Based on lines - the edges of objects. The receding edges are projected into space and continued along until they meet a point on the horizon line.
Atmospheric Pressure
The effect air has on light passing through it. The more air, the more noticeable the effect will be. The most common example is the way the colours of objects in an outdoor scene shift towards blue as they get further away.They also lose contrast and sharpness.
The Horizon Line
A Horizontal line which represents the height from which the artist is viewing the scene. It can be anywhere. Everything above that is being looked up at, everything below is being looked down upon.
The Vanishing Point
A point on the horizon which all parallel lines from an object converge. There can be more than one vanishing point depending on perspective.
One-point Perspective
Occurs when you and all the objects are parallel to each other. Like looking down an isle in a cathedral. The edge closest is the leading edge.
Two-point Perspective
This occurs when the angle of objects are at an angle to you, not parallel. There will be 2 vanishing points.
Three-point Perspective
Is similar to two-point, but the third vanishing point is above or below the horizon line.
The Vanishing Trace
Is a point above or below the horizon line for vertical objects or along the horizon line for horizontal objects. It is used to determine correct and even spacing for objects.
Look at your main avatar - "the hero". Describe how it feels to be the hero
Example: Badass, Confident, Fearless, Aware
Is your hero "aware" of being an elite soldier? You have to make
sure the player feels aware! How do you handle enemies outside the
screen, enemies behind the player, enemies behind trees, etc.?
List the functions you know must be present in the UI (without regard to how it will eventually be implemented)
Example: Crosshair, Health, Ammo, Mini-map, Weapons inventory, Objective locator
Start designing a preliminary interface
Map your "must haves" to different interface methods, diegetic, HUD, etc.
Review your preliminary design by asking: "Will this UI allow me to be aware of 1, 2, 3 and will I feel A, B, C when I do it?"
Iterate on your UI design until you can answer the above question "yes!"
Remember that UI comes in many forms, Audio, Animation, HUD, effects - mix it up!
(Where 1, 2, and 3 are your must have functions and A, B, and C are how it should feel to be the hero.) In the last step you are bringing the avatar and the organism
together by designing interface solutions that will make the player
actually feel and behave the part assigned by the game. It could be argued that "feeling badass" is not mainly achieved with
UI but that depend mostly on the interpretation of UI. It might not be
achieved with a 1999 HUD, but with a skillful implementation of various
UI components from various categories tailored to fit the experience I
would argue UI has everything to do with feeling badass!
Exerpt from :
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4286/game_ui_discoveries_what_players_.phpAge Of Empires 3: UI
Diagnostics on the bottom. Map, Health of Units, skills of units at the side...
Unit specifics are located in the middle. The panel which changes the most is the right hand side panel. This panel is for Unit orders and skills.
"Pepakura Designer allows you to create paper craft models from 3D data.
Pepakura
Designer is developed in Japan and has been translated to English.
This
software is open to the public as shareware so you can download and try it
freely although some advanced features are limited until you purchase a license
key."
Pepakura could be used to construct the play pieces of the board for a board-game version of the game.
War boards generally feature playing pieces which are moved around the board in representation of the moves. Borders are marked with pins and objectives are flagged.
Pieces need to be designed to represent the buildings, objectives and forces moving.
What can be used as a physical representation?
Stratergy Board Games
Board games like Stratego, Risk and Carcassonne use little pieces to move about and be positioned on the map.
Within Stratego, the pieces are all shaped the same but have different pictures printed on in order to allow players to play with a degree of secrecy. The opposing player cannot see the piece's type until attacking.
In Carcassonne, all the pieces are distinguishable. The playing board is constructed by the player as they go by choosing and placing different tiles down on the surface. The strategy in the game is about where the tiles are best placed in order to gather the most amount of points, and then to bolster those points with the working pieces which are represented by people shaped markers.
In Risk, the playing pieces are represented by models which are clearly different. The other players are clearly able to see which pieces are where.
Humans read shapes and silhouettes in order to identify objects.
Silhouette designs create items and buffer environments which are:
Strong Shapes wise
Memorable
Recognizable
Quick to read from a distance
Stand out
Appealing
Original
"How to Design Your Environments with Strong Silhouette?
The beginning of silhouette design should be very loose.
Think of abstract shapes. Strong shapes. Grouping of masses.
Pay attention to quick reads. Major to minor shapes."
"Iterate and push your designs. You can simply fill in an object or a building with black and duplicate it dozens of times. From there begin to push each silhouette to various areas in design. Spend few minutes on each and move on the second one. Push it in a different direction then the previous one. "
"Focus on the silhouette and its shape. Do not add any details into the silhouette. Let your imagination fill in the rest of the design for the interior of the silhouette. Once you have a strong and appealing silhouette, you can begin to add interior detail and explore its design further."
Whilst searching Youtube for videos I came across Noah Bradley. His work is gorgeous and he has a lot of insight to give.
