3D Test

evolutional is sort of talking me around to doing it the fully 3D way. It is a lot simpler, although there are things I don't like about it. My modeling style tends to be sloppy: lots of verts, probably way more than is needed to structure a scene. Which is why I usually render a structure then map the render to a crude, low-poly shape (like the sides of an isometric box or cell, as I've been doing). With that method, the detail of your geometry doesn't matter since it's pre-rendered, but getting seams and edges to line up, etc... takes some work.

Doing the objects fully 3D, though, I don't have to worry about a lot of the things, but I do have to worry about the complexity of my geometry. I also have to completely overhaul my lighting system. In the attached screenshot you can see a render test in progress, a section of (placeholder) cliff on a nasty looking background. Just working out the kinks and details of the Blender->Game pipeline, and playing with some lighting options. The above is statically lit, no dynamic lights in play. In fact, in-game lighting has been disable since the 2D grid system I was using doesn't play well with 3D geometry. It looks bad. There is also some cracking between a few of the wall segments. That was my foul up. 0.9999999999 does not equal 1.0, and the GPU will prove it to you every time.

The good news is, though, I have a Wavefront .OBJ loader up and running, so exporting from Blender is a bit easier.