Original Guide, Part 5

Inanimate Objects

Try not to draw too many inanimate objects.  They're real pointless.  You can go on for pages, drawing the same square in exactly the same space, but why on earth would you ever want to go ahead and do something like that?

Once you can imagine that you can do anything, that's when things really start to have life when you see them on page.  Without the animate, there is no life.  That's what the Zen teach with flipbooks.

So, stay away from inanimate objects.  Learn how to avoid those unchanging shapes by picking up the way that a unit can go through an animation loop constantly.  Find out how to create panning, where the scenery can change at different speeds.  Put together this little puzzle in your head.  I know you can do it.  Just make sure that you follow all the rules, except the ones you have written.

Sets: The Background Layer

In order to design your own videogame world, you must design sets.  These are like stages and act as themes in the background of your flipbooks.

Arguably, you might consider the concept that runs as the theme for a flipbook to contain all of the elements of a set.  But just remember that it's necessary to consider that you can't have too many inanimate objects in a flipbook or else it will become tedious to draw.

The philosophy of a flipbook can be quite extensive.  Remember the concepts of Analog Basic.