Building a Parallax Scrolling Game with Pixi.js

The article walks through a basic Pixi.js parallax scroller. It starts with an HTML page and canvas, adds the Pixi.js library, initializes a stage and renderer, then loads background textures as sprites.

Reading notes

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• A basic HTML page uses a centered 512 by 384 canvas and loads pixi.dev.js from a local project folder.
• The page calls init() on body load, and init() is used as the main entry point for the scroller.
• Pixi.js is initialized by creating a PIXI.Stage and a renderer through PIXI.autoDetectRenderer().
• The stage is rendered to the canvas with renderer.render(stage).
• Display objects are added to the stage with addChild(), which controls stacking order.
• The tutorial first uses PIXI.Sprite to place a far background layer at the top-left of the stage.
• A mid layer is added below it by positioning it at y = 128 and adding it after the far layer.
• Parallax motion is introduced with an update() loop driven by requestAnimFrame().
• The far and mid layers move at different speeds to create depth.
• PIXI.TilingSprite is then used so the background textures wrap seamlessly instead of leaving gaps.
• The scrolling effect is produced by changing tilePosition.x instead of moving the sprite itself.
• The conclusion says the next steps are viewport and world positioning, adding a foreground layer, and refactoring away from global variables.