   Question about 2D games that allow 3D movement
  Hello,There are some games that use 2D rendering (IE sprite based), but the characters can move in 3 dimensions.  Specifically, I'm thinking of a game format like Capcom's Final Fight.  Would coordinate transformations similar to 3D graphics rendering be required for such a game?Any information about this would be helpful (ie: resources, books, etc...)Thanks,Mike   
  3D in my mind is more an issue of artistry and not so much programming. Everything in programming is one dimensional text forming 2 dimensional image trickery to make you think it's 3 dimensional.Of course... perhaps i shouldn't be speaking on it as i can do nothing in 3D but consider that to create environ all you are do is shifting the camera and shrinking or growing an object and displaying a mathematically defined angle...If I were to try to cheat I'd simply make 2D sprites that when the user pushed up it simply moved a background/foreground that is prerendered so that it's just a larger flat 360 panoramic background/foreground and just slowly tick it around.It sounds odd but it would work if one did it right.   ;Quote:Original post by DinomikeHello,There are some games that use 2D rendering (IE sprite based), but the characters can move in 3 dimensions.  Specifically, I'm thinking of a game format like Capcom's Final Fight.  Would coordinate transformations similar to 3D graphics rendering be required for such a game?There is no 3 dimensional movement in Final Fight. You move up and down, and travel to the right.The depth is just the height of the sprite in the playable area. The background is drawn at an angle, and it creates a very small illusion of depth.   ;  Hmmm...I was thinking it was 3D because the character can move up and down, left and right, and also jump up and down.  So I guess if it's still 2D, does that mean that no coordinate transformations (ie matrices) need to be done?   ;  It's just 2 different things that happen the sprite base moves up/down and is slightly shrunk/enlarged when moving toward and away from the wall with a certain speedwhen they jump they do not shrink/grow and the speed with which they go up and down is faster and non-permanent.What you need to do is have a variable of some sort that tracks where it is on the floor so that the sprite when it jumps it know the right height to jump up to, and return back to...though i guess it would be easier to just have a loop that has a predetermined positive and negative number that it is going to count up/down to.However if i remember right those type of games have some sort of pressure sensitivity...so define x and ycapture button press and length of timeapply that to the height of the jumploop up to match that height and then down to match it as wellI think that's pretty simple.   ;  Durakken, your posts are a bit off.Quote:Original post by DinomikeHmmm...I was thinking it was 3D because the character can move up and down, left and right, and also jump up and down.  So I guess if it's still 2D, does that mean that no coordinate transformations (ie matrices) need to be done?Only if you want to over complicate things for yourself.There are no shrinking sprites. They just move up and down. There is no attempt here to maintain perspective, just like top down RPGs.The rendering if like everything else that has some kind of depth like that. You sort the sprites by height and draw them top to bottom to keep the right objects behind the right objects. In modern times, you can just use the depth buffer for this.;  well actually final fight uses x, y, zx = left, righty = altitude i.e. jumpingz = depth i.e walking up and downin your draw method for 2d sprites you would have something like thisken->draw(x, y, z);some sdks only have x and y in their vecttors for draw methods, in that case just override it to support z.draw(x, y, z){   VECTOR2D vec;   vec.x=x;   vec.y=y+z;   SPRITE::draw(vec);}the y+z means that this positions are independent from each other.   ;  you will then sort sprites in your list via z.jumping is pretty easy all you need to do is y-=velY for the basic jumping algorithm.most final fight clones are not pressure sensative but you can double jump.i am also working on a game engine which is specific to the scrolling beat em up genre.   ;  A vital ingredient to the 3D illusion is a shadow on the ground that only moves in 2D. Otherwise you cannot tell if your character is jumping really high in the foreground or jumping low in the background.   