In this project, you will be learning how to create your own background. This can mean anything from editing one from the scratch library or creating a new backdrop entirely. It’s all up to you!
Here’s how to start:
First, find this backdrops tab in a new Scratch project. Your screen should look something like this:
You have a couple options from here. Let’s explore each one of them. To do this, click the small blue plus icon in the bottom left hand corner. It should show a menu of different options.
When you click on the icon indicated in the picture above, you will see a menu like this come up:
The top camera icon allows you to take a picture and use it as your backdrop.
The next option from the top, with the small arrow, allows you to upload any picture from your device onto Scratch so that you can use it as a backdrop.
Following these two symbols is the small sparkle-like icon, which gives you a surprise backdrop. It will pick any image from the Scratch backdrop library and give it to you to use for your project.
After this comes the paintbrush icon. As you might have guessed, this lets you paint your own background.
There are different tools you can use when painting your backdrop.
Here are a few:
Fill: Select a larger area you would like to fill, and then change the color of that entire section.
Text: Add in text wherever you want in your background. This can be especially useful for starting and ending screens in games.
Select: This helps you select parts that you might want to change in size, duplicate, or delete.
Paint: This gives your mouse pointer the brush effect, so you can draw a digital background.
Eraser: As you may have guessed, this helps you get rid of your mistakes. You can also change the size of your eraser if needed.
Shapes: There are 3 different shape options: a square, a circle, and a line. You can use these to draw more solid figures on your background. The outline, filling, and size of the shapes are all changeable.
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