• 2D

  • How can I set-up a starmap as background for a Space based RTS

I am currently working on a space based RTS on and off and one thing that bugs me is that I can't figure out how to make the star background look good. It will be a isometric 2d game. I have added an image as a background like in a few tutorials but I can not make it so that it gives the illusion of being the background like with all the space games I played thus far.

I have added a sprite but how do I scale it so the camera can not go beyond it. How do I see the scale of the map if it is not a tilemap as basis but only a few sprites (asteroids, clouds, planets). Is it a terrible Idea to not use a tilemap?

Does anybody know a few good pointers on how to get this set-up properly?

If it helps the code is hosted on my gitea with git-lfs https://git.wegmueller.it/Toasterson/von-neumann The code is open-source. I am not sure about the exact license but probably GPL with paid binaries to help fund the Project.

Looking forward for any tips and pointers on how to get this working. Thanks and Greetings Toasterson

7 days later

Hi Toasterson,

Check out CanvasLayers (https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.1/classes/class_canvaslayer.html#class-canvaslayer) if you haven't already. They allow you to keep background images in place while moving a Camera around. There's also ParallaxBackground (https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.1/classes/class_parallaxbackground.html) which you'll notice actually inherits from CanvasLayer. They may be useful to allow you to perhaps layer multiple background images on top (like layer your galaxy.png over your stars_texture.png and make the galaxy.png layer move slightly faster than the stars_texture.png as your Camera pans around, etc)

Hope this helps.