Working with layers and parallax (Question)

Hello all,

I'm on the level design phase currently of my project, and it dawned on me this is probably a good question to ask (lol, probably before I got started). I've been creating my enviroments until now, on seperate layers in Gimp, to keep everything nice and tidy (walls/floors on a layer, ceilings on another, backgrounds on layers 3 until about 8). Makes it a ton easier in fixing problems and creating modular "sets".

My question, is this a good move, and should I work with the layers inside C2, or just compile the image inside of gimp beforehand, putting all the non-moving (floors/walls/backdrop interiors) into one image, then making it a main layer inside of C2 instead.

I could see where it might be a good idea use multiple layers inside of C2 (tying affects/animations to seperate layers), however most of modular levels I've been using, use a size of 3200x3200 (big levels, and to keep the graphics nice on rescaling of the engine). If there is a smart way to go about this while doing the design and artwork, would save a ton of work later, please let me know

the end result being a 2d sidescroll with multiple layers at different speeds (aka foreground trees move by as your walking, at a faster rate, than background trees). Some I'd like to have with up to 10 layers, to give a lot of life to the enviroment without using ton's of animations inside the engine.

please read ashley's "performance guide"

it is generally a bad idea to use big images since it has a huge impact in performance.you should always try and use tiled backgrounds and tilesets for your scenery,

creating tilesets gives you the creative freedom to change anything on the fly. imagine that you created a huge level as one image and down the road you figure out thet your player needs to jump a lot higher to reach the next platform.what do you do? you either change the players jump strength and you destroy the rest of the level design or you go back and redesign the whole image on photoshop! not to efficient dont you think?

Definitely split into smaller textures, 3200x3200 is too big, personally i would stick to 1024x1024 max for textures ...

depending on your target platform some GPU's can not display images above 2048

Ha, had a response in length, and ofc page refreshed and deleted it all , rofl.

Thank you guys for the advice, I'll gladly take it. I want a complete set of C2 ready, plug-and-play artwork ready for when the time comes for coding, animation and eventing. I'm glad I asked, as this let's me know I need to change a few things.

Luckily, I do use tilesets. One of the reasons the area was so large, was to incorporate an entire set of say 30-35 rooms before hitting a loading screen. It wouldn't be displayed all-at-once by any means, but rather a small portion of it (whatever room you were in). I thought it might be a good idea in tandem with scaling it down, and using it for a top corner minimap, as well as a inventory screen map, minimizing a little work. Busting the rooms down shouldn't be a problem, to reduce layer size. However, it may create a ton more work, in figuring out a way to break up the layered moving backgrounds for each individual room,

I'll definitely take a look through ashleys guide, and try to do some more reading on correct level design. I also grabbed Rex's awesome plugins before I started, thinking that the canvas plugin might be exactly for that purpose. I could be way off base, and need to read up on it too.

If this helps : (link with project and photo's)

--https://www.scirra.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=100433--

Due diligence, managed to answer my own question

Thanks guys for the help! Much appreciated.