Chapter 4 Perspective, Scene Design, and Basic Animation 99
players enter this scene, they would anticipate seeing characters and traps
related to this type of setting. Opponents would be dimly colored and might
be ghosts and skeletons. Anything brightly colored, like a shiny coin, would
likely be a reward. In general, dark colors identify opponents and bright colors
identify rewards or friends.
Storyboards
Before you design a scene you must fi rst create a storyboard to sketch
out the design. A sketch of the important frames each with the general ideas
for motion, traps, and rewards is called a storyboard, Figure 4-10. Story-
boards have been used for years in the motion picture industry. They help
organize and plan what will happen in a video game or movie. Your story-
board does not need to present great detail, but it should serve as a guide
to the digital design of the scene. The storyboard will also help the scene
designer to set the dimensions of the frame.
If a tree is supposed to fall and become
an obstacle, it must be programmed as an
active object instead of a backdrop object.
Active objects can be the player, obstacles,
objectives, tokens, or anything programmed to
move or interact with the player.
The background, backdrop, and active
objects are assembled to create a game
scene. With these objects in place, the
character can be programmed to collect the
healthy food items to build strength points and
subtract points for eating junk food like the
cupcake.
These are the active objects for the game.
(Continued)
The background object, backdrop objects, and active
objects are assembled to create the scene.