Just so I am on the right path. When ding the animation loop for an isometric scroller, each tile, each tile overlay(layer) and each overlays overlay, have to be moved when scrolling the screen within the animation loop?
Just seems like a lot of work for the loop. I havent dug into planetation yet, but do most of you then clip the viewable area at this point then paint?
M
An easier way I use (and probably almost everyone else) is to have a Camera class which contains the position and size of the current viewing area - your tiles stay exactly where they are in the world, and you just choose the appropriates ones to draw (and shift their screen positions accordingly).
so the “world” map could be 12761024 and the view window of the ‘camera’ is 400300.
I want to draw my camera contents for x=100 y=100 plus appropriate width and height.
Sounds good, Ill take a crack at it.
thanks
M
An intermediate solution is to use a “background buffer” for the floor and only redraw it when the camera shofts (generally all you have to do is blt it “over” and redraw the exposed areas.
The disadvantage of this approach is that it assumes that tiles are only going to be sued for the floor. Anything that “stands up” has to be an object or “sprite” depending on youir favorite terminology.