Progress

Hello Everyone :)

This post is more an update to the previous blog post regarding the very early alpha i had tested. Some had some extreme issues getting it to work while others it worked like I thought it would.

Starting off, to use the engine beyond just the push and load I had it setup to do, required a lot of editing and this was getting in the way of half my initial testers. I have a map editor in the works for this very problem as I knew it would be one and the early test just confirms it. I found several errors and bad error handling with this test and I'm still waiting on some feedback regarding some of the engines coding.

The general consensus I have concluded is that I may have released a to early of a version and to to many inexperienced testers. Which is a shame because a few was put off by it from a very early version. :(

First test version of engine passed out,

Yes the engine has started closed testing. Though it is extremely limited at this moment because the map editor isn't finished, I have been able to push out a test version to get a feel for how it will work for others both performance wise and ease of use.

There are a few hiccups though, the entire engine is being made inside GameMaker: Studio, which means previous versions of GM may have a few issues. I have ported the current test version into GameMaker 8.1, making all the necessary changes for that software. Regardless I get some weird errors (stream read error?), understand I have not used GM 8.1 in a little while so I haven't had the time to look over the entire engine for the problem but I am working on it.

I know guys, many of you still like GM8.1 and nothing wrong with that xD I will try and work out any issues and hopefully everything will work out good for it in that version of GameMaker. No link either ;) as I said this is an early test version when I do give a link I want it to have a map editor as that is an important part for keeping the engine simple to use.

Thanks for reading and sticking with me, I know all i have done for about a month is talk about it with nothing to download or show but it's coming!

Current Development of the Engine.

A day late on the blog post, but I thought now would be a good time to update on the actual engine itself. Currently the engine is being optimized and ported to a fresh project file since the current one everything sits in, is a cluttered mess for testing all the functions and idea's I have had for the engine over the past month. It really is a disaster for those who do not know there way around the project file.

The depth of the issue

Probably one of, if not the most tricky issues with isometric is ordering tiles and objects with depth so they appear correctly. Higher terrain or things like tree's and buildings should appear "over" anything behind it yet be behind anything in front of it otherwise you will start to get clipping of images, where some parts are behind or over images they shouldn't be.

I know, it seems complicated and with certain situations it can be, but in this blog post I will describe how I handle depth in the Isometric Engine. As I have described before the engine works from a top down perspective and merely draws stuff into an isometric view. This works in my favor in many ways but does have a draw back or two x).