welcome back everybody Alan Becker here
and you are watching flash tutorials
with Alan Becker so I got a request for
how to make backgrounds so yeah here's a
portion of my if water had eyes
animation where there's a lot of
background going on this is a going off
of a waterfall and falling down like
that so yeah I'm just going to go over
how to make it like detailed looking
backgrounds like this and how to make
other backgrounds as well so um
everything here is on a different layer
this mountain in that mountain in that
mountain and these trees and those
clouds are all on different layers so as
to make a 3d effect so let's just get to
it so um I don't know how when people
want to make mountains as backgrounds
but this technique is useful for any
type of background so what you do is you
take your pencil tool and you draw a
mountain so I'm using a tablet so it
makes it a little bit easier but just
make it jaggedy and then when you reach
the edge just go around and then make
sure you can do that so that you can
fill it in so let's take the paint
bucket and get a generally green color
and let's make it a little bit duller
because real life isn't always going to
be neon green bright so um then we take
our pencil tool and then we divide this
up further so let's say I want to add
some shadow to it so I take the pencil
tool and I draw where I want the shadow
of this mountain to be just
get jaggedy and I'm just kind of drawing
out where the highlight actually of the
mountain is so once I do that I take my
selection tool and select this part and
just drag this a little color thing down
and it's easy as that I have a shadow so
um now we just want to add maybe some
polar icecaps
so I go up here do that maybe I add a
little bit some extra snow here and some
snow here maybe some here alright so now
we take our selection tool again and
then we hold down shift and select all
our areas that are this color green
actually I might as well select this
part too so we want to change them to a
bluish white we don't want to make it
completely white so that we don't so we
can distinguish it from the background
then we take our shadowy ones and then
just drop it down here make sure it's a
good level of grey not too chromatic and
not too gray so here we go this is good
yeah it's looking good so far especially
with the the shadow so now we have take
our pencil tool you can press the Y key
on your keyboard and we just add some
further detail so just make some jagged
shapes and make sure they follow the
line of the mountain so if I was doing
like this it wouldn't look realistic
because it's not following the shape of
the mountain so I want to follow that
line that goes up the side of the
mountain just make some jagged shapes
maybe some darker darks here
yeah some other darks okay now we just
go in and alter the colors slightly so
that we get some differentiation so I go
here and I just move it maybe like up
make it a little lighter make this a
little bit darker or something yeah or
maybe lighter I don't know you got just
very slightly and then make this one
like darker this one can be darker this
one can be darker and darker and even
darker alright so now that we have all
this detail all we do is get rid of the
lines and the easiest way to do that is
to select everything go to our line
color stroke color and then select no
fill and bam we have our mountain now we
can just turn it into a symbol and move
it around as we want mount 10 woo okay
so now that's how you make a mountain
and if you want to make any other kind
of landscapes like that or anything that
has kind of shading like that that's how
you do it you draw pencils draw with the
pencil fill it in and then get rid of
the lines it's probably the easiest way
that I can think of so all next how to
make a sky so let's make a new layer and
hide this one and the easiest way to
make sky is to take the rectangle tool
and then just draw a rectangle here now
we take the color here go up here and
then choose linear gradient looks like I
already have my colors selected so I'm
just going to reset them so that we can
get a good idea what to do arm so we
press the F key and then we take this
rotation handle thing thing and then
rotate it until it looks like that and
then we drag it down so that it matches
our square we can also drag this here so
that it's more even okay so now we just
choose our colors so for the top color
we want the top to be darker because
when you look at a sky the the stuff
lower is is brighter because it's more
aligned with the horizon and there's
more oxygen or molecules of air to go
through so it looks brighter so up
higher it should be a dark darkish blue
maybe and more cyan so here in we can
just choose white if you want or you can
take the where you can pick a color here
and then just get rid of this one by
dragging it off and then you have a
generally writer white or brighter blue
so that's a good that's a good sky so we
can convert that to a symbol if we want
sure why not
sky okay and now we want to make our
clouds so let's make a new layer and
lock this layer and we take our pencil
tool and we the general pattern for
clouds that I use is bubbly at the top
straight at the bottom something like
this like that only a lot more
complicated so I make a lot of small
bubbles in a big bubble shape and then
kind of just do that so do whatever you
want
and just have fun I guess make some
happy little clouds then we take our
pencil or paint bucket tool and fill in
these clouds we want to have a radial
