TUTORIAL: Building games in Flash 5
Part 2: Scrolling backgrounds.

Author: David Doull
Date: 10/04/01
Download source files: tut2.zip

Step 4 : Parallax scrolling

This example only has one scrolling background but you can improve the look of your game by adding in a second scrolling background. Your second background could be some stars or distant mountains. If you set the scrollSpeed for this background to a slower amount you will get an effect known as parallax scrolling - it gives a nice feeling of depth to the game.

Try adding in a second scrolling background yourself. You will follow the same steps and use the exact same code as you did for the ground. The only difference is that the graphic will be something different (eg: stars) and that the movie clip instance names will be different (eg: stars and mainStars). And the set the speed to a slower speed such as 4.

The code for you mainStars movie clip should be something like (assuming you have named your movie as stars)

onClipEvent (load) {
stars.duplicateMovieClip("stars2", 1000);
stars2._x = stars._x+stars._width;
starsStartx = this._x;
starsSpeed=4;

}


onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
if (_root.spaceship.scrollStart){
	this._x-=starsSpeed;
	if (this._x<= (starsStartx-stars._width)){
		this._x=starsStartx-starsSpeed;
	}
}

}

This source file demonstrates parallax scrolling with a stars background: tutorial2_partd.fla

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