Arralen
Posts: 827
Joined: 5/21/2000 Status: offline
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C#, Unity ... why? If the tools you know and like to work with get the job done, why invest the time and effort needed re-learning, re-coding everything from scratch? Switching from VB to C# requires a lot of re-learning and re-coding. Coding (for) a 3D-engine is not trivial, especially if you are not a programmer who happens to amuse himself with writing a computer game, but a game designer who must get along with what he can manage. And then don't underestimate the additional workload that results from "just doing it in 3D". While you can happily move a pixel icon made in paint over some background pixel map in 2D, in 3D you need models, textures, shaders, ... And what does a 3D rendered map offer what a 2D map can't? In ShadE, we move (more or less) abstracted unit markers over an abstracted map. And the engine does that just fine. (Don't know why some complain about the srolling, its fine for me ...) Do you want realistic rendering? Check the manual, "5.16. On the Scale", ... a hex is 200km (125miles) across. Even 4km high mountains would only "stand out" from the map plane by 2% ... barely visible. And good luck finding your tank batallion ... . Or do you want ridiculously oversized cartoonish 3D units wandering around a trivialised landscape, where 3 houses are a town and 5 trees a forest? Other games have gone this route, and I really really hope that SE does not. And than there is another aspect which is not that obvious to most, I guess: Atm, I can have ShadE sitting there, waiting for the next turn the whole day long - and it does not bother my PC the slightest, as the program sits at 0% CPU and 0% GPU unless I am actually doing something. If you go 3D, the 3D engine has to render the main game window at full speed, whole time, because the OS has nothing to do with that window. (Yes, I know, oversimplified ...). Check your typical 3D game, even turn-based ones - they are wasting a whole lot of energy for exactly ... nothing.
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