Question: how to create BG that will fit with characters ?

[dsg_charly]

Hi there, 

I was wondering about how creating BG that will fit with characters  . I mean, in the processing of BG creation, do I need to start drawing a character, and then drawing the BG so proportions will be ok. 

Thank you for reading and answering. Hope it is understandable. 

PS: Hope it's not "out-of-topic". In that case, sorry for misposting.

[DoorKnobHandle]

This is not the right forum area, but I'm sure a mod will be so kind to move this thread.

As to your question: You could always paste your character image into the paint program in which you are drawing your background to check the proportions. There's no rule, just keep checking if your proportions are okay.

[Saberteeth]

Yeah, what dkh said. And you should test it in AGS just to be sure of the walkabe areas and stuff.

[Tuomas]

What I do is count the pixels, like as how tall the character is, and then draw a door that's suitable for it, and the rest to that.

[Khris]

Or you could use a decent gfx program (unlike paint) and paste the char into another layer. That way, you can easily move it around the screen without messing with your bg to check proportions.

[ildu]

There are so many dimensions of answers we could divulge. Why not tell us a bit more? For example, is your game gonna be cartoony or realistic? What resolution are you planning to use? Is the character gonna scale in-game?

[Afflict]

If its the porportions you are worried about in general ill say that a character should be one third of the height of the scree. eg: 200 = about 70 etc..

Other than that you can make the bg and then make a sprite until it fits and always use those as templates bettter yet just download a template export the graphics and voila you all set and ready to make that first adventure game.

[Scummbuddy]

You should be creating concept art anyways for all of your backgrounds, and most of your characters.

Here's something I got from some ags'er from time before. Whomever created it, please step up and credit yourself. I aplogize for not getting it the first time.

A sketch template. This pdf comes with 2 backgrounds for you to work out your sketches and then scan them in. It gives clues as to where you should end your drawing if you are planning on having the LucasArts GUI below, so you don't waste your time.

Here's what the creator had to say:

I have made a small Quark XPress document with two frames that fit on a piece of A4 paper. These frames are some 18 cm wide and 11 cm high; so they have the same proportions as a 320 x 200 pixels screen. I print these out and make my BG sketches on them.
After that I scan them in as 150 DPI greyscale images and use these as a "sketch" layer in photoshop.
I've also printed the Indiana Jones sprite on a transparent piece of paper (to scale) and I use that to judge distances and sizes in my sketch (tables, chairs, doorways, etc...)
Hope this helps...


A4 is a standard paper size: 210 mm wide, 297 mm heigh. A bit shorter and wider than US "letter" size...

Downaload the document here.

[Trumgottist]

I thought AGS was capable of scaling? If that's the case, why not worry about the size of the character later? Draw the background first, and then figure out how to scale the characters so that they'll be the right size.

(Yay Sludge!)

[DoorKnobHandle]

You can scale your characters using AGS, but it will obviously never look as good as if you had drawn the character in the proper size from the beginning. Try it out, draw a quick character sized 10x30 and then scale him up to 150% in AGS.

If at all, you should downscale only (<100% in AGS).