# Isometric decision time: what path to take

**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/isometric-decision-time-what-path-to-take/270618
**Category:** flash
**Created:** [September 11, 2008, 4:37pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/isometric-decision-time-what-path-to-take/270618 "2008-09-11T16:37:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![jwopitz](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/jwopitz/32/1556_2.png) [@jwopitz](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/jwopitz)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2008, 4:37pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/isometric-decision-time-what-path-to-take/270618/1 "2008-09-11T16:37:39Z")

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Ok so I have been working for a week straight to try to solve my depth sorting issue ([http://jwopitz.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/absolute-isometric-depth-sorting/](http://jwopitz.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/absolute-isometric-depth-sorting/)) with no practical solution. After reading countless articles on the hows and the whys I am starting to seriously consider a radically different approach: Using 3D to mimic an Isometric perspective.

I have thought about this in the past and decided against it because I thought the learning curve for the open source 3D SKDs out there were too opportunity-cost prohibitive. Well now I know I have blown plenty of time trying to fidget with my own solution to no avail.

I wanted to get some quick feedback from the 3D SDK users out there highlighting a few points :beer2::

[LIST]  
[_]I want to be able to use real flash.display.MovieClip classes so that the art can still be based on content created in the Flash IDE. I found this article which seems like PV3D can do this. What about the other SDKs? - [http://labs.blitzagency.com/?p=377](http://labs.blitzagency.com/?p=377)  
[_]I think away3D has the ability to make the camera view appear isometric (based on this article) - [http://www.nabble.com/Away3D-vs-Papervision3D-td10872780.html](http://www.nabble.com/Away3D-vs-Papervision3D-td10872780.html) What about the other SDKs? I know for sure that Alternativa3D does this but it is not open source and plans to have server integration which I don’t want to deal with.  
[_]What are the performance implications of using a 3D engine to depth sort for me vs. trying to manually do what I have been trying to do with an isometric engine (unsuccessfully so far).  
[_]I am not really interested in using the FFilmation engine since it lack the performance I want for complex scenes. Of course this could be the case for using a 3D engine as well.  
[/LIST]