I want to explain a trick I pulled out of my pocket to create a 3D perspective out of a 2D image. Let's make a character walks uphill the front hills, then downhill behind them, then uphill the background far hills.
First create two hotspots, HS1 is the thin red line on the top edge of the nearer hills. And HS2 is the yellow thick rectangle on the bottom of the screen. Now you should have three views of the character. V1 which is the regular character view you're using. V2 which is a down-scaled view of the same character, and, V3 which is the same as V1 except that his up and down walkcycles are inverted. Create a walkable area that covers all the front hills, the two hotspots and at least the bottom visible parts of the back hills. Create a walkbehind area that covers the entire front hills. Now the scripting will do the trick by a few maneuvers with the hotspots, character views and the walkbehind baseline. If the character entered the room while he's on the front hills, make sure he enters anywhere between HS1 and HS2 and his view is V1, also, set the walkbehind base on top of the screen. If V1 walks into HS1, switch to V3 and set walkbehind base to the bottom of the screen, force V3 to walk a couple of pixels below HS1. Now if V3 walks back into HS1, switch to V1 and set walkbehind base to the top of the screen, force V3 to walk a couple of pixels down. If V1 walks into HS2, then nothing happens. Now the front hills are covered. Let's create a depth effect. If V3 walks into HS2, switch to V2 (the little scaled view). If V2 walks into HS1 nothing happens. So when V2 walks above HS1, he'd be tiny and walking on the far hills. If V2 walks into HS2 switch to V3. Now the idea is cleared, you can set the suitable conditions for the character if he entered the room from the back hills, or downhill the front hills. Also, you can use regions instead of hotspots. I used either one and worked fine, however regions are preferred.
That's about it. Let me know what you did and share ideas with me :)
