Using Poser to Render Isometric Assets for Flash

I found a few posts that explained the trick to creating isometric renderings using Poser. A trick is necessary because Isometric cameras in Poser are orthogonal only. The trick is to tilt the model instead of the camera – duh. But yes, I did search for this “trick”.

It is a good idea to create a reference object in Poser to “lock down” the angles to match your game’s POV, and use the Front Camera. I created a box prop and set the angles that worked with ffilmation: X:45, YU:0, Z:30. I made the box 2% yScale so that it would be used as a tile.

For walking characters it is recommended that the reference tile be sized to match the game tile. This can be confirmed by superimposing a render of the tile from poser over a default game screenshot with a grid visible. The character footprint should be contained within the tile boundary like a chess piece.

When you import third-party props they will appear in a default angle.

The Rotation settings that worked for the character and the reference tile didn’t work for the props.

I had to manually adjust the rotation settings of all three axis to get desired angles. This is not as simple as could be because Poser limits rotation transformations to cardinal planes, and our model is oblique to at least 2 of them.

I used the reference tile to confirm that I was close to the correct compound angles by intersecting the props in various places.

Once the prop was close enough I exported a .png, which preserves alpha transparency in Flash.

If I need another angle of the prop, another manual setup is required because the other iso camera angles are generally useless.

I use a copy of the same prop. I recommend doing a final render with all prop angles instances in the frame together. This keeps the lighting angle consistent, and I can cut and stack them in Fireworks to preserve their coordinate registration.