How my approach to perspective has changed

[ThreeOhFour]

I recently cleaned up my old blog, getting rid of the old posts, and with them the spam, virus warnings and outdated stuff. Today I put up an essay I've been putting together about how I've changed my approach to using perspective when drawing background for games, and I figure some of you may be interested.

Here's the link to the post!

[Quintaros]

Glad to see you're resurrecting that blog but sad to see all the older content disappear.  Any chance of that being restored?

Very interesting new post.

[ThreeOhFour]

Yeah... I'm hoping to figure out where exactly the virus warnings are coming from. If I can do that, I'll be happy to restore some of the older stuff, once I've cleaned up the masses of spam in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

[cat]

Good read, thanks for sharing!

[ThreeOhFour]

Thanks, cat!

[Jack]

Your art style is fantastic.

Would be great to see a tutorial or ten about how it's done, so that I can know all your secrets.

[gameboy]

That was an interesting read.

Particularly because I have been walking in the opposite direction. I used to try and do everything by the book and achieve perfect backgrounds by using either 1-point or 2-point perspective. It took me some time to realise that I prefer doing it by feel, and that I'm able to create backgrounds I'm happy with, without even thinking about perspective theory.

Although, every time I look at backgrounds I did a year or so ago, I always end up finding so many annoying perspective flaws.

[selmiak]

That's an interesting read!
Thanks for that older screenshot at the end. It seems to be more natural, more details, even the houses grow wild while your newer background are more architectural and planned.
Did you even use perspective lines on technobabylon for some extras or did you rather eyeball it when needed? This 3d software let's you forget perspecive lines and gives you a lot of freedom.
But then 1 point perspective gives the player the most 100% scaling walkable area where your nice pixelart characters are not distorted, but of course you can have some great walkable areas on 2point perspective or more but it's more complicated to cheat and make it look good without too much ags scaling. So making (S)VGA adventure games has the downside of not having polygon characters live on the scene but nice pixels instead. 1 point perspective really forces you into this streamlined tunnel view with basic geometric shapes on the borders that set the scene, just like in a theater. Pushing down the vanishing point in 1pp even more lets the buildings or whatever happens in the world pop up more and at the same time pushes the walkable area to some smaller height, thus more depth. The closer to 0 the height/depth quotient pushes the cooler the 1pp scene pops but the wonkier it looks when the ags character actually walks into the depth. the wonkywalk-factor is indirectionally proportional to the height/depth quotient so to say (the so called selmiakish height/depth quotient). The also blows up stuff in the foreground that should be there just as decoration from an artistic pov, but actually would be standing totally in the way when totally in perspective. I don't quite like how AGS downscales the pixelart on a character on higher zoomscaling when walking into the background and then I like it. It looks unfitting on the lower res pixelart but also better a lot than just a messy pixelpile.
only 7 times perspective in this post

[[delete}]

Great art writing!

But now I'm undecided: I like the new Mr Chandler who carefully plans and illustrates realistic backgrounds. Always with an eye for subtle details. Yet I also adore the freeminded Ben304, whose forgotten Summerbatch gem PISS felt like an creative outburst of dreamlike colors and sheer phantasy.

[Cassiebsg]

Nice reading! Thanks!

[straydogstrut]

Beautiful artwork as always Ben - simply gorgeous! It sounds like you've learned a lot over the years and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about it. I'm pleased to see you've revived your blog and look forward to more posts

(P.S. Not sure if it's because you're tweaking things, but I couldn't comment on your post. It's restricted to 'team members' only)

[ThreeOhFour]

Gosh, many replies!

Jack: Thank you! I plan on doing, if not 'tutorials', at least more posts about art that might reveal some of the techniques and ideas I use when painting scenery.

gameboy: I think it's quite natural to wander away from very rigid perspective a little once you have a very good eye for it after doing it carefully for some time. I still don't have an excellent eye for it, so I'm still using grids carefully, but already I'm playing around with stepping away from them and seeing my results, now with slightly better judgement than I had before. The background artist I admire the most from the 90s, Peter Chan, is very good at freehand perspective that feels right and natural, without being rigid, and that's a style I hope to someday be able to mimic to some degree.

selmiak: It really depended, but sometimes in Technobabylon I definitely figured out the vanishing points in scenery and used them as a reference to add things. I agree that 1 point perspective makes it feel like you're in a streamlined, tunnel vision kind of shot, especially for interiors, and it does feel a bit like theatre. I was amusing myself recently at how our brain accepts that Ben and Maureen are facing each other here:



despite the fact that Ben is facing off to some unknown point to our left and Maureen is looking at his right ear (obviously this shot is 2 point perspective, not 1 point, but still relevant). It's reminiscent of seeing a play or musical or opera where the actors face the audience; unlike in film, we can't get the camera right in the shot so easily in this style, and so we make the actors face the audience so we can see their faces when they talk.

