Rendering order in 2.5D TileBased game.

Game Play & Game Design
#1

Hello everyone.
Can anyone tell me what is the method used in 2.5D games (not isometric) to render sprites with a “depth” effect?

I am using libGDX. My tiles are stored in a byte unidimensional array (their type id’s), and are rendered using the tile type “model” (i am not using a Object for every tile in game, but only one Object for every type and then render it’s texture where it should be).

The way i think this is to render tiles whose Y is greater than sprite Y, then render sprite, then the tiles after it. The problem is that i don’t know how to handle this with multiple sprites. :persecutioncomplex:

If anyone can, please answer this. Thanks!

Iulian ;D

#2

Why don’t you have a for loop running thru your list of sprites, and then drawing each sprite?
The list would have to be sorted according to Y, using Arrays.sort() or whatever you prefer.

#3

The best way to render a map like this is to order all the objects by the Y coordinate value. (Not just the sprites, but the game objects and land objects as well).

  • You want to order each object from the lowest Y value to the highest.
  • Then just go through a loop and draw each object in order.
  • If a land and an object share the same Y value, draw the land object first before drawing the sprite.

That should take care of the depth in a 2.5 isometric game nicely. To make it fast, make sure you are only drawing items within the screen.

#4

I don’t have an object for every tile in game!
As i said, i have only one object for every TYPE of tile and render only it’s texture where it should be (using a for loop trough the byte[] storing tile id at ‘i’ position).