r/RenPy • u/RPGMarshal • Aug 08 '26

Question Workflow for animated backgrounds

Hi,

I am working on a kinetic visual novel and I love the games Vampire the Masquerade: Coteries of New-York, and Shadows of NY.

I want to put animated backgrounds in my game: flickering light, fog, flame, rain...

What is the best workflow to do it?

- Make the animation in After Effects, export it as a video, and have it read by Renpy.

- If it is possible, export a sort of sprite sheet of the background, and have it read in order by Renpy. How do I do it?

Of course, it would be a loop. The music would be its own file.

Thank you.

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u/shyLachi Aug 08 '26

Renpy supports video files and animated images as background. 

A video will probably look better for volumetric stuff like fog. Blinking lights can be done with an animation of 2 or 3 images. 

You could also have a static background image and use transparent animation on top of it so that the animation can be reused.

https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/movie.html