Help with perspective--FINAL ART DONE, C&C?

[Anarcho]

Ok, a little explanation for this horrible drawing----this is nothing more than a sketch, I'm trying to work out the perspective and it just isn't coming out right.   

This is what I'm going for---the room consists of a fine dining room with four individuals standing in the foreground.  The table is one of those ridiculously long tables rich people eat at, with one person on one end and another at the other.  At the far end is my main character---a little girl.

So the problem I have is that I can't get the room to look big enough, and I can't get the table to look long enough.  I'm trying to do a one point perspective here, I think the problem might be the vanishing point is too high.  I really like the outlines I have going for the people, I may even leave them as silhouettes once I get the rest looking right.

If anyone can help me out with this, I'd appreciate it.  I guess it's just been a long time since I've done a proper background.

[Khris]

The proportions aren't quite right.
I tried to guess where the left wall meets the ground. You can see that even a ceiling at the height of about 12ft would be much further down. (Assuming that the grey line in your pic is the ceiling.)
The table is about 7ft wide. I'd shrink it a bit.

Plus, when you've added details to the pic, it'll look more convincing, because everything back where Emily(?) sits is going to be about 5-6 times as small.

And if you plan on adding e.g. windows to the side walls, make sure that they are just a few pixels wide.

Good luck!
(It's 5:30AM here, so if any of this doesn't make any sense, either blame it on that or the fact that I had to learn english in school... )

[Anarcho]

Hmm, well, I don't want Emily (yes, it's Emily, good guess!) to be quite that small.  I guess with the perspective you've drawn, the chair would have to be maybe half the size it currently is?  That seems REALLY small.  Maybe you're right though, i'll play around with it tomorrow (i need to sleep too).  Thanks a lot for the input khrismuc.

any other opinions are welcome though.

[ildu]

The perspective looks fine except for the ceiling, as khrismuc said. The bad thing about it is that you're looking at the table at an angle where it'll be quite hard to see the little girl. Plus, if there's gonna be trays and pans and stuff on the table, it'll make it even harder to see her. Still, I wouldn't worry about it. The table will look longer once you add all the stuff and the girl. Just put them in a new layer, so you can still change the table afterwards, if you're not satisfied with it.

[Abisso]

Adding shadows to the table will also show it's longer than it seems now.
But with this "camera", the table will never fully give the impression to be a very long one.

[loominous]

Quick value sketch (with screwed up perspective):



As people has pointed out, the perspective isn't the real issue.

Think the important thing is to provide references that the viewer is familiar with, such as human figures. Another thing is to use repetative objects, such as pillars, windows and similar.

In my modification I've used values to give the impression of depth. The foreground is dark, which seperates it from the background, and the values further away have less contrast. This is quite exhaggerated since we 're still talking fairly small scale but helps giving the impression and in this case makes it seem like the room has a thick atmosphere.

Using a 3 point perspective helps as well.

[Babar]

Yikes!
I know it is annoying when people go with all praise and no substance in their posts, but loominous, Yikes!

My only hope is that you spent huge amounts of your life learning to do that... otherwise it wouldn't be fair

[Stefano]

Cool!  :o Emily is now inside the vatican. 
No, seriuously: great job. I don't know if it fits Anarcho's idea but your lighting over those classic architectural elements is really dramatic.

[Anarcho]

Great, this is all very helpful.  I guess I shouldn't second guess myself...but i can see that the ceiling is too low.  When i just drew the room without detail, it just looked so ridiculous, i didn't think it will work.  But loominous's drawing shows that the perspective works fine (that's a killer drawing dude, though a little over the top for my purposes).

ildu, I actually want Emily to be kinda tiny.  You're going to see her quite a lot for the rest of the game.  I want her tiny to create a sense tension and fear...

Ok, I'll work on something tonight and post a new picture when it iss done. 

Thanks!

[Anarcho]

Sorry to bump this, but I wanted to show you all the finished version and ask for a little C&C.  Loominous, thanks a billion for your drawing, it helped me a LOT getting that perspective right.  I also used your idea of pillars for windows. 

And yes, I did post this in the release something thread, hopefully it's ok I put it here too (I wanted some critiques).

[Tom S. Fox]

In a nutshell: Great! 

[ildu]

Absolutely amazing, but I would still:

1. Add detail to the roof - a dome, lights, maybe a chandelier.
2. Make Emily's chair much taller to create more of a illusion about Emily's smallness.
3. Add some animateable fire in the fireplace (I'm assuming that it's a fireplace behind Emily).
4. Add stubs tp the candlestick just below the candles.
5. Add more stuff on the table - fancy platters, bowls, and others.
6. Adjust the space under the table. It looks really empty now.
7. Make the shadow of the table at the bottom a straight line and with no darker border.

Otherwise, great work.

[Anarcho]

Great, these are good ideas Ildu.  You don't think a fire going on behind her would be distracting?  I was planning on animating the candles on her birthday cake.  I would like to put a clown into the picture, maybe to her left, but I dont want to draw this out for too long.

Thanks!

[Khris]

Great Background!

I really hate to tell you this, but the perspective is still wrong.

Neither the table nor the ceiling are parallel to the ground.
Check my first reply here again to see which lines are to meet at the vanishing point.
You'll find that both the table's and the ceiling's vp is below the one suggested by the wall-meets-ground lines.

[ildu]

Yeah, the vanishing points are still screwed, but that really doesn't matter. Just imagine it's seen through a fish eye lens or something.

To answer anarcho:

If the fire is only seen from the sides of the enormous chair, it won't be distracting. I think, on the contrary, it will emphasize the warmth of the protagonist in relation to the dreary lifeless surroundings. I don't know if a clown would break the whole feel of the image.

When I think about your project and it's visual style, I think about a tiny cheery girl in a huge apathetic world. Your visual style at least emphasizes this kind of presuring atmosphere. This is why I worry that a clown (being a colourful and usually happy character) would interfere in the present setting of happy against grim. Even if it would go the other way and be a scarily devious clown, I think it would still break the feel.

[Anarcho]

Well, the thing is, Emily is the opposite of a bright and cheery girl.  She is a meglomaniacal, homicidal nightmare of a little girl.  I've always thought that the dreary surroundings compliment her personality.  You see, the cutscene consists of her parents asking if she's happy with her presents and Emily being furious that she didn't receive a pony.  The dialogue escalates to the point where she picks up the cake knife and kills her whole family.  So you see, I don't really want to emphasize the warmth of the character.  However, fire in the background could emphasize her darker size...

I think the clown would be funny because when she complains about not having a pony, her parents could say, "But we got this nice clown."  And she could say something like, "Curse the clown.  I'll stick his head on a pike if I must!" 

Maybe I'm the only one who would find that funny...

[ildu]

Yeah, I read the premise story after I had posted my previous reply and I noticed my mistake instantly. But still, it doesn't really change the situation. The relation of activeness versus stillness is can also be shown in the visuals. I would actually still add the fire. The only thing different I would do, would be to add the clown. Still, I'm hesitant that it still might break the feel. The distance from the rest of the people to Emily really gives out a sense of how the different parties feel. The parents and the staff keep their distance quietly and recessively as the dominating Emily starts to boil.