[Isometric Graphics]

Hi DaChucksta,

 

You have, essentially, two options: draw all your characters yourself, or render them from 3D software. The first way is the most straight-forward but time consuming depending on how many frames of animations / characters you want. The second way faster for pumping out a lot of animations (assuming you're familiar with 3D software) but complicated if you're striving for good quality at low resolutions.

 

If you're going to draw the characters yourself - and any pixel art animation software would suffice - Pro Motion, for example (http://www.cosmigo.com/promotion/index.php) - there are a couple of things to consider:

 

A character in isometric perspective really ought to be a little top-down (like in pic A, below).

 

 

However, for simplicity of drawing and animating, you can get away with it being side / front on (like in pic B. It's less ideal, but because in isometric, vertical walls stay vertical it doesn't stand out too badly and makes animating a hell of a lot easier.

 

As far as walls and floors go... your basic isometric shape should be something nice and neat - the diagonals should be across 2 pixels, by 1 up/down:

 

 

Walls in isometric are extremely straight-forward. You can draw the wall as if it were a flat texture, and then just shift every two pixels across up one, and that will then shear the texture into isometric:

 

 

Hope this helps

Alright thanks for the help. I'm going to try the 3D method, so what software should i use for it? I havn't done much 2D drawing, and i've never done 3D drawing, but I'm trying to learn so I don't have to pay a fortune for graphics everytime i make a game.

[Isometric Graphics]

So the graphics for this game are awesome, and i've noticed there are a lot of graphics which must have taken a ton of time to make. I am making an Isometric game right now, and it is taking forever to hand-draw every single animation, and direction. Are there any programs or methods that are used to shorten this process?