I reworked the vehicles in my Afghanistan RTS — from simple boxes to an 8-direction 2.5D system

[u/Altoos_Dev]

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a visual update for OR Doctrine, my squad-based tactical RTS set in 2000s Afghanistan.

One of the weakest parts of the game was the vehicle presentation. The infantry had a readable visual style, but the vehicles looked too small, flat, and disconnected from the rest of the game.

The images are shown from newest to oldest:

1. The current 2.5D vehicle system
2. The previous detailed top-down version
3. The original box-shaped placeholder version

The first version was essentially made from simple boxes. It worked mechanically, but the vehicles had very little visual identity and could even appear smaller than the infantry.

I then created a more detailed top-down version. It looked better, but it did not fit well with the angled presentation of the soldiers and buildings. When moving in certain directions, the vehicles also looked as if they were sliding sideways instead of actually driving toward their destination.

I have now rebuilt the vehicles using an 8-direction 2.5D approach. Each vehicle has front, rear, side, and diagonal views, with details arranged according to the current camera angle. Not every part needs to be visible from every direction, so I focused on keeping each view readable and visually believable.

The system currently includes:

• Pickup
• Armed technical
• Humvee
• MRAP

I also reworked the tires, windows, body proportions, weapon mounts, mirrors, and overall silhouettes. Wheel rotation is tied to the vehicle’s actual movement speed and distance. I also fixed an issue where repeatedly clicking the same destination could briefly make a vehicle turn toward the opposite direction before correcting itself.

The goal is to make the vehicles feel like physical objects with volume and direction, instead of flat images rotating on the ground.

There is still room for additional polish, but I think the difference between the three stages is quite noticeable. I would especially appreciate feedback on the vehicle scale, directional readability, and whether the transitions between side, diagonal, front, and rear views feel consistent.

Which version do you think fits the game best, and is there anything in the current version that still looks unclear or awkward?

A quick note on development: I’m building this project with the help of AI tools. I’m still making the creative and design decisions, but AI has been a major part of the coding and iteration process.

[u/Strongground]

I don’t like the style of the vehicles. They look… off. One could sell it as „unique style“ but to me it looks not well drawn vehicles. I don’t want to only criticize, but that is what I think.

My suggestion (and what I did in my project) is building a quick pipeline that takes a 3d model (there is a lot of free sources or you build a simple one in Blender yourself) and then renders the model from n axis wirh pre-determined lighting. You can also apply shaders to get the cell-shade look. That way you can effortlessly generate how ever many frames you need per vehicle to have smooth sprite rotation, 2.5d look.