Not quite, In 3/4 you're looking at the side of a cube, in isometric, you're looking into the corner. So in 3/4, you may be looking North, where iso, it may be NW. 3/4 | | |____| / / / / Iso | | /\ / \
here's some pictures i've been able to find on google to explain you the differences between the twos, since words aren't really acurate to explain this kind of thing. 3/4 overhead view: see? 3/4 overhead view is the way how you see a character, by exemple. 2d zelda's are in 2d overhead view (apart of zelda 2 and those cd-i games). Overhead means over the head (wow!) and overhead 3/4 means, if i can remember what i learnt in my art classes well, a quart of what you see is the head, while the 3/4 is for the body. but this isn't a strict rule, like you can see on the picture over this text. As for isometric, everything is in angle, and you see 3 faces (left, right and head or foot (if you still take the character exemple)), there's no perspective and every normal angles are of 30 degres. one good game exemple i could give is super mario rpg.
cahaz is right. Isometric literally means "same size" or "same measure" (in Greek). So isometric images are deformed in order to show detail (or because the artists hadn't "discovered" perspective yet as in most pre-Rennaisance art) However, when it comes to the video game world I don't think the terminology is as well defined as in art. So really, I think oldprogie's explanation fits better. 3/4 view games are head or side-on angled view and isometric games are diagonal angled view (pseudo-3D). But really, even those definitions shouldn't be held too rigidly. In many cases either term would probably be used for either type of view in a video game. ...word is bondage...
Isometric comes from the terms "Iso" (the same) and "Metric" (Measure) - where the translated axes measure the same in the 2d plane. In architecture, Isometric is generally when these axes are respectively 30 and 120 degrees from the horizontal axis (if I remember correctly, anyway. It's been years). 45 and 135 degrees, I think we called it "military" view. Why? No idea. But Isometric is generally the 30, 120 variety. Also, to add to Cahaz's Idea. 120 degrees is the more faraway angle from the origin. The image begins at 30 degrees. From 30 to 120, that's 90 degrees. 90/120 = 9/12 = 3/4. Edit Ah! Sweater Fish Deluxe beat me to it! Yay!
Woo! But...did we even say the same thing (apart from the translation of "isometric")? All that degrees stuff flew over my head. I never even took geometry, let alone drafting or whatever. I'm trying to think, though. Given the looser definitions of 3/4 and isometirc that I think apply to video games, what would be an example of a 3/4 view game? I mean there's plenty of stuff like Ikari Warriors that are head-on 3/4 view, but aren't there some games that are side-on 3/4 view, too? That's what I really think of whe I think of 3/4 view games, but I can't think of a single example. By the way, I always thought that 3/4 view meant that the view was 3/4 of the way between a bottom-up view and a top-down view, which would also be halfway between the basic sideview and top-down. ...word is bondage...
Cahaz, Thanks for the images. that helped clear things up in a nice simple way for my tired brain I must get some sleep..... Yakumo
