Alright, so, I have been scratching my head for the past 4 hours and googling for different ways to do this but I can’t seem to put these two together.
I am working on a game engine that works like an overhead RPG, but the terrain is drawn at an angle with the characters at the same angle to give the illusion of a 3D world. the problem I am running into is that, while I can get the character to move perfectly fine on the ground, I need to be able to set the character to go behind or above certain objects depending where he is.
The best example of what I am trying to accomplish is from Gaia’s MMO.
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9601/depth.png
As you can see in the first frame of the image, the character is in front of the bush, but behind the lamppost. In the second frame he is both behind the lamppost and bush. In the last frame, he is in front of both the lamppost and bush. during all of this though the bush and Lamppost never change position with the terrain or each other.
Basically, I have come to the conclusion that I believe the way this RPG is able to do this is through distance detection and depth swaps.
ex. if distance is above 0 character is above object. if distance is below 0, character is below object.
The main I would like to accomplish with this is the character, enemies, and NPC’s are the only thing that changes depth. why? If an enemy is following and is on a different depth then the character, possibly higher or lower then the object, it could appear above or below the object while the character is the opposite.
any and all help would be appreciated so much.
Thank you for any help,
-Naezo
