LÖVE

How resource intensive would it be to have the background of a SHMUP be a video?
For example Giga Wing 2 (because it is one of my favorite shmups) has a really nice 3d background during the stage.
https://youtu.be/xEMG0TUIzg0?t=1m19s
Would I be able to create a video background and have it play behind my screen play area without too much hassle?

The framework can playback videos and they are drawable objects, so in terms of hassle it should be as easy as drawing static background. Not sure about performance though, it could be a problem especially for high definition and high frame rate videos.

I would be more concerned with syncing up the background video and the foreground stuff, since i am assuming that that would not be a non-issue.

If it's just cool animated backdrop, there's no need to sync anything, it's only supposed to roll in background, not doing fancy stuff.

Yeah as long as the video backdrop isn't like off by 10 seconds it should be fine. I'll try it in the near future once I fix this issue I'm having.

JohnnyC wrote:How resource intensive would it be to have the background of a SHMUP be a video?

It really depends on the resolution of the video and its framerate. Ogg Theora (what LOVE uses as a video format currently) is not particularly efficient to decode compared to proprietary alternatives, but it should be fine if you test it and tweak size or framerate if needed.