Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
While creating backgrounds, it's important to understand which paint package
will be used for the final render. Photoshop, using raster images, can be used to
create massive amounts of detailed textures and lighting. Vector images tend to be
flatter, although you can create some truly astounding lighting and impressions
of depth and distance with a bit of clever manipulation of the software, particu-
larly using gradients. Figure 4.10 shows a background from the game
Weird
Helmet,
created by Star Mountain Studios. The background was created first as
a pencil layout and then painted in Flash. All of the texture shown on the tool-
bar at the bottom was created as separate, small vector pieces. The finished effect
is one of an aged, highly textured background, but because it is vector, it is highly
scalable and a much smaller file size than a raster image.
FiGuRe 4.10
The background for
Weird Helmet
needed to convey an
impression of being in outer space using just flat color and vector art.
Even though a game may be designed strictly for 2D gameplay, occasionally
a more realistic world needs to be created. Although pencil layouts work well
for this, using a 3D package to build a rough layout of the environment works
exceptionally well. One of the benefits is that the designer can rotate the camera
