User Guide

Academic Courseware: Chapter 4
Joyce Ryan
39
Chapter 4
The Background Art
Now that the characters have been drawn, cleaned up and painted, you
need to create your backgrounds. Imagine your character is driving
along the road. How do you make the view outside his car window
appear to move? With a moving background.
Creating a moving background
In the following example, the character of Vince is layered over a
background of the car interior. The car interior is a simple vector shape
that leaves a transparent opening to view the background through.
Next, the background art is created in a file that is much wider than the
window. This is referred to as a “pan cel.” We are going to move the
background across a movie. This will create the illusion of the character
moving through the background.
A “pan” in animation refers
to moving a background painting
under a camera to create the illusion of
motion. In live action, the camera
would move, “panning” across a
background to create the same effect.