Anyone who has ever created their own engine for a 2D game whether orthogonal, isometric, or oblique has certainly ran into the time consuming problem of sprites walking in front of or behind a tile structure and how to handle that. #indieDev #indiegame #gamedev #screenshotsaturday #pixelart - ThreadSky

fother.bsky.social • 152 days ago

Anyone who has ever created their own engine for a 2D game whether orthogonal, isometric, or oblique has certainly ran into the time consuming problem of sprites walking in front of or behind a tile structure and how to handle that. #indieDev #indiegame #gamedev #screenshotsaturday #pixelart

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fother.bsky.social•152 days ago

Wow, Bsky likes to lossy images.

dusktactics.bsky.social•152 days ago

I swear I've never uploaded an image to any social media that looks like what I am seeing on my own PC, haha.

The only thing I really miss is being able to upload custom gifs.

dusktactics.bsky.social•152 days ago

This topic was actually why I created my own engine.

I wanted a proper 2D isometric rendering while having large, dynamic, vertically emphasized maps.

I ended up with a 2D array of 'columns', with each column holding x amount of tiles (representing height). Sort of like Legos.

dusktactics.bsky.social•152 days ago

I then render each column in proper z-depth order, with units on top, and this gives me near perfect drawing of units, etc.

Unit sprites are limited to a single tile, and it's a bit more graphics intensive as I render all tiles (this allows neat block-rumble style effects).

fother.bsky.social•152 days ago

I'm applying a z val to tiles in my tilesets, multiplying the z by 32px, and if num is greater than the bottom of a sprite hitbox with a draw area that clips over the tile, trace the tile and remove the overlapping pixels from the sprite's buffer before drawing it to the canvas.

dusktactics.bsky.social•152 days ago

Very cool method!

Universal z index is powerful and you can get a lot more precision with checking actual sprite geometry.

Definitely better for larger art style!

fother.bsky.social•150 days ago

I got into my own headspace and realized tracing the pixels was silly. I'll add a 2nd sprite layer below the structure layer, still do my hitbox rel check, slice the sprite by the tile grid, and paint the slices blocked by the z tiles to that 2nd sprite layer, and those that aren't to the 1st. Yay!

dusktactics.bsky.social•148 days ago

Especially if this is a project for mobile, you'll want to use as little resources as possible, so that's definitely a better method!

dusktactics.bsky.social•152 days ago

I tried to implement rotation and while it 'works', I couldn't get the rotating animation to look how I wanted (sort of 3D style). It'd have to be instant, which can be disorienting.

But even with rotation I was able to keep everything ordered properly~

fother.bsky.social•150 days ago

I went digging... did you mean regular rotation, character sprite orientation rating, or that nifty character selection carousel you've got?

dusktactics.bsky.social•148 days ago

Full map rotation, haha. I forgot all the different instances of rotation involved in the project!

I don't think I have a video of it, just gifs.

There are two methods, one with a rotational animation and one that is instant. Both rotate by 90 degrees.

https://dusktactics.com/news/1950/

fother.bsky.social•148 days ago

That is very satisfying to watch!

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