[Adonthell-devel] Graphics aspect ratio not honored by the engine

[Kai Sterker]

Might seem somewhat picky, but while working on pathfinding and now
map-building, I figured that we are not 100% consistent with the
assumed projection of our view, as described here:

  http://adonthell.berlios.de/doc/index.php/Graphics:Angle

With regards to pathfinding, we use a square grid instead of the 4:3
ratio of X and Y axis. I don't think this will cause much harm, but it
might make diagonal movement look somewhat odd. Also, regarding
movement, the speed of characters is not adjusted to that ratio. It's
the same for movement along X and Y axis, which means that walking in
Y direction will actually appear faster than walking in X direction.

The question is, how could we account for this ratio? In principle, it
is only a convention and it would be possible to come up with a
different graphical style that would require other numbers. So
hardcoding it into the engine appears out of question.

Should it therefore be something that can be "configured" instead?
Although it would then have to go into a game-specific data file.
Somewhere in the world module probably. area_manager could be a
fitting place, but we might want to precalculate base-speeds in both X
and Y direction (Z too?) from that, as well as collision grid size.

Any opinions on that? Or would this seem an issue too small to worry about?

Kai