Amélie: Thank you! I think what I'm trying to do is to develop my skills and knowledge to a point at which I can do both as projects require it - I think the art that one produces should match the intent and vision of the writer when it comes to games, and that it's useful to be able to draw sharp, rigid perspective when trying to evoke a sense of a more real location (which I often try to offset/complement with my use of colours), and also useful to allow one's eye to have the final say when trying to evoke something more fantastic. Perhaps I could suggest that one's use of perspective is a means of actively suggesting reality or fantasy.

Cassiebsg: You're welcome, thank you for reading!

straydogstrut: Thank you! I have learned a lot, most definitely, and glad you enjoyed the read. I've enabled comments on the blog now, cheers!

[Ponch]

Oh noes, Ben! If you update your site, then what excuse do I have to keep neglecting mine?

Spoiler

Good essay, btw.

[close]

[ThreeOhFour]

I personally feel like I've betrayed both of us with this sudden and unforeseen action.

Spoiler

Thanks!

[close]

[NickyNyce]

I don't want to change topic here, but this has been something on my mind for a while now. You have done so many BG's, art, characters and I've noticed that when I see your work, I know it instantly. Have you ever thought about this when making different games, how your style kind of follows you around and is hard to get away from? How important do you think it is to make something totally different from what you're used to making, just to mix things up a bit?

I love the stuff you make, and I noticed that all the stuff I make tends to kind of blur together. Have you ever taken a look back and noticed this before with your own work? Your work is getting better and better, but do you ever feel the need to at some point make something different?

Again, I love your style of work, but when going from game to game, can and should you change your style to blur the lines between games?

This is really a question for all artists, so I don't mean to put you on the spot. I would love to hear your thoughts on it considering how much work you've done.

[ThreeOhFour]

Gosh, yes, absolutely. It's super, super hard to escape your own style. Every time you draw a stroke with a pencil that stroke is guided by years and years of practice and knowledge hidden in your brain that tells you how to draw that stroke. Ignoring all that subconscious knowledge isn't very easy; it's the well traveled path to an image that we hope will look good, and veering off that path is very hard when your goal is always hoping to make something that looks good.

That being said, I do think it's important to at least try to make changes, or additions, in your set of skills - not only to keep things different but also to keep things fresh and interesting, and to add knowledge to your skill set. Learning to draw a cartoony tree might give you more ideas to use for when you go back to drawing realistic trees, just as learning to draw realistic trees might give you more ideas for when you go back to drawing cartoony trees.

I think the main thing to remember is that there's a stage when working on every picture when problems arise. When we notice problems, we apply solutions to those problems to 'fix' the image. The solutions we choose will either come from experimentation, looking at the work of someone who has already solved those problems, or using the solution that worked for us in the past. Experimentation might lead to new, exciting solutions, as might looking at someone else's solutions, but following the solution that I already know and have practice with is usually my most common approach. That means that I'm solving problems in similar ways each time, and therefore incorporating similar elements.

[NickyNyce]

I do agree and I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. I find it very hard to do something different especially when it comes to pixel art. The more games you make the more you notice them kind of blend together. It's one thing to make sequals, but when a new adventure begins, it does seem very hard to stray from our own previous styles.

[Snarky]

Ahem!

I don't want to argue against proper artistic practices, and I think vanishing points are a fantastic way of coming to terms with how to draw straight things in a way that represents how we see the world.

But I find them super boring. I never use them, and doubt I ever will.

But seriously, it's fascinating to go back to your previous posts on the topic and see how your thinking has evolved:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=34246.msg446584#msg446584 (2008)
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=40058.msg527913#msg527913 (2010)
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=42862.msg568951#quickreply (2011)
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=46720.msg628626#msg628626 (2012)
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=51824.msg636508588#msg636508588 (2015)

Notably, already back then you were commenting on some of the scaling problems you get with "proper" perspective that you're now having to deal with.

What I particularly like about your treatment of perspective is that it seems you're not just adapting your style to the game, but also to some extent the games to your graphic style. Your early (post-pixel-art) games with the loose perspective and stagey compositions had a more dreamlike, surreal feel even in the plots and writing: it was all of a piece. And then a little later you tended towards vaguely medieval or alternate-reality fantasy, with lots of eccentricities and wonky architecture. Again, that fit your art style at the time.

Do you think you might go back to those earlier, eyeball/freehand approaches if the setting and tone of a future game would be more towards some of those directions?

As for this thing of breaking out of your usual habits, of course most game artists have to collaborate with others and try to maintain a coherent style across the entire team. I wonder if that helps avoid getting stuck in one particular approach.