I started watching his Digital Environment Painting series, which consists of 4 parts, to understand his work process from blocking colour out to detail.
Part 1: Digital Environment Painting with Noah Bradley
Analysis:
He started with a sketch again.
Starts with block in the colour under the line drawing.
Tries to get all the values of the scene right early on.
Big brushes and big general marks to imply whats happening.
Have the thumbnail at the top in the navigation so you can read the painting from a distance
flip the canvas regularly.
Staying zoomed out helps keep the eye on the overall composition instead of getting caught up in detail.
Lighting:
Keep the lights warm and shadows warm or visa-verse.
Establishing value separation. 'The darkest part of your lights has to be different from the lightest part of your dark'
Start to paint on top of the line drawing.
Keep looking at the thumbnail to make sure everything reads as a whole.
Speed Painting:
Try to do one everyday.
Teaches to be efficient, texture, imply not render.
You could also work in black and white to improve value.
Pick what you hate the most and work on it.
Brushes don't matter that much though they're handy for speed painting.
Hard round brush is good enough.
Real live plain-air painting is good also. There's a certain naturalness you'll get from it.
Observe the world around you constantly as selling a believable image is critical. You must ground sci-fi and fantasy images in reality and nature.
Look up the old masters.
Albert Beirstadt
Caravaggio
Rembrandt
George Ennis
Thomas Moran
Hudson River School.
Get to a museum, there is only so many colours you can see on a computer screen.
Smudge tool: use it sparingly.
Its an easy way of controlling edges. Helps you to convey depth.
Part 2: Digital Environment Painting with Noah Bradley
Analysis:
Tricks for Lighting:
Separating Darks from Lights.
Establishing Warm/cool relationships
Drama - make everything else in the image darker. The smaller the area you make the light, the more impact.
Details of the image:
Spend time everywhere, not just the focal area: People will look where you don't want them to look.
Work on the rest of the image before you do the focal point.
Clean up somethings like lines and edges.
Dont be afraid to change your image even if you're sold on an idea.
Atmosphere:
Establish depth - its as important as good form.
Further away, values will get to a mid tone and things will get softer.
Loose some detail.
Depth needs to happen: you have to loose a lot of the contrast to sell the foreground lighting.
Vary big and small items to keep the perspective and keep the image interesting.
Painting snow and rocks:
Add blue and yellow and grey
Brush strokes in background must extent to back. It'll flatten out the image otherwise.
Composition:
Rules of composition only go so far. Study them, but take them as a guide.
If the image feels comfortable and it works for you, the composition is strong.
If something looks wrong and bothers you, then break the rules out.
Flipping Canvas:
Sometimes picking the reverse is a better view.
Set up a shortcut to do the flipping, especially with figurative work.
Learn shortcuts in general, a lot of speed advantage only comes with shortcuts.
Photoshop:
HSV sliders are better than RGB to adjust values. Saves a lot of time when picking colours.
Part 3: Digital Environment Painting with Noah Bradley
Analysis:
Technical Points:
CMYK vs RGB - Draw in RGB. Though CMYK is for print, usually work is more regularly viewed on a screen.
Work at 300 DPI at a size which can be easily printed.
Work big: it is easier to scale down than blow up.
Calibrate monitor
When getting work printed, don't draw with really dark values as the darkest values usually bleed into black.
On a HSV slider, stay away from anything below 10 on the V slider.
Emotion:
Just a simple feeling is good.
Having a narrative or a story or an implication of a back story adds lots of emotions.
Try to push the concept just a little bit. Don't just paint a piece of a place: think of a story behind.
Reference:
Look at many pieces of reference.
References enriches your own work.
Copy-catness can be avoided by looking at more, not less.
Painted studies of references and copying them as still life is brilliant.
Study photographs.
Photography links into painting, learning good composition from bad composition and colours and lighting.
Part 4: Digital Environment Painting with Noah Bradley
Analysis:
Balance of technical knowledge and creativity Rotate tool in cs4 - good for straight lines.
Work on developing everything at the same time.
Thumbnail:
Try not to deviate from original thumbnail composition.
Thumbnail will have a sense of energy that rendered pieces have.
I have gathered some resources from Youtube to watch in order to learn how professionals start and build a digital painting.
Youtube User: Idrawgirls
Analysis:
Rough sketch to start. Basic line. Drawing on grey.
Lay out colour scheme using soft brush. Complimentary colours used for land and sky.
Work on establishing the fore-ground first: working on shadows, then highlights.
With this painting, the further away the object, the colour of the sky washes into the forground and bleeds in.
Keep the lighting consistent, shadows need to stay on one side of objects and highlights need to stay on the other It looks like he's using an angled, flat and slightly textured brush.
Adjusting colour : the more contrast and saturation in the front, the more it'll be separated from the back.
adds a sense of depth.
Texture brushes can be used to help add in the extra detail.
