If this is what you want, on the other hand, I could easily make you an example using my own personal method which I think is better than many of those out there. I can keep trying if you'd like with the 45 degree sideways view, but again it could take a while for me to figure stuff out.

However in an effort to make it up to you for not being able to come through with the example, I searched google for some other ones. Surprisingly there are less out there than I imagined. Here's what I came up with.

Official isometric tutorial from yoyo. Quite limited, and I wouldn't recommend following it exactly, but it's a fine place to get started.
http://www.yoyogames.com/downloads/tutorials/threed.zip

Some dude's isometric tutorial to show how to improve the traditional "depth=-y" code. I haven't looked at it (stuck on my mac for now) but it sounds like it should be good.
http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=231147

A great script for isometric based movement. If I studied this a bit myself, I could probably eventually fix the example I was trying to make for you (though no promises . Anyways, it's written for an earlier version of game maker, so you'll have to change it a bit to remove image_single.
http://gamemaker.simondonkers.com/script/6

Explanation about shadows and collision masks. Very useful as shadows are the basis of any isometric game.
http://gamemaker.simondonkers.com/view/4

Thanks! I would like to see an example made by you. If you think your method is better then I say go for it!

John wrote:
Thanks! I would like to see an example made by you. If you think your method is better then I say go for it!

Well it's a different view, is the only thing. I was assuming you wanted a diagonal 45-degree-sideways view like this:



As opposed to a straight on 45-degree view like this:



So if you're okay with the second one, I can try that one for you.

Oh, but I know how to do the second one.

The first one is the hard one. Mainly because of collision checking.

And pathfinding. But then again I don't know how to pathfind at all.

John wrote:Oh, but I know how to do the second one.

The first one is the hard one. Mainly because of collision checking.

And pathfinding. But then again I don't know how to pathfind at all.

For the first one, like I said, it's all about shadows. Actually, for both of them, it's all about shadows, but for the first one the shadows can't be rectangles which makes motions more difficult. I could probably figure out how to do it using the resources I posted, but then again, it might be easier for you to just have a look and learn about it instead of waiting for me to pick it up and then write out an example lol.

I'll still try to edit my example, to see if I can figure it out but no promises. =p Even though you might learn what you need before I finish my example, it'll still be good for my own personal satisfaction XD

No matter what post it! :]

But I am learning. I'm still more preoccupied with my Creator.

I didn't know you were religious

>.>
Although I am religious. I meant the Mario Creator.