Hi there,
I'm currently working on a vehicle builder game that I would like to be physics based. The idea is that a player could build a vehicle (possessing certain physics e.g. mass, moment of inertia, etc.) that would traverse a landscape.
I've envisioned this game to have a top-down oblique perspective similar to Stardew Valley(example below). The primary reason for this is due to the fact that the gameplay and physics are 2D based, yet it gives the world a 3D feel.
However, I'm starting to think more about how I would actually implement the rendering system for the main vehicle. It seems like most oblique perspective games use player models that are restricted to travel in finite directions. For example, a player can move in 8 directions: up, down, left, right, diagonally (x4). Thus the rendering system would only need to worry about 8 travel animations. Hence the rendering system would not need to differentiate between a character traveling in a direction of 45 degree vs 55 degrees.
So this is essentially my dilemma. I want the main character of my game (a vehicle) to travel based on physics. That means the character could move in any direction and rotate to any position. However, oblique perspective rendering systems are typically limited in how many perspectives of object can be drawn (e.g. character only being able to move in 8 directions).
Obviously one solution would be to render the main vehicle from a pure top-down perspective such that it can rotate and move in any direction without need to worry about side perspective rendering, however, it seems like this would clash with the rest of the art style.
I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on this dilemma I'm having.
