Using perspective and composition

Perspective

Perspective is a very important factor of drawings as it adds that extra layer of realism to an image. Perspective is a technique that is used to create the illusion that a 2D image or drawing is a 3D image as if viewed from the eye of the viewer. This is achieved by making objects that the further away from the viewing window smaller, also there will usually be vanishing points present in the image to show the depth of objects and angle of viewing. This is in contrast to the more simple form of 3D drawing called isometric drawing this is where all lines will be parallel or at least have a very shallow angle making a drawing that has no obvious point of view. However it is worth noting that an object with a normal perceptive can seem to be drawn isometric if very close to the viewer or very small.

There are 4 major types of perspective used in art: 1 point perspective, 2 point perspective and 0 point perspective.

1 point perspective:

This form of perspective is mostly used for roads or large flat open spaces. It occurs when the viewing rectangle of the image is directly parallel to lines in the image or directly perpendicular. The way 1 point perspective is created is by having all the lines cross at one single point in the image. This is the same with all over perspectives but they will have more than one of these vanishing points

2 point perspective:

This form of perspective is mostly the same as 1 point perspective however the view is twisted and is usefully used when the corner and two sides of an object can be viewed. Also in 2 point perspective the tops and bottoms of objects can be seen as they are at the eye level of the viewer. The two vanishing points are used in this perspective make the two sides visible taper to a point the further it gets away from the viewer.

3 point perspective:

This perspective is used when the top or bottom of an object can be seen. It works in exactly the same way as the two point perspective however with the new side there is another vanishing point for line to taper to. This is the most common perspective in art as in most scenes you will be able to see 3 sides of every object unless there is an object at the eye level of the viewer.

0 point perspective:

There are some images that don't contain any parallel lines or vanishing points due to curves and abstract shapes. This is most apparent in natural scenes as they have no real vanishing points of lines as objects in the natural world are general curved and not like the cube shaped man-made objects.

4 point perspective:

This is the 5th perspective type and wasn't included in the 4 main perspectives as this is an unrealistic, more artistic, perspective due to the infinite nature of the images it creates. This perspective basically creates a panorama view of a scene or objects but can then go beyond a 360 degree turn and show the same objects twice but from a different view point

Composition

Composition in images is very important as without this images can seam cluttered and hard to look at. The different composition styles lets the viewer travel through the image in different ways. Two ways a good composition can be achieved is with the Fibonacci Spiral and the Rule of Thirds mentioned in previous posts.

Fibonacci Spiral:

The Fibonacci spiral is a mathematical shape/equation that produces a perfect spiral. In composition This is used to lead the viewer to a single focus point usually to one side. This form of composition is used mostly in photography.

The Rule of Thirds:

This form of composition is designed around the idea that when we view images we automatically look at 4 main points in the centre of the image. Most images use this composition method to help bring out the focus of an image by placing an object or feature on one of the points used in the rule of thirds, these points come about when you draw lines over an image splitting it into horizontal and vertical thirds.

Examples

Good example



This concept from Skrim shows how you can use composition and perspective to create a believable image that draws you in to look at the important aspects of the image. It is easiest to see the perspective in the roof beam running along the top of the image as the further it gets from the front of the image the thinner it seams to get. In terms of focal points the image uses a 1 point perspective that can be seen by how items shrink towards the centre.

This image shows how this concept also used the Fibonacci Spiral composition. The curves of the walls and pillars have been cleverly paced to line up with the spiral as shown with the image above. This effectively leads the viewers eye through the room to the door at the end.

 

Bad example

This image is an example of how an image looks with no perspective or composition. The way this image has been created is by using a method of 3D drawing called Isometric drawing. this is were you draw everything in a image from a fixed view of above the corner of the cubes. This also means that if a cube is viewed in this view an equal amount of each side.

Also with this image having no focal points or composition it is hard to look at, meaning that your eyes has no real place to look. this gives the image the feel of a screen-shot of the game, This may have been intentional to give the feel of how a game would really look like.