1st Person, 3rd Person and Isometic view altogether

Comments

• Quizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,353

  July 2017

  In a game I worked on for a while as an amateur project, I actually tried to offer both third-person and isometric viewpoints.  The code to do so is nearly trivial.
  
  The problem comes when you consider that all of 3D graphics is fakery that only needs to look good as displayed on the screen.  You can simply not create assets to display things that you can demonstrate will never need to be drawn on the screen.  But the set of things you can figure out that you don't need to draw for a third person perspective is very different from isometric.  For example, in isometric view, there's no need to draw the sky, as it's impossible to look up.  If you want to offer both, then you can only skip the work of creating artwork for things that demonstrably won't need to be drawn in either viewpoint.

  
• Vrika Member LegendaryPosts: 7,888

  July 2017

  Quizzical said:

  In a game I worked on for a while as an amateur project, I actually tried to offer both third-person and isometric viewpoints.  The code to do so is nearly trivial.
  
  The problem comes when you consider that all of 3D graphics is fakery that only needs to look good as displayed on the screen.  You can simply not create assets to display things that you can demonstrate will never need to be drawn on the screen.  But the set of things you can figure out that you don't need to draw for a third person perspective is very different from isometric.  For example, in isometric view, there's no need to draw the sky, as it's impossible to look up.  If you want to offer both, then you can only skip the work of creating artwork for things that demonstrably won't need to be drawn in either viewpoint.

  I don't think the assets are that much of a problem, it's more about gameplay. The interface, controls, abilities, maps and encounters all need to be designed with knowledge of what the player will see on his screen. 1st person view and isometric view are so different that designing for both of them would make the gameplay worse.

   
• Quizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,353

  July 2017

  Vrika said:

  Quizzical said:

  In a game I worked on for a while as an amateur project, I actually tried to offer both third-person and isometric viewpoints.  The code to do so is nearly trivial.
  
  The problem comes when you consider that all of 3D graphics is fakery that only needs to look good as displayed on the screen.  You can simply not create assets to display things that you can demonstrate will never need to be drawn on the screen.  But the set of things you can figure out that you don't need to draw for a third person perspective is very different from isometric.  For example, in isometric view, there's no need to draw the sky, as it's impossible to look up.  If you want to offer both, then you can only skip the work of creating artwork for things that demonstrably won't need to be drawn in either viewpoint.

  I don't think the assets are that much of a problem, it's more about gameplay. The interface, controls, abilities, maps and encounters all need to be designed with knowledge of what the player will see on his screen. 1st person view and isometric view are so different that designing for both of them would make the gameplay worse.

  If you've created a game for a third-person viewpoint and want to switch to first-person or isometric or some other permutation, you don't have to change the controls, abilities, maps, or encounters at all to get something that works, apart from adding some assets that you skipped before because they wouldn't be visible.  Even in terms of play balancing, going from third person to isometric or the other way around doesn't change much.
  
  Going from third-person to first-person view does make quite a difference from a play balancing perspective.  But there are a lot of games that have implemented both.  Of course, playing in third-person is often a big gameplay advantage over first-person, but that's simply because no one has yet figured out how to give you a good view of the game world in a first-person view, at least apart from game mechanics that force everything that matters to always be in front of you.

  
• Vrika Member LegendaryPosts: 7,888

  July 2017

  Quizzical said:

  Vrika said:

  Quizzical said:

  In a game I worked on for a while as an amateur project, I actually tried to offer both third-person and isometric viewpoints.  The code to do so is nearly trivial.
  
  The problem comes when you consider that all of 3D graphics is fakery that only needs to look good as displayed on the screen.  You can simply not create assets to display things that you can demonstrate will never need to be drawn on the screen.  But the set of things you can figure out that you don't need to draw for a third person perspective is very different from isometric.  For example, in isometric view, there's no need to draw the sky, as it's impossible to look up.  If you want to offer both, then you can only skip the work of creating artwork for things that demonstrably won't need to be drawn in either viewpoint.

  I don't think the assets are that much of a problem, it's more about gameplay. The interface, controls, abilities, maps and encounters all need to be designed with knowledge of what the player will see on his screen. 1st person view and isometric view are so different that designing for both of them would make the gameplay worse.

  If you've created a game for a third-person viewpoint and want to switch to first-person or isometric or some other permutation, you don't have to change the controls, abilities, maps, or encounters at all to get something that works, apart from adding some assets that you skipped before because they wouldn't be visible.  Even in terms of play balancing, going from third person to isometric or the other way around doesn't change much.
  
  Going from third-person to first-person view does make quite a difference from a play balancing perspective.  But there are a lot of games that have implemented both.  Of course, playing in third-person is often a big gameplay advantage over first-person, but that's simply because no one has yet figured out how to give you a good view of the game world in a first-person view, at least apart from game mechanics that force everything that matters to always be in front of you.

