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When pre-rendering 3D models as isometric 8-directions sprites, should I (1) rotate the camera, (2) rotate the camera + lights or (2) rotate just the object?
I'm so confused about this, and I can't figure out whether the lights were rotated or not, for example when checking Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 graphics.
I even extracted ALL of Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 sprites (~29k pngs) but still can't figure out what exactly was rotated when rendering.
I guess I'll simulate it first in real-life, but the answer is kind of obvious: the sun and the light source are stationary, then either the camera or the object rotates.
But then why every tutorial I saw recommends rotating both the camera and the light? That's what so confusing.
@alfredbaudisch Is rotating the camera + light == rotating the object?
@stephann good point
@alfredbaudisch the only reason for rotating the lights with the object that comes to my mind is for visual consistency between different frames: if light comes from the right, a character walking to the left would have the front side in shade and one could decide to avoid this. But this would only work with a very flat/uniform ambient lighting, otherwise the change in lighting when rotating the sprites would be too apparent 
@oldschoolpixels thanks for the tip, I did a bunch of tests last night and rotating the light alongside the object seems the way to go to render " 3D as pixel art" to keep the consistency.
@alfredbaudisch well, come to think of it, in a platformer, for example, the artist will draw the character with a fixed lighting and it will be flipped for moving left and right, so it makes sense... still super counterintuitive, though.