[ThreeOhFour]

If there's anything that'll make me groan in shame, it's "Bold statements I've made in the past", for sure.

Something that changed a lot of how I draw is the fact that I started doing art for other people. This made me work much harder to try and get things looking right. Particularly, almost all of the writers I've worked with have wanted to call into mind a world that is redolent of the world we know; that's something I very rarely cared much about in my own work. To represent reality, I made concessions in order to have my art better informed by reality.

Another thing it changed is that I draw a lot of scenery now. I used to make very small games, with the biggest having 15 scenes, and most having 10 or less. Now I work on games that have 60, 70, 80 backgrounds (Unavowed is probably going to be more than 100), and I draw a lot more scenery in a month as a result. When I was eyeballing things, it'd take me a long time to get stuff that "felt" right. Relying on a perspective grid speeds this process up, because my angles don't feel wrong due to the consistency. It's a simple fact that it's more economic to allow measurements to inform my judgement here, rather than having to work to get it right.

As for collaborating with other artists - I think that helps push one out of their comfort zone, definitely, or towards certain areas they'd never try normally. I haven't done it a lot, but what I have done has changed how I think about things.

In reading those old posts, there's still some stuff I agree with. Character scaling is a struggle (as you pointed out), and I still agree that to really get a game to look "right", things need to curve, slope, bend, twist, sag. I think Andail is better at doing this sort of thing than I am; my work tends to the naive whether I use perspective grids or not. If I'm using a perspective grid, I stick rigidly to that grid, and don't allow things to angle or curve much. If I shun the use of a grid, nothing converges much at all. Andail's work has curved roads and hills that I hope to be able to do myself some day, often without feeling like he's ignored realistic perspective to achieve those.

As for going back to earlier approaches, I've been working on a game of my own again, after a fair old time doing other people's games, and I've noticed that my approach to perspective has loosened a lot already in the few scenes I've painted and roughed out for it. Once more, I don't feel bound by reality anymore, and am not trying to create something that calls to mind the world we all know so much. In saying that, getting my roughs right has also been aided by my greater knowledge of perspective, and is allowing me to try compositions I didn't know how to approach properly before using vanishing points carefully for a couple of years.

Anyone that's been around here for a while has probably seen how much I've learned in the years I've been making games. Hopefully the next few years will show me learning just as much, and I'll regret all of these statements I've made today just as much.

[LostTrainDude]

Hugely interesting read, Ben, thanks a lot!

I think I saw your style "grow" over time in such a way that, yeah, I could see how better was getting every time, but I didn't pay close attention to how much better it got.
Seeing the different examples side by side really put them under the spotlight.

Anyway, reading about the Bazaar scene in Shardlight, I just wanted to express my extremely cheap two cents. I may actually have missed the point

Spoiler

I can't really put my finger on it, but that specific scene didn't really give me the feeling that I was walking in a big world (no matter how destroyed and ruined).

Walking in that scene gave me more the idea that people chose that specific spot just because it was "the right spot" for a bazaar to take place. Like: "it's not as ruined as everything else and it is big enough, let's stick around here".

I couldn't really "see" (in my mind) much else behind those buildings in the foreground. Or, at least, not as densely populated. I don't think it's because of the art style or the perspective. Maybe it's the composition? I'm pretty ignorant about it

Of course, I'm not saying it's a bad thing After all you said "big world", not "crowded"!

[close]

That said I'm genuinely curious about what your new approach can produce, when "drifting off from reality" again with your own titles!

[ThreeOhFour]

Thanks, Chris! I didn't really mean for that part to sound like 'this is how to show a big world', I really just meant it as 'I wanted a way to show more of the world than I usually could, and felt this helped me do it'. If it didn't give you the feeling of walking in a big world, that's just how it goes. Intent doesn't always translate well to the viewer, and I think it takes a lot more than a change in perspective to really accomplish a specific goal - this just nudged me a bit closer to getting there, perhaps.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Those who think they know all, know nothing.

I've been playing around with Maya lately modeling whenever I feel like making something. Currently making an anthropomorphic fox. Since I'm not all that great at modeling yet (quite bad actually), I have been copying heavily from someone else's work so I could keep the shape and style and still be low polygon. I believe their work was somewhere around 1250 triangles and I'm nearly double that. Albeit I did add more definition so that it wasn't as low poly, also I have made it with an actual mouth, but it's definitely something that takes a huge amount of practice and I'm not there yet. Just moving one vertex can dramatically change the feel of your character. I've been staring at it for at least a week now, playing with it here and there between life and TV shows (Stranger Things was amazing) but cannot settle on anything. I keep making adjustments and saying "wow, that made it much better. How could I not see that before?".

