Help with composition on indoor bg

[pslim]

I'm working on another background, but I'm really unsure about the composition. Right now it's only in the design stage, so nothing has been detailed or shadowed or anything like that. Okay, I might have gone a bit wild on the ivy, but nothing else has been detailed. 





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It's the main room of a small but smart modern apartment. These guys probably shop at Ikea, if that helps. It will be simple and absent conspicuous displays of wealth, but not shoddy by any means. The window is absolutely necessary, but it doesn't have to be where it is.

I'm primarily concerned with my usage of floor space, and where I've placed everything. Does it make for a reasonable composition? I haven't placed most of the small things that people have lying around their houses yet, because I've been struggling with this aspect of it.

To give you an idea of where it is in relation to the final product, I put together a small comparison of the other room I've done for this game so far.




Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The first question that needs answering here is where exactly do you want the viewer's attention drawn in this background?  The center of the room, the bookcase, where?

The second question is that if the bookcase is not meant to draw my attention then why does it take up such a massive part of the wall?  Both the bookcase and the couch/boxes/coathanger draw my attention.



The main problem I see is the grouping of items at the center of the room and the bookcase.  The coathanger is thrusting up almost right between the boxes (or shelves?) and the couch and it just looks confusing.  The couch by itself would eliminate the confusion there but from a viewer's standpoint I still see the bookcase as important.  If it's not I would recommend shrinking it and moving it closer to the right wall and perhaps placing your window in the space between the door and the book case.  That will give you an interesting composition for casting light on the couch or drawing attention to the center of the room (you could also have a low table beneath the window that has something of value on it).  Aside from that it looks fine so far.

[pslim]

Prog--

Thanks for the comments, first off. They gave me some important stuff to think about. To answer some of your questions:

I'm not really certain where I want to draw the viewer's attention, I guess. This is partly because much of this room is important, plotwise, I guess. The bookcase IS very important, but now that you've pointed out what an attention hog it is, I'm not sure it's as important as it appears to be based on the composition.

I like your idea about moving the window, but in order for that to work I would have to revise the door composition because at the moment that door leads elsewhere in the building, not outside. It's clearly the front door of the apartment based on its size and bulk compared to the other door, so I'd have to move the outer door and nix the other door altogether. Still, that might be worth doing, the more I think about it.

Another note that I forgot before -- it's a sort of quasi-basement apartment, so the window will need to be quite high wherever it is.

The thing behind the couch is sort of a two-tier liquor cabinet. I can get rid of it without any plot consequences, but I'm afraid the left side of the room will seem empty if I do that. What do you think?

[Hudders]

I don't think anybody would put that rug there, they'd be more likely to pull it out from under the liquor cabinet; it also looks off-centre in relation to the cabinet meaning that only one of its four legs is on the rug. If that rug's any kind of reasonable thickness, you're going to have a serious wobble!

[radiowaves]

If you don't want an artificial looking style on it, instead if you want it to look like someone is living there, forget symmetrical composition. There are too much horizontal and vertical lines, add some diagonals.

First of all why put couch in the middle of the room so you have to walk around it in a small area? I would put it in the left diagonally facing the right upper corner or place it to the right horizontally, half way into the shadows so the image would not seem like cut off and camera wouldn't be inside a wall. Think of it as you lived there, how would you place things? Also stop thinging iside the picture frames, as they don't end the room unless camera is inside a wall.

Ofcourse, one of the best thing to do is take a piece of usual paper and quickly scetch some ideas down. This way you get the basis going and it is easier to render.

And now what the hell is this png file, why I can't open it in MS Paint???


Ok, here is a quick drawing I did in MS Paint, hope this helps to get the composition and values right, so in the end, its all about colouring and nothing more.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

You could put the liquor cabinet against the wall beneath the mirror, possibly.

[cobra79]

What is bothering me the most at the moment is the difference in hight of the 2 doors. The cabinet looks to me rather for shoes instead of liquor and stands to central for my taste. Beneath the mirror like ProgZ said would be a good place indeed. The Flat-TV indicates that they are better off and even Ikea offers some furniture which are not that box like. Couches with a 90° angle for example.

I tried to sketch what I mean. It is not even close as good as radiowaves' but I hope you understand what I am trying to say.


