Isometric Projection

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Looking down on City Name

From The Other Wiki: Isometric projection is a form of graphical projection, more specifically, a form of axonometric projection. It is a method of visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions, in which the three coordinate axes appear equally foreshortened and the angles between any two of them are 120 degrees.

In layman's speak, it's a way of faking perspective by squashing the vertical axes, thus forcing perpendicular angles to look wider. Also, close up objects appear the same size as distant objects.

In the days before true 3-D graphics, isometric projection was one of the ways artists suggested depth. Developed and formalized in the 19th century for technical and architectural drawings, it remains a popular way of creating 3-D-esque graphics in video games, especially for handheld systems.

Of course, in many cases in video games, the projection is not actually isometric in the mathematical sense, because a 26.57° slope is much easier to draw on square pixels than a 30° slope. But that would be nitpicking, so these games are called "isometric" anyway. The term can also refer to the vastly different Trimetric Projection (such as in Fallout 1 & 2 or SimCity 4).

The weakness of Isometric Geometry is that the same sort of line can be either distance or height, or even both in some cases. Usually, it's easy to tell; but no proper Penrose staircase could be built without this concept.

See also Top Down View, Side View and Three Quarters View.

Examples of Isometric Projection include:

Video Games

• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• |Age of Empires I and Age of Empires II
• Ant Attack, strong contender for the Ur Example and an even stronger one for the Trope Namer in gaming (its creator, Sandy White, took the word "isometric" from his old work as an architect after he recognized the in-game city's similarities to M. C. Escher's drawings; the city was named Antescher in tribute).
• Arcanum
  • Temple of Elemental Evil: A Classic Greyhawk Adventure uses the view, despite the characters (the backgrounds are 2d) being polygons (same company).
• A-Train III and IV
• Avernum
• Baldur's Gate
• Boktai and its sequels (including the Nintendo DS sequel known as Lunar Knights in North America)
• Brandish 4
• Breath of Fire III and IV
• Cadaver
• Civilization II and III; Civ 1 has a bird's eye view, while 4 and 5 feature a 3D world that generally hangs out at a 3/4ths view.
• Command & Conquer games Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun, compared to the top-down views of the first installments and full 3D of the third installments.
• Congo Bongo (platform game similar to Donkey Kong, but uses the same engine as Zaxxon)
• Crystal Castles (uses the "trimetric" projection variant)
• Culdcept
• Deadly Towers
• Desert Strike (and by extension, the rest of the Strike series)
• Devil Survivor
• Diablo 1 and 2.
• EarthBound uses this perspective when you visit Fourside, though it's a notable 45° instead of the traditional 30°-ish. This actually enhances the "city with tall buildings" effect.
• Enduro Racer (Sega Master System version only)
• Evony
• Excite Bike World Rally is in full 3D, but uses this perspective.
• Fallout 1 and 2 (both also use the Trimetric Projection variant).
• FarmVille (and for that matter most of the Flash games run by Zynga for Facebook)
• 8-bit games made with the Filmation engine; Knight Lore is the Trope Codifier to rightpondians.
• The Megadrive FIFA Soccer games
• Final Fantasy Tactics and its sequels.
  • And games that imitate it, like Luminous Arc and its sequels.
• Furcadia
• Future Spy (similar to Zaxxon, except it has different controls and a different setting)
• The GBA versions of the Harry Potter movie games.
  • Also, the PSP version of Lego Harry Potter
• Harvest Moon: Back to Nature (though its Game Boy Advance version, (More) Friends of Mineral Town uses a standard top-down perspective)
• Head Over Heels
• Hoshigami
• The Immortal
• Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (the Game Boy Advance version, not the PlayStation 2 remake)
• Landstalker
• Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
• The Last Ninja
• Light Crusader
• Little Big Adventure
• Madou Monogatari (Sega Saturn)
• Majin Tensei II
• Marble Madness
• Marchen Maze (platformer by Namco)
• Marvin's Maze (maze game by SNK superficially similar to Pac-Man)
• Mega Man Battle Network and its successor Mega Man Star Force
• Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (Sega arcade game)
• Mitsumete Knight R : Daibouken Hen
• the Nintendo DS version of My Sims Agents
• Mystic Towers
• Pac-Mania, sort of. Only the vertical axes are this, the horizontal ones are straightforward left/right.
• Paperboy
• Planescape: Torment
• Populous
• Postal
• Project Zomboid
• Q*bert
• Ragnarok Online
• RC Pro Am and its sequels
• RPM Racing for the Super NES, and it's more famous sequel Rock n' Roll Racing
• Return of the Jedi (arcade game by Atari based on the movie)
• Rollercoaster Tycoon, the first and second games. The third is in full 3D, but still has an option to view the 3D landscape at an Insometric Angle.
• Scurge: Hive has received the fan nickname "Isometroid" due to its isometric viewpoint and otherwise resembling another series. There actually was an Isometroid fanproject, taking the original game and displaying it from an angle, but as far as I know it never went anywhere.
• Shadowrun for the Super NES
• SimCity 2000 and its sequels, Trope Codifier
• The Sims
• Snake Rattle 'n' Roll
• Solstice, Altered Space and Equinox. The second game wasn't technically part of the series, but it might as well have been.
• Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island
  • Sonic Chronicles is another Sonic the Hedgehog game from this viewpoint.
  • There's also the Game Gear game Sonic Labyrinth and the Arcade Game Sega Sonic the Hedgehog.
• Spot Goes To Hollywood
• Geoff Foley's S.O.S.
• StarCraft, leading to Artanis' Stop Poking Me line, "I know it's not 3D!" while comparing Starcraft to Warcraft.
• Super Mario 3D Land uses this in certain areas. These tend to use Forced Perspective when it comes to jumping on platforms and footholds.
• Super Mario RPG
• Super Robot Wars
  • Ditto Battle Moon Wars, as it is an Affectionate Parody set in the Nasuverse
• Syndicate
• Sweevo's World and its sequel, Hydrofool.
• Tactics Ogre, both the original, Let's Cling Together, and its prequel, Knight of Lodis.
• Theme Hospital
• Tibia
• Torchlight
• The Childhood Mode of Tokimeki Memorial 2
• Transport Tycoon
• Tropico
• Ultima VII had what was probably one of the strongest and most distinctive isometric designs for all its graphics, which showed up again in Ultima Online.
• Most of the Turn-Based Strategy games by Nippon Ichi:
  • La Pucelle
  • Phantom Brave
  • Makai Kingdom
  • Disgaea
  • Soul Nomad and The World Eaters is the exception with full camera rotation. However, the camera still starts each battle at the angle the rest of the games use.
• Viewpoint
• X-COM and its brethren.
• Zaxxon and Super Zaxxon
• Zoo Tycoon

Other Examples

• Several Comcast commercials feature people driving around in an isometrically projected city/town, most likely in a Homage to SimCity 2000.
• M. C. Escher used isometric projection to create many of his iconic Alien Geometries. The same sort of line can be used for height and distance in an Isometric Projection, and so Escher used the same line to represent both—and left which one to the ever-shifting context.
• Habbo Hotel
• Homestuck mainly uses this perspective.
• Japanese DJ Halfby's music videos by Groovisions use isometric projection. See here, for instance.
• The art of pixel art group eBoy.