Anyway your work has impressed me and you've developed your skill way beyond anything I can now do. I can always remember your first attempts with your stylus - man you've come a long way. I've tried searching for them but no luck. Do you still have them? It would be nice for people to see where you really really started. I believe I called them painted pixel art, or that it looked like the town you had drawn was mold covered.

[ThreeOhFour]

I think faces are especially sensitive when it comes to making adjustments. It's very easy to make one that looks creepy or grotesque just because it's a little bit off.

Sadly, I have very few images that are a few years old, and certainly nothing THAT old. I'm a terrible archivist of my own work, and most of that stuff was hosted on image sites such as Imageshack which have been dead for years. People unfamiliar with my early work will just have to believe those of us that were there when we say that I was really very bad at drawing.

[gameboy]

Sadly, I have very few images that are a few years old, and certainly nothing THAT old. I'm a terrible archivist of my own work, and most of that stuff was hosted on image sites such as Imageshack which have been dead for years. People unfamiliar with my early work will just have to believe those of us that were there when we say that I was really very bad at drawing.

I remember playing this and thinking it was a pretty good looking game. Your art has come a looong way since, but it's fair to say that wasn't a bad start at all.

It was better than anything I could do at the time, surely.

[Grundislav]

I will always love the painting of the elephant.

[ThreeOhFour]

Well, this has been a fun trip down memory lane.

To be fair: I still draw elephants like that. That's one thing I haven't learned to do properly yet.

It's amusing that I still haven't made a game as high resolution as this one since.

[Grundislav]

To be fair: I still draw elephants like that. That's one thing I haven't learned to do properly yet.

You'll get there. I believe in you.

[CaptainD]

I will always love the painting of the elephant.

Wait... aren't you supposed to ignore the elephant in the room?

[Danvzare]

I will always love the painting of the elephant.

Wait... aren't you supposed to ignore the elephant in the room?

Sometimes you need to talk about the elephant in the room.

[tigris]

Thanks for sharing your experience, awesome post!

[NickyNyce]

I have never seen a rubber duck and a lava lamp in the same room before....lmao

[ThreeOhFour]

I will always talk about the elephant in the room.

tigris: Thank you!

NickyNyce: I definitely have! Be more adventurous with your interior design!

[xBRANEx]

I just wanted to say thank you for this blog and posts on this forum because I've read most of them in the past years. They've been a huge help.

[ThreeOhFour]

Very nice of you to say, thank you!

[dactylopus]

Thanks for the insightful post.  It's great to see a breakdown of the progress from over the years, made better by commentary from the artist.

[Yitcomics]

Today I put up an essay I've been putting together about how I've changed my approach to using perspective when drawing background for games, and I figure some of you may be interested.

INTERESRTED!!!?,i'm in desperate need of it lol

Thank you so much for doing this,I always keep a look out for these kinds of articles.

[Mandle]

Gosh, yes, absolutely. It's super, super hard to escape your own style. Every time you draw a stroke with a pencil that stroke is guided by years and years of practice and knowledge hidden in your brain that tells you how to draw that stroke. Ignoring all that subconscious knowledge isn't very easy; it's the well traveled path to an image that we hope will look good, and veering off that path is very hard when your goal is always hoping to make something that looks good.

This is something I read in a book about the entire creation of "The Nightmare Before Christmas":

Tim Burton was sending the concept artists sketches of what he wanted scenery and characters to look like, and they were cleaning them up way to much for his liking, and he said something like: "Good, but it has to be more jaunty and squiggly in places..."

So the concept artists all decided to start drawing with their off-hands and suddenly everything they drew was getting the Burton stamp of approval...

Maybe the other side of the brain does have something new to offer when you're worried your style is getting stale?

[ThreeOhFour]

dactylopus: Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the post!

Yitcomics: Hooray, thank you, and you're welcome!

Mandle: It might be! Hard to say - that's a really extreme example, but I guess it shows that sometimes an extreme push is what's needed. Interesting anecdote, thanks for sharing!

[Mouth for war]

The way you have evolved with your art is Amazing!!! Seeing that screenie from your first game made me think how my first game looked (3 attempts at a sequel and still nothing so It's safe to say it will never happen haha ) I'd like to think I'm doing better now with the art even if I'm all 3D these days. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread, it just made me think how I began as well. Fun to look back at things. Allright I'll shut up now

[NickyNyce]

I spy marijuana

[Mandle]

I spy marijuana

I believe the correct title is:

"I Spy: Marijuana"

It's the new children's book in preparation for the worldwide legalization of pot...

Here's a leaked sample:

[IMGZOOM]http://i67.tinypic.com/69jm0i.png[/IMGZOOM]