3d Versus 2d Games

[knuckles]

Can someone, preferably one of the developers, explain to me what the advantages of usign 3D in favor of 2D are if any ? Also some enlightment on the technical side of things would be cool.

[Acumen]

This is just taken from the perspective of choosing 2D or 3D units, but most of these issues also apply to terrain, etc:

3D

+ Versatility: Can piece units together from parts in your library (swap textures, attach props, scale meshes, reuse the same animation for various types of units).

+ Lighting: Dynamic lighting and shadows in the world can be cast correctly onto models. Not possible with sprites.

+ Orientation: Can have full camera control (rotation, panning, zooming). Great for in-game cutscenes. A sprite's just a flat plane, so try to spin the world camera around a 2D unit and it would "follow" you, like the enemies in Duke Nukem 3D.

+ Scaleability: Much easier to vary detail to provide support for upper and lower machine specs. Can more easily adapt to new hardware support.

- Higher hardware requirements.

- Living objects can look very unnatural if done poorly.

- Longer setup time (have to write your own renderer, animation parser, attachment system, etc).

- Lower-polygon units.

2D

+ Detail: Can pre-render high-poly units, higher detail than what you could pull off through real-time rendering, and simply display as sprites. Can also post-work the sprites to make them look even better.

+ Much easier: Writing a 2D engine is spans easier than 3D, which also requires some serious mathematical knowhow. If you're just starting on game programming and this is mostly for learning experience, I highly recommend sticking to 2D (for that matter, I highly recommend starting small and coding simple games like Pacman and Tetris before rushing to a full-blown 3D MMORPG or RTS).

- Space: Having to pre-render every frame of animation occupies a lot more space than a collection of meshes, textures and animation files.

- No versatility: Every combination of assets (each animation of each unit wearing each piece of armour) has to be pre-rendered. Lighting and shadow work integrated into the sprite, so nothing dynamic there.

[ZeZar]

I hate 2D games, like RoN hated the grapichs there, 0.a.d will be in fully 3D right?

[Quacker]

Rise of Nations was 3D units and 2D buildings.

Age of Mythology was fully 3D.

[Wijitmaker]

I actually read this interesting article on ES's site last night. It isn't really applicable to us, but worth reading:

Reexamining the Decision to Make Age of Mythology in 3D

[Aeros]

From a scenario designer opinion, a 3d Environment is about the best you can wish for. If our game was in 2d and it's editor was just a remake of AoK's do you think many people from the communities outside AoK would be interested in designing for our game?

Not to mention the extra detail and effects we can put into a 3d engine, like Acument said.

[ZeZar]

But, will 0.a.d be in full 3D?

[Acumen]

I direct you towards our FAQ on the website ...

What are the major features of the Prometheus engine?

- 3D Terrain.

- 3D Units and other world objects.

- 3D Buildings.

[DarkAngelBGE]

So ZeZar.. a big YES.

[ZeZar]

Nice