Castle Paradox

[Mr B]

One of my favorite things to do in the OHR is design maptiles. I enjoy thinking up and making interesting architecture and visual effects, and I love putting it all together and making something appealing.

I am currently formulating a tileset with some interesting features. It has pillars with..."things" on them. From the perspective of a person on the ground (in the game), it would look grand.

However, from the perspective of a player, a lot of the features I find visually interesting will be obscured by prominances above them, giving a significantly less powerful visual effect.

I am using the (relatively) standard perspective of 45 degrees below horizon to the map. What other types of perspectives would be useful for the OHR that would give my concepts more room to breathe?

I could stretch the features out so the player can see them, but I feel cheap doing that, and I am not certain it would provide the desired effect.

I have considered the "sideroom" style used in Pitch Black 2, but that would severely restrict the amount of rooms-behind-rooms that I could do, because the walls would extend so high. I'd have to implement some sort of transparancy, and I don't want to do that.

Any other ideas out there? What kind of things have you seen that give room for different types of visual creativity?

[Moogle1]

Try Grief and Watching the Hours Go By for games with different and interesting graphical styles. Grief uses prerendered backdrops and WTHGB has a perspective like that of Earthbound.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Mike Caron]

Yes, Isometric is difficult to get right (especially in the OHR, what with the limited map-tiles), but it can be very rewarding.

I'm interested to hear an example of the features you enjoy making, and these "prominances" you speak of.

Incidentally, wouldn't this thread go better in Game Design?
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[Fernurion]

I've tinkered with alternate view perspectives, namely birds eye and oblique views. Birds eye does not require a lot of work, in fact, it is probably the laziest way to do graphics. However it is not the best for adding depth and detail to games. Oblique is fr more difficult, combining front on view with Isometic. I'll post screenshots later.

[Mr B]

The prominances. Well.

What I want to do is have decorative support pillars in a cathedralesque building. The pillars will have stylized wing structures on the top that bend out to support the roof. The wing-things are thus concave, with the open end facing down towards people on the ground. Thus they would be rather obscured by the roof itself, and with the typical 45 degree view I would be showing the inside of the structure, rather than its surface. I also want to have statues holding illumination "things" on the top of the pillars, such that the stylized wings are part of the statue.

I thought about putting this in game design, but decided against it as this is more of a graphical implementation instead of a theory development. In which case it might be in the art forum, but this isn't about art itself so much as its presentation. So um yeah.

Isometric used to be out of the question, but now that we have over-the-hero NPCs it just might be possible. I'll have to think about it.

I'll check out those games when I have the time. I have a couple of other projects to work on for a while, but I'll post some screenshots when I get them done (if my project partner permits it).

Thanks, folks.

[Blue Pixel]