LonelyBond #41 - Animating Environments

Hello everybody, I hope you've had a fantastic week! :)

Remember how last week I've said I'd finish this environment and move on to the next one?

Well... It might have taken a bit more than I've expected - but I really like the results!

As you can see (although GIF's ruin quality), I've done quite a few things:

• Messed around with the colors of the tree

• Added clouds (I'm not proud of how long it took me to paint 2 clouds, but I think they turned out ok?)

• Animated the water

• Made the leaves fall down from the tree and float with the river

• Changed the look of the ground (hopefully for the better?)

• The background is now parallax!

What is a parallax background you ask?

See in this GIF how it looks like how the background has depth although it's a 2D image?

This is thanks to it being a parallax background!

It works like so - when you move the camera (in this case, to the right) you move background objects that are far away a bit to the same direction as well, causing them to 'move slower out of the way.

This is a small but cool trick that I hope will make players feel even a tiny bit more immersed :)

Other than all of that, I'm still working behind the scenes on scheduling myself for GDC and PAX East.

It might be a good time (as any) to say that when I'll be gone for the event (from March 15th until April 2nd) I won't be able to work on the game - but I will try and update the blog with some kind of cool info about the conventions!

Next week I'm working on a new environment (I promise :P)

See you soon! :)