Looking at it now, it probably would be even better to move the couch directly to the left wall.

[pslim]

I like both of the paintovers for what they are, but the problem with moving the couch to the wall opposite the tv is that it makes the room quite small, otherwise you wouldn't want the tv to be that far away from where you sit when you watch it.

I do, however, quite like cobra79's curving the couch around to the foreground. I might just do that, and move the liquor cabinet under the mirror.

The reason the doors are dramatically different sizes is that they're different types of doors and one is much heavier than the other. I can still make that one a bit smaller, but I want to make sure it matches what the same door looks like on the other side.

The main issue I have with radiowaves' version is that it hides some of the important furniture and emphasizes stuff that isn't important. It also dramatically reduces the size of the room overall.

And in response to cobra: the furniture isn't meant to be boxlike, but I have to draw everything geometrically to start out in order to draw it the right perspective. I'm just not very good at eyeballing things. At the rendering phase I'll do my best to soften it up. This tends to be carried off with varying degrees of success for me.

I think part of my problem is a certain aversion to taking up foreground space and walkable areas with stuff. Obviously I need to get over that somehow.

I can't fool with this now because I'm at work, but I'm going to try to test out some of these suggestions when I get home.

Now that I'm home it seems I can't see a way to reconcile either of the paintovers with the scale of my main character sprite without shrinking the room down quite a bit, which I don't want to do. The apartment doesn't have a lot of rooms (making it small) but the rooms themselves aren't tiny. I'm thinking about redrawing from scratch. 

[radiowaves]

If you are absolutely redrawing it, maybe try another viewpoint to get most of the walls shown and furniture can be placed efficiently.

[pslim]

I took another shot at composing this one. What do you guys think? Is this an improvement? I tried to take the comments here into consideration, and I'm posting at a very early stage in case I later want to move things around.





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[cobra79]

I believe that the perspective of the back window is not correct. You could move the monitor from the center of the table and make it a bit smaller. The square above the right cabinet is a picture I suppose, but because this is going to be the TV corner it probably will only distract. Maybe move it to the opposite wall.



I also just noticed that the cabinets in itself have an unusual hight. I'd say either increase or decrease them.
Overall I like this composition much more.

[pslim]

cobra -- I'm not sure what you mean by the perspective of the window. It's a bit hard to read at this stage, but I've only drawn the plane parallel to the viewing plane. It's one of those slide-to-the-side jobs and it's mostly open.

I'm glad you mentioned the height of the bookcase and entertainment center because I was unsure about both of them and have altered them several times. I wanted to make them taller, but when I put my main character next to them they seemed too large. When I made them shorter, there was a lot of empty wall showing. I think I'll just make them taller and see if I can mitigate their largeness some other way.

As for moving the monitor: it looks really good that way but then the chair won't be facing it and that would be so uncomfortable to use. 

[Oddysseus]

I'm not really qualified to comment on realistic art like this (my own techniques being, what's the word... oh, inferior).  However, I thought I'd throw my two cents in and say that I think this background is much more dynamic and exciting than the last composition.  I think it's the strong diagonals that pull you into the picture and make you feel like you're there in the room, and not just looking at a game screen.

Good work so far and good luck

[cobra79]

cobra -- I'm not sure what you mean by the perspective of the window. It's a bit hard to read at this stage, but I've only drawn the plane parallel to the viewing plane. It's one of those slide-to-the-side jobs and it's mostly open.

So it is the window frame? I simply mistook it as the window's depth. Sorry.

I'm glad you mentioned the height...,but when I put my main character next to them they seemed too large.

Hmm difficult. You could also make both cabinets smaller and place the TV on top of the entertainment center or even hang it on the wall and similarly place a picture/mirror above the bookcase to cover parts of the wall.
Anyway if this does not turn out satisfactory, I would say leave it as it is. It is better if it feels right in relation to the character instead of actually being right.
Good work.

[MashPotato]

I think it's shaping into a quite nice background .
Design-wise, one thing that seems a bit strange to me is that the back of the couch is facing the viewer, which not only blocks a lot of the room from view, but fills a good portion of it with a solid block.  Also, since the door is no longer visible, the couch would be kind of closing off the room as soon as you enter it, if you understand what I mean, which makes things feel more cramped.