SOCOM type game using Isometrics?

[ShckByte]

Hi all,

Forgive me for my gaming ignorance to start with. I'm a multimedia developer that uses Flash and many other apps for web and DVD delivery, but have never been asked to develop a mini-game to allow users to find items in a setting.

The premise is the user would be walking down a middle eastern city where they might see posters, loudspeakers, cars etc that they can interact with. All I'd need is for the user to click or hover over the item and text and/or audio with a graphic description will show. I'm not looking to develop a full game, just a different way for users to understand a very difficult subject.

I would love to have the user actually walking thru the city with the keyboard arrows to progress. Would this be considered an Isometric Worldview? The game would be like the SOCOM game where you are the person interacting but only the gun is showing. I bought Swift3D too and have Maya to develop the city. Which would be better?

Again, sorry for my gaming ignorance and the long description.

Thanks.

[fil_razorback]

If only the gun is showing, this is not an isometric view.
Here is an isometric view :

[ShckByte]

Ok. Good to know. Thanks.

Has anyone built a first person shooter (I guess is what it's called) type game in Flash? I know Director can handle this type of stuff but not up on all the LINGO either for awhile.

[VENGEANCE MX]

The problem is that Flash is essentially a 2D application. The only way to make a '3D' environment is through hard maths and intense optimization. Only a handful of people on FK are able to make one of these (and even if you could, you'd still need a few weeks/months to do so), so your options are to use an existing one (such as Papervision3D) or just scrap the idea altogether.

Considering your situation, I'd recommend building the environment in whichever 3D tool you're most comfortable with, and just export pictures of several places in the city. You would navigate between these places just by clicking buttons. I know it sounds lame, but it's the only real way to deliver a 3D game on deadline.

[ShckByte]

Yah, realizing its a 2D app I was hoping there was a way to "trick" Flash into moving in Z space thru swapDepths and such. I appreciate you taking the time to respond. Thanks.

[rachil0]

Here are a few examples specifically aimed towards FPS's in flash. When you are focused on rendering indoor maze environments, you can often use different visibility and rasterization algorithms than those of general purpose 3D pipeline like Papervision, Sandy or Away3D.

http://blog.brokenfunction.com/2007/08/27/more-doom/
Implementation of DOOM 1 shareware in flash - doom is unique because its geometry is 3D but it's splittable into convex regions with a purely 2D BSP. Source available on google code.

www.ultrakillz.com
An FPS with restricted camera/movement freedom, that make it particularly easy to implement using flash's builtin affine texture mapper. Closed source AFAIK.

http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=747511
Another pseudo-3D demo with capabilities similar to the DOOM or Build engines (the guts behind Duke Nukem 3D). Source available in-thread.

http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=749263
A true 3D environment (but no enemies yet) with capabilities similar to descent or a lowpoly quake1. Source available in-thread.

There's also a "temple" demo done with Away3D and a "bunker" demo done with Alterniva that you could pull up with a google search. Both are FPS-style geometrys that they pushed through their respective general-3D frameworks.