Isometric or Dimetric view?

[Falcon]

Is there any way to get an isometric or dimetric perspective out of TG2? I've tried with the ortographic camera, but it appears that the term is used as it is understood in cartography, not in a strict projection sense, IOW you always get a projection on a flat plane and can't angle it at all.

Anyone know a trick or is this something that's currently impossible?

[Henry Blewer]

It could be done using functions I would think. I do not know how to do this in T2, but the math is not that hard. It's been 30 years since I worked in Land Surveying, I have forgotten a lot I once knew.

[Falcon]

Hm. You would have to apply a transformation function to the camera, but you can't because the camera node has no inputs.

So I figure that unless I've overlooked something blatantly obvious, there's no way to do this in TG2 at this time.

[Henry Blewer]

I was thinking the landscape could be bent into the proper perspective, that's what mapping does anyway.

[cyphyr]

Isometric projection dont really have any perspective, at go
You should be able to get a decent iso projection by dipping your camera to -30deg pitch, ticking "Planar Camera" and setting the width top the desired amount, say 10,000m.

Richard

[Falcon]

Uh, "Planar Camera"? Where's that? Are we talking TG2 here? (because I am...) :-)

[cyphyr]

Hehe, sorry, I meant "Orthographic Camera".

Richard

[Matt]

The camera can be rotated even when it's set to orthographic projection, making it possible to produce an isometric view. 

[Falcon]

Thanks, Matt. Yes, I just found out that that's true, though the rotation appears to take some getting used to (is it reversed from the other? looks like it).

I'll try to figure this one out and post the results. If anyone has already done it, please be so kind to save me the time. :-)

[Falcon]

Hm, it gets weirder.

The building I had in a test scene disappears on orthographic renders. It's ok in a perspective view. I'm somewhat sure that it isn't because of close cam culling, since I'm a few thousand units away from it with the camera. Check out these screenshots, only change between them is changing the camera from orthographic to perspective:

[Falcon]

Confirming that there is something odd going on with objects in an orthographic/isometric render.

As you can see in the screenshots, it renders the landscape ok (left render, right preview).
But only in the perspective view does it render the trees.

Experimenting with settings also gave me the result seen in the 3rd shot. So objects are not just disappearing, something a lot stranger than just that is happening.

[Matt]

Thanks, Matt. Yes, I just found out that that's true, though the rotation appears to take some getting used to (is it reversed from the other? looks like it).

The rotation isn't reversed, but I do find it more difficult to orient the camera in an orthographic view.

Object rendering isn't tested so well with orthographic views. We'll look into it. Have you tried with the ray trace objects option?

Matt

[Matt]

In your very first screenshot there is a clipping issue in the terrain, not just the tower. You will need to increase the camera's Y coordinate. Zooming out in the 3D preview only changes the orthographic width, not the position of the clipping plane (which passes through the camera position).

[Falcon]

Since ray trace objects is on by default, I'm pretty sure I used it, yes.

To be sure, I've attached a new render below, where you can see the preview as well as the camera settings. Again, I made sure that ray trace objects is on in the render settings. The funny thing is that the shadow is there, but the object isn't.

The Y coordinate of > 2000 is well outside the displacement range of my terrain, so even the highest terrain points would not reach this high.

[Falcon]

Next update: I've now confirmed the problem with trees as well, i.e. tgo populations. Shadows are there, the trees themselves are missing. Again, I'm certain it is not a clipping issue (my camera is at Y 6000, with the terrain displacement at ~1000 max).

That's bad. Right now, it's a showstopper for the project I'm working on. :-(