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This tutorial exists because both you and
I have both seen these kinds of backgrounds

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gone horribly wrong.

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A cheap way to make a looping background is
just to throw in a featureless flat surface

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and tween some symbols to fly across the stage
at varying speeds based on how far away they

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are. Farther away equals slower. Copy and
paste the tweens over time and you're done.

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If you're making a forward facing loop it's
the same thing. Dump those symbols in there

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and tween them to move and shrink. Here's
a trick: copy and paste all of those tweened

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layers into a new symbol. Convert some of
the animations to frame by frame. Pull them

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out and move the frames hanging off the end
over to the front of the symbol. This ensures

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a constant flow of junk onto the screen. All
you have to do now is put that symbol on the

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stage and extend it.

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Right. So that stuff's for cheaters, let's
talk about real looping backgrounds starting

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with the bare minimum: the place where the
characters go. Regardless of the program you're

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using to make backgrounds, the art needs to
be longer than your video dimensions. This

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amount extra works but you don't have much
room to make mistakes.

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While you're drawing, make sure that the left
and right edges are about the same height,

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and avoid drawing anything that hangs too
far over the edges.

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When the background is done, cut and paste
your layers into a symbol. Now select all

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of those layers, copy the art and paste it
into a new layer inside that symbol. Move

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that new layer to one side, leaving a small
overlap between it and the original background.

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Look at that sloppy seam. Look at it!
Clean that up with an eraser or new art layers.

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There. Once that's done, it's ready. Put the
symbol into a scene. Make sure the rough edge

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is off the screen with just enough space so
people won't see the transition. If you drew

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a long background, you have some extra room
for error here.

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Put a tween on your background layer and move
it with the properties window so the second

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part of the background comes up in about the
same spot as where it began. So this bush

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should be about here. And we're just guessing
at this point, so woo-hoo. And now, if that

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rough edge of your art is coming into the
screen, you've got a problem. Either you didn't

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make your design long enough, or you just
need to move the starting point of your background

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back. This way some. There. There you go.

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Copy and paste your background, tween and
all, into a new layer. Remove the tween from

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the top layer and switch to the line view,
and lock it so you don't move it on accident.

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So now you can see that last frame is off.
Go ahead and use the properties window to

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adjust the last frame in the tween so it's
perfect. You have to get it perfect. The loop

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will jump if even a single pixel is off. So
do it right! Do it right.

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Done.

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Delete the reference line layer. It's time
to adjust the background's speed. Bring in

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your animated character on a new layer and
put it where you want it to go. Add or remove

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frames from the background to make it match
with the speed of the character.

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There, the speed looks good. Now for the magic.
Copy and paste the background layer with the

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tween into a new symbol. And now this is what
you do: remove the last frame of that tween.

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Just the last one.

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Go back to your scene and bring the symbol
you just made into a new layer. You can switch

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it to line view to make sure it's positioned
exactly how you want it.

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And now delete the original layer and extend
your symbol out for as long as you need the

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loop. Forever. For infinity and beyond.

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Repeat the process for every layer of depth
you want to add.

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But here's a tip. Usually that back layer
moves so slow you don't need to make it loopable.

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Just tween it.