How would I go about constructing a layered scene?

Right So watching the Unity showreel i noticed the game Max & The Magic Marker It inspired me to create a game along the same lines, I'm completely new to Unity and I would love to know how on earth I go about transferring my artwork onto a layered background.

Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atgyo5SQ_jU

Please help! - Caius

Use 3d planes with alpha, stacked up at different distances to achieve the parallax effect. Use a script to rotate them toward the camera.

An alternative to single camera is to use two or more cameras. By default they will both render to the entire screen. You set the depth of the cameras to determine which one renders first, and you set the clear flags of the later camera(s) so that it keeps the image from the first camera as the background.

This approach has a disadvantage, that the two cameras won't automatically move in sync. You may have to write a script to move the background camera (slowly) as the foreground camera moves with the player.

But this approach may occasionally be useful. Examples:

  • With the single camera solution, if the background plane needs to be very far away you might have issues with clipping planes and z-precision.
  • If parts of the background sometimes move independently of the foreground, for instance if they are on a vehicle and you want to show the background scenery moving by.
  • If you want to avoid interaction between the layers. For example, if there were objects that travel away from the camera and you find them running into the background plane.

I just thought it would be useful to mention this option. But I would start with the single-camera approach (alpine's answer) and add more cameras only if you need to. I'm guessing you won't.