Make characters further back on screen

I have scowered youtube and I still have no idea how to make my characters be a little further back in the background. My episode story is a little bland because of it.

1 Like

Do you mean further back as in the position of the character, or the layer?

If you mean the position then use:

@[CHARACTER NAME] spot [s] [y]
X for where you want the character to be positioned horizontally, and Y for where you want to position it vertically.
@[CHARACTER NAME] walks to spot [s] [y] in [s]
If you want them to move to that certain position in a specific amount of time (in seconds).
Tip: Use the spotting tool in which you could find in the preview screen, there should be a button that says “Directing Helper”.
Press on that, then press “Spot Helper”.
Move your character freely until you get it to the position you want, you can copy that spot (you can find the position below the preview screen) and paste it into your script.

If you mean layers then use:

@[CHARACTER NAME] moves to layer [number]
Tip: The lower the number is, the closer it is to the background, the higher it is, the closer it is to the front of the stage (it will be infront of characters in lower layers).

Have fun directing!

Having characters stand far back in the background without using spot directing:

Using Spot Directing:

An example using spot directing:

@JOHN spot 1.280 200 0 in zone 2 at layer 2

You would move the character around, test which spot they should be at, copy their coordinates into your script & save.

You can also make them face a direction by adding AND CHAR faces left/right to the end of the code.

To understand how layers work, check out: HOW TO: Move Characters / Overlays to the Layers

Don’t forget S (or sometimes written using %) which would be the size of the character.

@CHARACTER NAME spot [s] [y]
@CHARACTER NAME walks to spot [s] [y] in T

Also, to the user, you can check out this guide on Spot walking: Spot Walking (Walking w/Spot Direction)

oh yeah lol, thanks

No problem :smile:

We all make mistakes, and the fact that S X Y are so close together as a generic code can lead to errors when we’re writing it : )

Mess ups do happen, whether it be forgetting one of them or changing the order they are in lol

Have a great day! :heart:

To the user, good luck! :black_heart:

1 Like

Thank you moth so much! This is really helpful. Good luck with your directing mate!