3D or 2.5D??

[Pharaoh]

I know that this game has the Empire Earth 3D engine, and that the game will be in 3D. However, I was wondering if it will be posible to switch to a "2.5D", or better known as the "angle" view that games like SimCity and Zeus had. I guess it's just in case if your computer can't handle that excellent graphics. :rolleyes:

[Keith]

I know that this game has the Empire Earth 3D engine, and that the game will be in 3D. However, I was wondering if it will be posible to switch to a "2.5D", or better known as the "angle" view that games like SimCity and Zeus had. I guess it's just in case if your computer can't handle that excellent graphics. :rolleyes:I believe their intention is full 3D, at least that is what it says in their design notes on the webpage and the impression everyone has around here.

The environment needs to be 3-dimensional, so your city feels like a real place, and you feel as if you are really there. The visual and audio presentation must be top-notch and tools must be given to the player to easily explore this environment up close and personal.
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[EmperorJay]

If your system can't handle any close-ups, keep zoomed out. That should increase your FPS and the overview you'll have resembles the ones from Zeus and SimCity.

[Keith]

I should have made clear that the the last paragraph of my post above is a direct quote from their design notes webpage and not my own comment.
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[vovan]

Well, now, the isometric view of Zeus is real 2D, whereas the Empire Earth engine they are using is pure 3D. Even if you were to "lock" the view in this game into an isometric view position, that wouldn't make it render any faster, because in Zeus, for instance, every walker, building, etc were just a flat image (which is why the buildings rotated with you if you rotated the map), whereas in a 3D engine, such as Empire Earth, the people are actually 3D models (I am not sure about buildings - they were flat images in Rise of Nations, for instance, don't remember abuot EE), and therefore, whichever angle you are viewing from, it doesn't matter - you still have all those 3D models to render.

Switching to Zeus-style graphics would require the walkers to be made into flat images - only then would you have increases in performance, but that would require all of the artwork to be duplicated between the 3D models and the flat images, which is just not practical.

Of course, I'm no member of the team, so all of the above is just my guess.