  I'm not an expert on this, but I thought:
  
  1. Isometric view has the problem where walls can cover up part of the floor. If you've placed something to the covered area, or even placed something on the wall, it's trivial to spot in first person but becomes impossible to spot in isometric perspective
  
  2. Point and click movement doesn't work very well in 1st person viewpoint, whereas pressing forward to go to the direction where you're facing and using mouse to steer (like WoW) would be nightmare in isometric game with a fixed viewpoint
  
  3. Using mouse cursor to target abilities from the sky (like WoW's targetable AoE abilities) is significantly harder in 1st person mode
  
  4. Seeing behind yourself is often trivial in isometric mode, and you can see all enemies at once even when they surround you. In 1st person mode enemies that attack from both front and back at once, or approach you from behind, are completely different experience
  

   
• nerovergil Member UncommonPosts: 680

  July 2017

  im casual gamer.
  
  i dont mind simple tab target combat with a few skills
  
  what matter for me is immersion
  
  i like to do 1st person sometime, 3rd person sometime and isometric
  
  i dont want to switch game just to switch camera
• Quizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,353

  July 2017

  Vrika said:

  Quizzical said:

  Vrika said:

  Quizzical said:

  In a game I worked on for a while as an amateur project, I actually tried to offer both third-person and isometric viewpoints.  The code to do so is nearly trivial.
  
  The problem comes when you consider that all of 3D graphics is fakery that only needs to look good as displayed on the screen.  You can simply not create assets to display things that you can demonstrate will never need to be drawn on the screen.  But the set of things you can figure out that you don't need to draw for a third person perspective is very different from isometric.  For example, in isometric view, there's no need to draw the sky, as it's impossible to look up.  If you want to offer both, then you can only skip the work of creating artwork for things that demonstrably won't need to be drawn in either viewpoint.

  I don't think the assets are that much of a problem, it's more about gameplay. The interface, controls, abilities, maps and encounters all need to be designed with knowledge of what the player will see on his screen. 1st person view and isometric view are so different that designing for both of them would make the gameplay worse.

  If you've created a game for a third-person viewpoint and want to switch to first-person or isometric or some other permutation, you don't have to change the controls, abilities, maps, or encounters at all to get something that works, apart from adding some assets that you skipped before because they wouldn't be visible.  Even in terms of play balancing, going from third person to isometric or the other way around doesn't change much.
  
  Going from third-person to first-person view does make quite a difference from a play balancing perspective.  But there are a lot of games that have implemented both.  Of course, playing in third-person is often a big gameplay advantage over first-person, but that's simply because no one has yet figured out how to give you a good view of the game world in a first-person view, at least apart from game mechanics that force everything that matters to always be in front of you.

  I'm not an expert on this, but I thought:
  
  1. Isometric view has the problem where walls can cover up part of the floor. If you've placed something to the covered area, or even placed something on the wall, it's trivial to spot in first person but becomes impossible to spot in isometric perspective
  
  2. Point and click movement doesn't work very well in 1st person viewpoint, whereas pressing forward to go to the direction where you're facing and using mouse to steer (like WoW) would be nightmare in isometric game with a fixed viewpoint
  
  3. Using mouse cursor to target abilities from the sky (like WoW's targetable AoE abilities) is significantly harder in 1st person mode
  
  4. Seeing behind yourself is often trivial in isometric mode, and you can see all enemies at once even when they surround you. In 1st person mode enemies that attack from both front and back at once, or approach you from behind, are completely different experience
  

  Saying that various things don't work very well in first person is simply saying that first person doesn't work very well unless you're going to have greatly restricted game mechanics.  That's been the case for decades, and it hasn't stopped plenty of games from being made with a first person perspective that simply doesn't give you a very good view of the action.  Apparently there are people who buy such games, even, though I'm generally not one of them.
  
  There's no reason why you can't have a camera rotate in an isometric viewpoint.  If you're going to allow that, it's probably best to do it in discrete jumps rather than rotating continuously, however.  Make it rotate continuously and it looks like an optical illusion as it rotates.
  
  Saying that some things aren't visible in this or that view is kind of my point.  Yeah, it does mean that you shouldn't put anything important there.  You can have walls or roofs cut away or become transparent as the character passes through.  But isometric doesn't let you see what is on the ceiling of the building you're in.  If you want to have a tunnel or cave with an isometric view, all that you can do is draw rocks or walls or some such that look like you could climb over it for the sides, but not let the player actually go over the barrier.
  
  Conversely, if you have a building with a flat roof that you can't get on top of, first-person doesn't let you see what is on top of the roof.  Depending on how far the camera zooms out, third person might not either.  But isometric does.
  
  I should probably say that when I'm talking about isometric, I mean true isometric as was common when the graphics were 2D, not the "third person with a camera zoomed out further" that some people call isometric these days.  Lines that are parallel in the game world will appear parallel on the screen in an isometric view, but not third person.
• Asheram Member EpicPosts: 5,071

  July 2017 edited July 2017

  The Repopulation has all three of those pov's.