Choose a Backdrop

Learning Goals 3 min

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

1. Add backdrops to a project from the Backdrop library.
2. Explain how a backdrop differs from a sprite.
3. Hold several backdrops in one project ready to switch between.

Warm-Up 7 min

New arc, new project. Everything you have built so far has happened against a plain white rectangle, or whatever backdrop happened to be there. Today the background stops being an afterthought.

Quick-fire puzzle

Faiz added a beach picture to his project. Then he tried to make it move with a motion block, and nothing happened. Why not?

when flag clicked
move (50) steps
        

New Concept — the Stage and its wardrobe 15 min

Sprites are the actors; the Stage is the set. Actors walk about, change costume and answer the audience. The set does none of that — it simply defines where the story is happening, and changes only when the scene does.

Backdrops are the Stage’s costumes

You already know how costumes work: a sprite owns several and wears one. Backdrops are exactly the same idea applied to the Stage. It owns several and displays one.

The tab even changes its name to prove it. Select a sprite and it says Costumes; select the Stage and the same tab says Backdrops.

Where the backdrops live

Bottom-right of the editor, just below the Sprite list, there is a second round button showing a small picture. That is the backdrop button, and it fans out the same four options as the sprite one: choose, paint, surprise, upload.

The library is organised by theme — Outdoors, Indoors, Space, Sports, Underwater, Fantasy, Music, Patterns. For a kampung, Outdoors is where you want to be.

A project can hold many, and show one

Adding a backdrop does not replace the one you had. They accumulate, exactly like costumes, and the Stage displays whichever is currently selected. That is what makes a two-scene story possible — which is Lesson 32.

Why it matters

Setting does an enormous amount of storytelling for free. The same cat, the same dialogue, in front of a farm or a spaceship, is two completely different stories — and it cost you nothing but a click.

Worked Example — building the kampung 15 min

We stock the project with the backdrops the whole arc will need, and put the cast in place.

Step 1 — Find the backdrop button

Look at the very bottom-right of the editor. Below the Sprite list there is a narrow panel showing the Stage, with a round button beneath it. Hover over it and the four options fan out.

Step 2 — Add the daytime kampung

Click the magnifying glass and choose Outdoors. Pick Farm. The Stage changes immediately, and your cat is suddenly somewhere rather than nowhere.

Step 3 — Add a sprite that belongs there

From the sprite library, add a Hen and place it to the right of the cat. Nothing about your project has changed technically, and yet it now reads as a place with a story in it.

Step 4 — Add the night backdrop too

Open the backdrop library again and add Stars. The Stage switches to it straight away — which is worth noticing, because you have not lost the farm.

Step 5 — Prove you still have both

Click the Stage in the Sprite list, then the Backdrops tab. Both pictures are listed. Click each in turn and watch the Stage change.

This is the same thing you learned about costumes in Lesson 26, applied to the whole world instead of one character.

Step 6 — Notice what the Stage cannot do

With the Stage still selected, look at the Blocks Panel. Motion is nearly empty. There is no size, no direction, no go-to. Select the cat again and the blocks all come back.

That comparison is the clearest way to understand what a backdrop actually is.

Step 7 — Choose deliberately

Set the Stage back to Farm and look at your cat against it. Is the cat easy to see? Try a couple of other outdoor backdrops and notice how much harder some of them make it.

What changed: your project has a setting, and a second one waiting in the wardrobe for when the story needs it.

Your finished setup

Stage: two backdrops, Farm showing. Sprites: a cat at around x = −120 and a hen at around x = 90. Save it as Day in the Kampung — the whole arc builds on this file.

Try It Yourself — three scene-setting tasks 12 min

Mini-Challenge — cast the setting 5 min

“Where does your story happen?”

Choose a setting for a story of your own, then pick sprites that genuinely belong in it — and be ready to justify every choice.

It works if:

• Your project holds at least two backdrops.
• Every sprite on the Stage plausibly belongs in that setting.
• Every sprite is clearly visible against the backdrop you have chosen.
• You can say in one sentence what story this setting suggests.

Recap 2 min

Backdrops are the Stage’s costumes. A project can hold as many as you like and displays one at a time. The Stage itself has no position, size or direction and cannot be clicked — it is scenery, not a character. Choosing the setting well does a surprising amount of storytelling before a single block runs.

Backdrop

A picture filling the whole Stage. The Stage’s equivalent of a costume.

The Stage

The background layer. Holds backdrops but has no position, size or direction.

Backdrop library

Scratch’s built-in collection, opened from the button below the Sprite list.

Setting

Where a story happens. Chosen, not accidental.

Homework 1 min

Three settings, one cat. Show how much a backdrop changes a story without changing anything else.

1. Put the cat alone on the Stage with no script at all.
2. Add three very different backdrops to the project.
3. Switch between them by hand in the Backdrops tab and screenshot each.
4. Write one sentence per screenshot describing what story it suggests.

Bring back next class:

• Three screenshots and your three sentences.
• Your answer to: “Which of your three backdrops made the cat hardest to see, and what was it about that picture?”

Heads up for next class: SCR-L01-31 teaches switch backdrop to [backdrop1 v], so the world can change while the project is running.