Which 1st-person RPGs (blobbers, etc) had the best fake-3D art?

[mondblut]

I think LoL was one of the better RT blobbers; not as good as Black Crypt, but better than Eye of the Beholder.

LOL is EOB for King's Quest-playing women and children

Anvil of Dawn was the ultime dumbing down of the real time blobber genre; you didn't even control a party any longer.

This began with Dungeon Hack. And people who would insist that makes DungHack a different subgenre than EOB3 are ultimate autists...

 

[Alchemist]

If you already use discrete positioning and rotation the difference between real and faked 3D is purely academic.
A lot of blobbers already had as much 3D level building as possible with fixed step without using any actual 3D.

To reap the benefits of full 3D you need to abandon the trappings of an oldschool blobber, even if still making one - see Wizardry 8.

I mean mainly development benefits. Most pratical game editors nowadays are meant for 3D scenes, and the ones meant for 2D are for platformers/topdown games. Granted hacking his own fake 3D approach is probably more fun if he's into that sort of thinng

One advantage of using real 3D (even grid-based) is that I only need to draw a particular wall texture once - which is then mapped to a 3D object. With fake-3D that wall image needs to be adapted manually to the different angles and distances it can be seen at - and saved as separate sprite images. Not a huge amount of extra work if I scale / shrink / warp it in Photoshop - but it adds extra processing steps. And shrinking in Photoshop might not always produce pleasing results, so some re-drawing at different scales and angles might be needed.

But on the other hand - a pure 2D approach means I never have to open a 3D model editor once during development. That has a certain appeal, because I enjoy doing 2D art the most.

The other advantage of pure 2D / fake-3D is that very few people are doing it these days - so it helps the game stand out a bit.

 

[octavius]

LOL is EOB for King's Quest-playing women and children

I'm sure you have played at least as much King's Quest as I have.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

2d art is definitely where it is at for me. The SVGA era was the epitome of game art IMO. Now we get skinned polygons.

 

[DraQ]

I mean mainly development benefits. Most pratical game editors nowadays are meant for 3D scenes, and the ones meant for 2D are for platformers/topdown games.

Ok. You can get tools making it easier and more efficient, that's a fair point. But after boxing yourself in the same limitations as fake 3D blobbers had using a proper 3D engine will not have any tangible gameplay impact.

One advantage of using real 3D (even grid-based) is that I only need to draw a particular wall texture once - which is then mapped to a 3D object.

This evaporates if you insist on mimicking the fake 3D approach with billboards, though.

 

[JamesDixon]

One advantage of using real 3D (even grid-based) is that I only need to draw a particular wall texture once - which is then mapped to a 3D object. With fake-3D that wall image needs to be adapted manually to the different angles and distances it can be seen at - and saved as separate sprite images. Not a huge amount of extra work if I scale / shrink / warp it in Photoshop - but it adds extra processing steps. And shrinking in Photoshop might not always produce pleasing results, so some re-drawing at different scales and angles might be needed.

But on the other hand - a pure 2D approach means I never have to open a 3D model editor once during development. That has a certain appeal, because I enjoy doing 2D art the most.

The other advantage of pure 2D / fake-3D is that very few people are doing it these days - so it helps the game stand out a bit.

With Unity3D, you don't have to worry about touching a 3D model if you get the right assets like 3D Forge's Dungeon Creator. It will have everything you need to make different styles of dungeons etc... With their Village Interiors and Village Exteriors assets you can make 3D buildings as you want them to be.