3D only or 3d and 2d or only 2d

Hi,

I would like to know your opinions.

Imagine having a big sphere. In this sphere you have many small spheres flying around.

I should also notice that I want those spheres to get attracted or repulsed by each other.

Now in 3D this looks nice and you fly around and so on.
The problem is, that I would like to be able to switch between 3d and 2d. That's where I'm unsure about the result. IMO it would be unavoidable to have some spheres overlap in 2d which I don't want.

If I stay in 2D completely I can have much lesser amount of small spheres until it all gets too clustered. And I would hate to have some overlapping spheres.

So what do you think?

Why would overlap issues be unavoidable in 2d yet not an issue in 3d? Surely, this is dependant on how accurate your collision routines are. Is this switching from 2d to 3d part of the game mechanic in that is happens realtime? I think you need to explain a bit better about what you're looking to achieve here.

Stevie

I think he means if a sphere holds near enough the same x and z co-ords, but completely differeny Y co-ords, when switching to a 2d top down view, they would completely overlap.

You also have another problem. Perspective. Sphere nearest the top, will be bigger than spheres at the bottom. Still don't understand what the problem with switching would cause?

Can't you just have a top down view of the 3d sphere?

Well, if you would like to be able to switch anytime i guess you can't avoid this but does it really hurt or can't you just treat those circles according to your wishes then?

It is important to have a visual cue of the distances between the spheres, that's why I would need to rotate every sphere to a plane, so the direction and the distance is true. Let's say a sphere is 2m underneath the center and 1m on the right, in 2D it would show as 2m away from the center but on the x/z plane and a little on the right.

If I have too many spheres overlap, because they are all in one 2d position when converted, I can't distinguish which sphere is heading where and it would look messy.

The forces as such would be so that you wouldn't have any overlapping or collision normally, only if the values are right you have a collision. Imagine each sphere being a magnet with each different plus and minus poles.

Perspective isn't an issue, in 3d it's ok as I can fly through and in 2d it's a completely different graphic (Meshes <-> Sprites) without any perspective.

Well, if your forces are 3d driven and you want a proper look in 3d space then there is no proper look in 2d space were you don't have to alter the forces or the objects as you're just dismissing one axis. The same would apply if you would go with an orthogonal projection.

I don't know what you're exactly after but i somehow guess that without faking you won't come anywere and i'm asking myself why you just can't stay in 3d space and choose a pleasing camera perspective instead?

Faking? Wonder why this never came to my mind!! Of course I could 'simply' adjust the spheres so they don't overlap, but wait... that would make movements very unpredictable. I would have jumps I guess, not good.

I can't always stay in 3D, because I want the resulting data to be viewed on different clients, even those not having 3d.
I want 2D as the most compatible modus.

Well, then i guess i have no solution as a normal 3d-2d projection can always result to natural overlapping objects. Anything else would look quite weird and premise two different setups/calculations. Maybe you can find your own special transformation...

Maybe one solution would be to scale the 2d sprites so that they don't overlap. As I'm in a big floating point world I don't think that a mathematical could occur, only a visual one, so by scaling the sprites down so that they don't overlap might be a solution. Will check it out.

Depending on how the spheres are positioned in 3d space this can result into tiny objects and look weird. On the other side it could be a game mechanic on it's own.

yes, I guess there's no other way than to try it out...

Let them overlap. When in 2D, have the objects closer to the camera scale larger in size, and ones farther away scale smaller in size. Simple enough. That is all that is happening in 3D anyway...

I don't know what sort of game you're making, but I can't think of many games where allowing the player to switch between 3D and 2D would be a good idea. It wasn't even a good idea in that new paper mario game.

Pick one, whichever is best for the game, and your desired audience, and stick with that.

You could also represent a 3rd dimension in the 2D view by changing the coloring of the circles -- allow overlaps, but draw the top-most circles a brighter color than the low ones.

oh it's not going to be a game :) it's a MMO sort of thing where the clients can watch the spheres (or any other forms)

@sswift:
I wouldn't have what you understand with a camera in 2D, it's simply looked from above without any perspective.

As not evertybody likes or can use 3d, I'd like to keep it so, that it could even be seen with flash or JS.
So it wouldn't necessarily be a switching but a choice of client soft, browser based being on the lowest type and an installed BMax client with all 3D functionality.

It's a project I will never be able to finish like I want it, but I want to make a prototype which does what it should without the client/server stuff.

@xlsior: if they are farther away in 3d they are also farther away in 2D so colors wouldn't help.