dev log 15/08

After playing Hollow Knight and marveling at the intricate backgrounds, I went back to my project and switched the camera from Orthographic to Perspective.  I can't think of a single change which has affected the art style of my game as severely. 

I can maybe see the merits of an Orthographic camera in a pixel art game, to keep all the sprites at a single layer, and control the overlapping with the sprite renderer, but honestly, the Perspective camera really just helps the layers fall into place. 

Things in the far distance can be placed far back in the scene, and will subsequently follow the player in the background realistically - in the way a far-off mountain do seem to follow you. Similarly you have a non binary control over how fast things scroll past as you walk past them by setting them at different levels. 

The one challenge of this change is that the Unity 3D editor camera is not really designed for a 2D game. In 2D mode, the camera controls by clicking and dragging across, which is ace. it works perfectly. In 3D mode, the camera works like a first-person shooter, meaning you are kind of slowly strafing across the environment.

I wish you could lock the plane the camera sits for the editor, or alternatively maintain the 2D control, but see a perspective view. 

Regardless, I can kind of jerry-rig a solution by switching between the two cameras as needed. 

It just reminds me that Unity is fundamentally a 3D engine, and working in 2d within the engine is always working slightly uphill.