Week 36: Principles of Art Applied to 3D Games and Intro to 3D

Hello! It’s a new year and I’ve got a new course to dig into. It’s time to put this blog back into active service, this time it’ll stay that way. I promise!

This week has been quite eventful, with a focus on image composition and our first try at using the 3DS Max software.

So, to start off: Image Composition!

Geometrical, diagonal and low-key. This picture provides a sense of high tension and danger by using the lines to convey that something important is taking place. While mostly dark, the highlights are made all the more sharp by an intense lighting, thus contributing to the standing character’s dangerous look and dominance who immediately takes on a high-key position. His arms, legs and head are in parallel with the background as well, with his face turned in the exact same angle. It shows that he is the one controlling the scene and not the other way around, whereas Batman is pressed against the bottom as if slammed down by the entire image itself, angled opposite to his surroundings. This implies that he is powerless against the force opposing him.

In conclusion, the image portrays a harsh and hostile world with its twisted angle combined with strict and rigid lines all throughout directed in an authoritative manner, providing an Orwellian feel in overall with the boot stomping on a prone victim.

Vertical composition. The camera is positioned close to the ground to give a sense of being small, combined with organic and geometrical lines.

While the colouring is warm and friendly the way the camera’s angled provides a threatening visage to the cityscape. This contradiction creates a bizarre tone, making you feel uncomfortable in an environment of false security. The road starts off as inviting, drawing you in to the central statue that stands imposing, and even more towering buildings in the background. Reminiscent of the Manifest Destiny theme prevalent throughout the game, the architectural style captures a sense of grandeur seeking to mimic the golden age of hellenic antiquity which was popular during the depicted time period. While this would give a sense of civility and rationality, the way in which the buildings are positioned gives off a sense of danger with their sharp lines and edges reflected in the daylight. This reflects the very nature of Manifest Destiny. Portrayals of magnificence while in practice being a brutal construct that destroyed and subjugated anything in its way.

Horisontal composition confronts the vertical lines of the buildings. A threatening form on a docile landscape, providing a sense of foreboding. It tells you it is the calm before the storm.

The city provides a Victorian aesthetic mixed with the down-trodden industrial living quarters of 18-19th century England. The pleasure palace stands tall and high-key in the picture, treated much like you would a church or temple. It serves as a reflection of the environment’s decadence, withering away as the monuments of its desires loom over it, in a vain attempt to forget its bleak life if only for a moment. The colouring is fairly tame, giving off a cold feel only helped by the lack of warm colours. While such is present inside the palace it is only witnessed through small openings in the structure, far above the mist-covered foundation and virtually unreachable.

The high-key is in the centre of the picture where there is substantial amount of detail compared top the outer corners. The composition tries to draw you in with its apparent one-point perspective, only to startle you with the sharp flare and massive maw just behind the character. As if to snap you out of it and get you running in the opposite direction. The character portrayed seems to be of a different mindset, standing still with either ignorance or anticipation though the determined eyebrow would suggest the latter. The barrel right next to him seems to imply this further, as it could very well be filled with some volatile substance, and the man is just waiting for the right second to set it off.

While it’s difficult to determine the power balance in this picture, it is clearly a dangerous place with extremely dark colours mixed with a faded red that gives the impression of stale, rotting meat. The setting making you feel uncomfortable would be an understatement. All of this serves to portray a one-point perspective abyss that almost serves as an extension of the gaping maw’s influence on the environment. While a darkened tunnel to invoke a sense of fright is hardly creative at this point, the elements presented helps giving visual aid to all those unspoken fears we have when traversing in a confined darkness.

3DS Max

This week we’ve also had our first walkthrough of the 3D tools, 3DS Max to be specific. The sheer number of options available was overwhelming at first, but with a quick rundown of the provided tutorials and overview by our teacher helped me get started on the basics.
Our task was fairly straight-forward. Pick a setting and key-word for that setting. I felt I wanted to do something organic, a scenery that was easy to register and interpret. Thus I ended up choosing Journey combined with the key-word Solitude.

First off I started with a simple Plane, eventually working out how to bend it as I pleased to create a slope. Once I had the general layout done I started thinking about what props to add. While a great expanse of open desert would seem to nail the solitude theme down well on its own, it doesn’t give you any context on why you should feel that way.

In correlation with Journey’s setting, I added ruins. This served not only to link it with the game’s environment but also the solitude theme that I was aiming for. To have these massive structures that seem to have been built to support an enormous society with equally formidable infrastructure only to have fallen into disrepair and abandonment provides the required context. Now it isn’t just a desert, now you know that there were others who lived here. But no longer. The scale of these forgotten monuments makes the character feel all the more insignificant in comparison, left to wander in the wake of civilization-spanning events that you may never learn of.

Another element that I added was the guiding stones that trail along in certain directions to help you stay on a certain path. Their purpose is to draw you in, help you find direction and not be lost among the colossal pieces of scenery that is strewn across the background. I felt it needed a centre piece, something extra for the eye to hold onto and take on a high-key position. A larger, more pillar-like stone took on this role, with the guiding stones directing you to its location.

Displaying my creation to fellow students, they agreed that I had achieved the keyword of “Solitude”. My use of large, abandoned stone structures did indeed have the desired effect, but another unexpected reason was the use of colour. As shown, the character stands at the bottom of the slope. The only speck of red in a wasteland of sand and stone. It brought forward the theme further by adding that layer of contrast, contributing to the sense of loneliness in a place where the character does not seem to belong.
There were of course plenty of other works that I looked over as well. While all were of interesting design, one that stood out in particular for me was the way one of them had created a mountain range background for his level. He had made it feel truly massive, as if you would need to travel for days just to get close to the top. The edges were rugged and imposing, which he had apparently achieved just by utilising the “Noise” tool from the modifier list for his objects. It enabled him to create a much more organic feel to his elements without having to go into micro-management of one small section of the object at the time.
In the end, I think I managed to create a functional layout for a level’s basic components. By no means have I gained the ability to fully utilise the tools the way I want to, but just by having a solid understanding of a map’s composition can be just as valuable for the development process. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t scared by the prospect of learning a software program from scratch and being required to produce passable artefacts. But at least I know how to put something rudimentary together just from a few hours of practice.

I’ll get better.

Björn Erik Berndtsson. Graphics and Game Design.