PERSPECTIVE OR ORTHOGRAPHIC FOR RPG

If you're using 2D sprites I'd go with orthographic every time. Using perspective with 2D characters and 3D backdrops causes a juxtaposition that I don't think the eye and brain are capable of resolving, so it looks jarring.

I'm not entirely sure, sorry. I think the other thing that makes the 3D in the Pokémon games less jarring is that it still looks "pixelated" like the 2D sprite. The main thing preventing your screenshot from looking natural is that your models are smoother than the character, if that makes sense?

Probably not. Honestly people probably wouldn't complain too much, I'm just trying to give you some constructive feedback on the potential pitfalls of such an approach.

well it has been used in games like Grandia am not sure how they achieved this tho, but u can move the camera round with a button on controller (i played it back on ps1). But i say depending on the sprites u can achieve either. but for the current sprites u using Orthographic looks better :).

author=Trihan
I guess it depends on the level of detail in the sprites, but the angle in the Pokémon games also isn't quite "perspective" as far as I can tell. It's not orthographic, but it seems to be somewhere in between. Either way I prefer it when they have 2D on 2D or 3D on 3D, but your mileage may vary.

"somewhere in between" doesn't exist, its either ortographic or its not -- what can change is the degree of the camera lens (i don't know how to say this)

An example in selfies (the first ones look almost ortographic)
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--dLuLjk5j--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/18kxy5bbtul32jpg.jpg

this too, notice how the one on the right has perspective lines rapidly shrinking as they go back:
https://cdn.photographylife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Perspective-Distortion.jpg
Or here, too:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3556/3790704704_16ba8a864d.jpg

in fact if im not mistaken, most huge moon photos are made through use of lens that "shrink" the background less, since the moon is so far it ends up looking huge:
http://www.popphoto.com/sites/popphoto.com/files/styles/large_1x_/public/capepallisersupermoon_0.jpg?itok=bB34PuTv
(the other half of the times its just really photoshop XD)

author=ZeroColours
Yeah, the ds probably did not have enough capabilities to handle pokemon white and black. Thus, it most likely added in that 'pixelated' effect.

That "pixelated" effect has nothing to do with capabilities and it also wasn't added in. IT is just because the DS resolution is low, which is also the case for the Playstation 1 (240p) and Playstation 2 (480p)

320x240 is the size Breath of Fire 3 is rendered, and model pixels and character pixels have the same size:


They're rendered at 320x240 not because of lack of system capacity, but because it is the video output. BTW Breath of Fire 3 is not ortographic, as one can see.

Valkyrie Profile, on the DS, is rendered at 256x192.


This is the render resolution of Final Fantasy X-2, I believe, though it does look like it has some sort of filtering, anti-aliasing or resizing tacked on. But it's more or less this size.


Tl;dr no need to make it HD if you aren't making Final Fantasy 16.
Keep your sprite's pixels the same size as the 3D models' pixels and it'll look good. Tack an 8-bit looking sprite on a super HD 3D field and render it on 1080p and it won't look too good.