Depth: walking behind scenery, parallax and haze

Make scenes feel deep: characters shrink in the distance, walk behind counters and fences, and layers move at different speeds.

A shopkeeper behind the counter, a girl hiding behind the stall.

Distance

Under Look & feel → Depth, the far line and near line set how small characters are at the top of the street and how big near the camera. Characters grow as they walk toward you, and walk slower in the distance.

Scenery characters can go behind

Make a cut-out of the thing characters should go behind — the front of a counter, a fence, a row of bushes — as a stage-sized PNG that's transparent everywhere else.
Add it to the scene. Select it in the Cast panel and set Depth to In the scene — characters can go behind it (files named like fence, counter or bushes are set up this way automatically).
Check the green ground line on the stage (turn on Show depth lines to see all of them). It's detected from the bottom of the art; move it with the Ground line slider or press Detect from the art again.
Characters whose feet are above the line are drawn behind the cut-out; below it, in front. Give the layer a description such as “front of the market stall” so the AI knows what it is.

Depth order and moving layers

The Depth order list in the Cast panel shows every background, cut-out and foreground from nearest the camera to furthest: In front of everyone, In the scene (with your characters and props) and Behind everyone. Press ▲ or ▼ to move a layer, including into or out of the scene.

To move a layer, select it and drag it on the stage, or type Across and Up/down in the Cast panel; the Size slider makes it bigger or smaller. A cut-out's ground line moves with it. Reset position puts it back.

Tip A cut-out made from a background still shows in that background, so moving it leaves a copy behind. Move cut-outs drawn as their own art, or erase the original from the background.

Tip Ask the AI for it directly: “the shopkeeper stands behind his counter”, “she hides behind the fence, then jumps out”. It knows which layers can hide someone and where. If someone speaks while completely hidden, the Direct tab warns you.

Parallax

Backdrops and full-screen foregrounds have a Distance: 0 stays fixed like a sky, below 1 moves less than the characters when the camera pans or zooms (distant hills), above 1 moves more (leaves right in front of the camera). With several layers, Look & feel → Depth → Set up parallax spreads them from back to front in one click. Camera follow shots and close-ups show it best.

Tip A cut-out made from a background should move with that background: leave the background's Distance at 1.

Haze

Turn on Haze in Look & feel → Depth and pick an air colour: characters toward the far line fade into it, as on a misty morning.

Ground and air

PixelStory knows where the ground starts on every built-in background, and guesses it for your own (adjust it in Look & feel → Ground and air; the ⊥ guides show it as an orange line). A character you put above that line is up in the air — on a ledge, a roof or a cloud — drawn exactly where you put it.

Fall — drops with gravity straight down (or to a spot you pick) and lands with a thud and a bump.
Jump — an arc to a spot or on the spot; also for jumping down from a ledge.
Fly — moves through the air at a height above the ground: birds, ghosts, balloons, someone floating up.
Place has a Height too, to start someone up in the air.

Tip Just tell the AI: “the character falls to the ground”, “the bird flies over to the roof”, “she jumps down from the wall”. It knows where the ground is and who's in the air.

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