The main aspect of Game Development is to understand each and every process
theoretically as well as practically. In this article, I will be discussing a
very vital concept that is commonly discussed and practiced while designing
& developing games i.e. 2D games Perspectives & Z Order. I shall
be focusing on game perspective in 2D games & what is Z Order.
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Prerequisites
GamingEnthusiasm
Z-Ordering
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In 3D games, developers can manipulate 3-axis i.e. X-axis, Y-axis &
Z-axis. Similarly, developers can view the object from these three directions.
However, in 2D games, both, developer and user can develop/view objects only in
2D, with manipulation of X-axis & Y-axis. In 2D games, arranging objects/sprites
on the canvas is a little trickier because of the access to two dimensions. For
example, in order to give effect of a mountain scene, the scene is arranged in such
a way that it will show us far distance objects and near objects, this is
simple to do as we can simply put small size objects at the scene's top and big size
objects in front of the scene to give near/far distance effect. But, what if we
want to place some objects in between and want to configure which object
should come before which object?
That’s when Z-order comes into power play, we
can choose which object to display before which object, by simply changing
Z-order value, i.e. we can use +ive value to place objects behind another
objects & lower +ve or -ve values to place objects in front other
objects. Z-ordering is more like layering your objects in scene in a similar
manner as layering in Photoshop or using Go to Back or Go to Front command of
MS-Office suites. For further study, you can explore
Z-order
in top-down 2d games.
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2D-Perspectives
In 2D gaming, there are mainly two types of perspective i.e.
First person shooter/perspective.
Third person perspective
First person shooter/perspective
This perspective shows only game objects, e.g. guns, fire etc., giving player
the look and feel of controlling the game by themselves.
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Third person perspective
This perspective involves the characters in games allowing players to
manipulate the character movement and play through game.
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Third person perspective however, further categorizes into two kinds of views which are used in different level editors to construct graphic user interface
for games visually i.e.
Orthogonalview.
Isometricview.
Orthogonal View
This view arranges the Graphical User Interface (GUI) in following manner
i.e.
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This view is arranged in level editors by dividing screen into small squares
which are called tiles. The orthogonal view is the simplest view to implement
as game developers because its map coordinate matches screen coordinates and
game objects or sprites can easily be manipulated.
Isometric View
This view arranges the Graphical User Interface (GUI) in following manner
i.e.
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This view allows the developers to create 3D kinds of effects in a 2D
environment. This view is also arranged in level editors by dividing screen
into small squares which are called tiles. The isometric view is the most
difficult view in 2D games to manipulate because it rotates the orthogonal tile
view by 45 degree in triangular shape and this rotation shifts the isometric
map coordinates from the screen coordinates, therefore, developers have to
convert the isometric map coordinates into screen coordinates to manipulate the
game objects or sprites.
Conclusion
In this article, you learned about different 2D
games perspectives i.e. first person shooter, third person shooter, orthogonal
view, and isometric view. You also learned about Z Order buffer concept and
its importance in computer graphics environment.
Disclaimer
I do not own any of the images.