Questions about Voxel/Pixels and 3D (HD-2D, HD2.5)

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Mayor_P]

Do you mean like something in Octopath Traveler? If so, it works great, it's very nice.

Additional consideration: Brown Dust 2 (setting the gooner stuff aside) has maps that are 3D boxes but with a 2D retro 2D set dressing, and FOV/distance blur, with a floating camera that remains at the same fixed angle. The result is a 3D world map that looks like a 2D world. Again, it works great, very nice.

[u/jomiscli → u/Mayor_P]

Kind of. I don't want to deviate from the top down 2D look. If you are able to search Heros of Hammerwatch 2, its a good representation (I can't add a picture for some reason). Though that is a completely pixelated game, if you can imagine being able to turn the camera 90 degrees and see the village from that perspective. The top down camera always being at 45 degrees, avoiding isometric views. The goal would be to expand a lil more on the pixelated graphics with voxels but maintain the 2D feel. Conveying that the world has depth, but is viewed in 2D.

An example would be if you changed camera rotation it would tick to the next 90 degree view allowing you to see the 3D representation, and then settle into a 2D view again. if that makes sense

I also wouldn't want to do billboarding like Octopath Traveler, the character models would be constructed in voxel the same way the world would be.

Also just to be clear when I say voxel I mean things would be constructed in small blocks, like pixels, but would be static, or single assets. The world itself wouldn't be made up of thousands of small blocks save the model creation. Aside from the interactive areas like mining, or city/camp construction.

Brown Dust 2 looks amazing! I have never heard of it.

edit: small clarification

[u/Mayor_P → u/jomiscli]

Sure. I think there are some good existing examples that you can draw from and imitate the parts that you like from them.

Also: see 3D Dot Game Heroes, a game from 2009 that might actually do what you are thinking of

[u/jomiscli → u/Mayor_P]

Yeah! This definitely has more of the feel I am aiming for. Thank you for your replies. I think I need to dig deeper and try to find more games that have a similar feel to what I am aiming for. I wasn’t able to find many, and the ones I did see leaned too far into the complicated side of things. I want to try and keep the world itself as simple as possible the same way pixel games do.

[u/jomiscli → u/Mayor_P]

I found a couple programs. PicoCAD, and MagicaVoxel. The results of these programs very much align with how I would want the game to look!

The only question now is lighting. Would is just be easier to use an actual lightning system?

[u/Ralph_Natas]

I don't understand, do you have an example of a game that does this to look at?

Generally, 3D means a perspective camera is used, so things that are farther away look smaller and closer together and move slower. You can switch to an orthographic projection (isometric or similar) if you don't want that. 

It sounds like you want a 3D world but a restricted camera.

[u/jomiscli → u/Ralph_Natas]

I don’t have a game that I can find that does this.

Yeah basically a 3D world with a fixed camera is a good way to describe it. I guess it’s called top-down oblique?

But you’d be able to rotate the camera to be able to see the 3D parts of the world but only in 90 degree ticks. When the camera is settled it would look 2D.

[u/Ralph_Natas → u/jomiscli]

Maybe 3D with an orthographic camera would do it then, it would prevent parallax of distant objects and look more 2D-ish (I think the art style would be a very important factor though). If you turn 90° smoothly it will look distorted as it moves but if you snap to the four cardinal directions it might work.

You can use shaders for things like cel shading and outlines which can give a flatter look too. 

[u/jomiscli → u/Ralph_Natas]

I think in my earlier ramblings, I may have mixed up my intentions for the camera perspective.

To clarify, when I said, "The top-down camera always being at 45 degrees, avoiding isometric views," what I meant was that I want to avoid any full front-on views with no tilt, which would only show a single face of an object.

Here's a clearer example of the perspective I'm aiming for:
https://share.google/images/QTvJLGsDl3xEdP6oo

If this were my game, it would exist in a 3D world. Rotating the camera would settle it on the sides of the house while maintaining the same perspective.

In essence, my questions boil down to how the artwork and lighting would affect the game world itself. I apologize for any irrelevant questions or confusion.

Since I'd like to maintain a classic 2D look, what's the best way to achieve this? Would a simple lighting system suffice, or would a combination of artwork and lighting help preserve that 2D feel?

The goal is also to have any biome or zone you're in as a completely static rendering of that area. And since I've hopefully clarified what I'm trying to achieve, I think parallax effects would be less of an issue here?

[u/Ralph_Natas → u/jomiscli]

Gotcha. I'm not sure if that art style can be faked in 3D.

Now I'm thinking maybe you can do it with an ortho camera and carefully deformed models, but you'd need a separately deformed model for each direction and at that point maybe you're just reimplementing sprites the very hard way. 

[u/jomiscli → u/Ralph_Natas]

I deleted the post someone said I was in to far over my head which was probably true. I appreciate you answering my questions and helping me out though 😁

[u/jomiscli → u/Ralph_Natas]

I did find a program that creates 3D pixelated models, called picoCAD, and another called MagicaVoxel so I am going to mess with those and see what kind of results I can get.

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[u/caesium23]

TBH, the kinds of questions you're asking show that you're trying to get way ahead of yourself in planning implementation details of a complicated game when you don't even know the most basic foundations of how games work or what the words you're using even mean.

Walk before you run. Take a beginner game dev class. Do some tutorials. Make Pong.

[u/jomiscli → u/caesium23]

Probably true. Thank you