The other way around: 3D to 2D..

Last week we were experimenting with minigames in the time management game. To see if this kind of variation of gameplay would add anything good to the game. In my opinion it works very well, also the other guys over here think it is a good idea to have them. So this week we decided to keep them and continue to work on the other minigames. Stijn is going to help me and Richard to get these done.

Today I'm working on the interface mockups for the minigames. Our interfaces are actually 3D objects, instead of 2D bitmaps. The interface objects are rendered 'on top' of the camera in the game.

 

Imagine these 3D objects which represent buttons and frames etc, to be connected together in specific order. Also known as a parent->child hierarchy.
For example. Imagine a small object called 'Options'. Every button/frame which to has to be displayed in the options screen is a child of this object. In the game we use a function to hide or show one complete parent->child tree. To show the 'Options' screen in this example, we only have to 'Unhide' or show the 'Options' root. Which then shows all of it's childs too, the complete options screen.

This makes it much easier to manage menu's, popups, option screens etc. It is critical though to have the 3D file which contains all of this hierarchy information well organized. One wrong link and the system won't work correctly.

-- Joep