In this project I was to create an animated full HD main menu background for the game developed with GameMaker™ engine. Client had layered Adobe Photoshop file with static artist’s vision of the background. Main requirements were small size of the assets and optimized loading times.
Looping animation of the background as a whole would be too “heavy” or too short and after several repetitions the loop would become obvious. I saw the solution in animating separate elements over a static background and using different loop lengths for elements to create “endless” ever shifting loop.
I was not familiar with GameMaker™ before this project, but engineering research skills helped me find all the documentation regarding file formats, compressions and graphical layer blending in terms of hours. Which made me confident that I would be able to meet the client’s needs and expectations.
The hardest part was to prepare the provided Adobe Photoshop file for animation – I had to neatly cut out all the dynamic parts that were to be animated and redraw the background behind them. I had necessary skills to perform that task due to my hands on experience in the printing shop.
After applying motion design skills for animating all the elements I exported my work in optimized format and prepared thorough documentation for the final assembly of the animated background on the client’s side. Because my engineering teachers always said: “Product without proper documentation becomes impotent if not dangerous!”
client's quote
He did a phenomenal job.