gradient yeah make sure that lock fill
is turned off otherwise it will paint a
huge gradient that covers the entire
screen and you won't be able to edit it
very easily
so do that do that you you want to UM
click where the around the bottom middle
so that the gradient Center is around
the middle so we take this color and we
press F and now I want to take this
gradient move it in and out okay so we
have the wrong colors so I probably
should have just done done one cloud and
then copied the color to the rest of
them so I'll probably do that anyway
what we want if we look at our clouds
here is something generally white on the
outside and purplish blue on the bottom
side that's usually what clouds look
like maybe not this bright but what we
could do something so maybe for now we
can just reverse these colors like that
make sure there's a white on the outside
and a dark blue on the inside let's
raise this up so that it's a little bit
more purple yeah like that and it can be
a little lighter I think so that looks
good now all we have to do is take our
eye dropper by pressing I clicking that
and then clicking here oh it didn't work
so let's press let's take off flock fill
again do that and then do it again
so now just take this press F and then
shrink it make it bigger drop it down
shrink it make it bigger drop it up and
then all we do is select all and then
change the stroke to no stroke we have
our clouds easy as that yeah okay so I'm
assuming that people want to eventually
have a cityscape some kind of thing with
buildings in it so I'm going to go
through that really quickly let's take
away our clouds and add a new layer so
um when when making backgrounds it's
important to understand the the
principle of atmospheric perspective if
you look here then you'll notice that
the things that are in front generally
have a brighter color and things in back
are generally cooler and at the same
time it's also more hazy so the things
in front are more there's more contrast
things in back more hazy or less
contrast so in with buildings the ones
in front are generally going to be
darker and all the ones in back are
going to be lighter so we want to mimic
that
so we first create our first layer of
buildings if I take the pencil tool and
just make some building type shapes just
geometric whatever's like that
then go around like that
and then we fill it in maybe a light
gray yeah
then we go on top of that with a new
layer of darker buildings that are also
bigger slightly bigger so make them
maybe taller and bigger wider now we go
around again fill it in with a darker
gray so I'm going to press K for the
fill in tool do that okay so now we just
select all and then no stroke and we
have our layers of of buildings so if we
select this one make it city one select
this one make it city two and we can
make a simple pan from left to right
where is our sky where we have one move
that way and this one move just a little
bit and then yeah
it'll
it'll look like a real city anyway yeah
and if you want to make a building like
one building that has a bunch of windows
and stuff there's a simple technique to
getting all those windows
fast so maybe I will walk these and then
okay so you take your rectangle tool and
just make a building and maybe I'll turn
on this stroke so I'll delete this and
then redo that so I will also delete the
fill so let's take a rectangle tool get
rid of the fill and then just make a
window so we have one window and we take
our selection tool double click the
square and then hold down alt while
dragging it and that will make a copy
okay so we want to make a ton of Windows
we could draw each one individually or
we could do this where we hold down alt
and do that and then select hold down
alt do that select hold down alt do that
and then
move this a little then hold down alt do
that
well that alt do that okay now all we do
is same thing downwards we just multiply
itself
I guess it the tricky part comes in the
alignment of it so yeah maybe when we go
down here we don't want as many so let's
just select this hold down alt and go
down so we have a simple building it
looks pretty decent so now I just take
our fill tool and fill in around the
windows so you can fill in the windows
underneath pretty easily let's just
convert this to a symbol first so that
it doesn't interfere with what we put
underneath it
building spelled wrong okay if we select
all and then deselect the building by
holding down shift and clicking get rid
of the lines so um we can take a simple
rectangle tool and make it dark and then
just make a square and we have our
building or we have the windows color
the windows what we could do if we
wanted is to give it like a gradient and
then kind of make the reflection of the
outside if we press F rotate around move
it up and then add like a dark blue
dark blue here light blue here and then
like gray or black and gray like that
then we can kind of get more of a effect
of a reflection and we can gray it down
if you want make it more like yeah like
the windows are dirty or something so
yeah it's a simple way to make a
building yep so that is how you make a
building buildings behind it a cloud and
a mountain so it's just taking the
pencil tool and making shapes on an
already filled object selecting those
colors and then altering the colors to
add variation yeah you can also use
reference photos to help you with the
line shapes and also the colors so um
yeah that is all I have about
backgrounds thank you for watching and
I'll see you guys later