Hmm... I think I figured out some version of a workaround, at least for me. The trick is, I think I am trying to convert this to 3d so that it matches the default camera. However, the way I should be going around is the exact opposite, which is by just having us change the camera to a default location. This way, I don't have to edit much of anything from the side perspective, and instead work around the already established top-down look, and just change the camera angle to make it look like you are viewing it from the side! This could work... And get rid of a huge chunk of scripting I would have to do! Haven't attempted it yet, but I feel like that will be much easier than what I am trying to do in the screenshot...
So there is no way at all to effect z at all using scripting...? That’s all I really need to do for it to look correct... That, or use the distortion effect to make it rise up or down, depending on how high you go... That, or it’s effected by you speed when you leave the ramp... (Maybe use the bike’s shadow, since that only appears when one is in the air?)
Scripting will work for adjusting the Z offset for a shape. The problem becomes all Y movement becomes Z movement. Moving up and down the track will look as intended, but then Y movement from jumping in the air will turn into Z movement as well. I like the idea of using the shadow as an indicator to when not translate Y to Z, though.
I believe the shadow COULD solve it because every bike has its own shadow. In fact the shadow is the bike projection to xz plane so the convert formula is something like that:
- Input: bike 2d position: bx0, by0 ; shadow 2d position: sx, sy
- Output: bike 3d position bx1, by1, bz1
Convert formula:
bx1 = bx0;
by1 = by0 - sy;
bz1 = sy
That's the idea. In detail it's a little more complex because there are multiple bikes and shadows in a scene so we have to match/ pair a shadow with a bike. But that's just implementation detail.
Ah, I see! That might work as intended... While wouldn't work while going up ramps, that would just be something rather minor, I believe... (Or you could also try linking that to specific instances of the bike's motion, seeing as when going up a ramp, it needs to switch over to different sprites... Implementing this would be the difficult part though. 
Here are a few images in two instances, where they go up a hill and change a sprite while also moving along y. The second one shows the shadow sprite, and how it moves sideways along the sprite. Will that script help solve this? And if so, how will I implement it...? (I wish I had more experience with scripting, but stuff tends to blow up in my face when I attempt it...)
You should regroup all ramp tiles into a pattern.
In script we could detect if a 2d bike intersect with a ramp shape or not, from that intersection we could estimate its 3d y and z. It's still a trial and error process though.
Other things will complicate the situation for example:
- two bikes one on ground, one in the air have the same x and a shadow, how to matching?
- the bike goes through and intersect with two consecutive small ramps, how to interpret?
In principle it's doable but it's still very big challenge scripting wise at least for me.
Just pass me your wip 3dn, i will see what can i do with it.
It certainly sounds doable, but I agree, very very complicated...
And yeah, I will adjust the ramps to do that, I haven't even started messing with those yet though, I am focused on making sure this works for the most part, before I pu t more work into it.
And sure, I can pass that along! Just know that like in the screenshots, it is rather messy, as I haven't gotten that far into the process yet!