Composition in 3D A d v a n c e d T e c h n i q u e s

8/11/2019 Composition in 3D A d v a n c e d T e c h n i q u e s

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Composition in 3D A d v a n c e d T e c h n i q u e s

By Waldemar Belwon

Copyright 2008 Dreamlight AB

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Foreword

Why is composition so important and why is it so hard to learn and understand?

First of all – composition involves the placement and rotation of the camera and it´sfocal length or zoom level. It also involves the placement of all the objects in thescene along with their rotation / posing – down to the smallest parts. But it doesn´tstop there. Lights, colors, shadows and effects – it´s all there as well and adds to theterm known as composition.

I´d like to refer to composition as BALANCE. A well balanced image has it all. It justfeels right and immediately tells if the artists is a skilled one – or a novice.

The difficulty lies in the vast, almost insane amount of possibilities. If you´re abeginner in 3D, you simply can´t know all the tricks, all the rules, all the do´s and

don´ts.

In this ebook, we´ll look a step beyond the basic rules such as rules of thirds andsimilar. There are other important criteria that can be needed to meet – to make animage really stand out.

The ideas and techniques discussed in this ebook are my own – gained through 20years of experience and trial and error. As always, art is individual – and you cangrab the parts you like, discard the rest and combine them to make your own style.

I can only tell what I know, and what i´ve learned – but there is one thing I can´t teach – and that´s experience. That´s something you´ll have to gather the hard way. I hopethat this ebook will give you at least a small direction on your creative path..!




Theoretical Overview

Balance and Key Elelements

First of all some good news! Composotion is NOT equally important with all theobjects in your scene. What´s important here, is to find the key elements, bring themin order – and leave the rest as is.

Usually, a key element is something large. Or something important. A small mouseain´t big, but if it´s the main character in your scene – it´s a key element.

A key element can also be something bright, that screams attention or vice versa –something dark in a bright image.

Another way of describing key elements, are the objects that tell a story. If aspacecraft in your image is part of the story, it´s a key element. If it´s just there foradding extra touch to your image, it´s not a key element – allthough it might be if it´sbig enough!

So, as you load all the objects into your scene – pay attention to what´s large and/orimportant. Keep key elements to a minmum – as too many of them will just distractthe eye.

Place the objects roughly where you want them, aim the camera and focus on

finetuning the key elements until you feel good about them.




Object and camera placement should be done before adding any lights, but can alsobe done after adding the lights – as lights or even shadows can contribute to thecomposition.

As a rule, before adding an object – ask yourself if it will add to your image, or

distract.

The easiest way of learning composition is to start using as few objects as possible.Learn to place two of them, before playing with 20.

The main thing here, is to avoid letting the key elements bump into eachother in 3Dspace. Or if they need to bump into eachother, make sure that you crop themproperly against eachother.

What i mean with bumping into eachother in 3D space is more clearly if objects

overlap in the line of sight, not literary touching eachother. To correct bumpingobjects, you can either move any of the objects – or move the camera on the X or Yaxis as that will shift the perspective.

When the key elements are in place, move the other objects if needed.




Depth

Depth in an image can be very, very important. Depth can be created in severalways. One of them is large views where you have some objects near the camera,some others in the main focus – and on top of that a background far away.

What this does, is create a variety of size in your image. Variety is good – as it canbe used to your advantage when selecting key elements and adding details withoutspoiling the image. What this means, is that objects in the background will not betreated as single elements of the image. Instead – a background acts as a singlehuge key element.

Another way of adding depth is simply by using DOF – as known as Depth Of Field. A blurred background focuses the eye on the main action – while giving a soft,

pleasant background or foreground to surround your image.

At times, you will not want to use any depth in your image. There are types of rendersthat sometimes feel good without it. An example can be a studio render of a girlagainst a white background. Or a wideangle render of a building. Adding depth oftenadds a majestic feel to an image. It separates the main action from the other stuff andembraces your render.

A third way of adding depth is using a diagonal – that adds a perspective – whichautomatically gives depth.




Perspective Diagonal

Perspective diagonal is the line of sight in a sertain 3D space. A very common use ofthis effect, is having a long chain of buildings lined up a street – with the line of sightending at one of the upper rule of third “Hot Points”. The camera needs to be placedin such a manner, so that it contributes to the diagonal effect.

A good perspective involves all key elements in a scene – meaning they are carefullypositioned to add to the effect along the diagonal.

The diagonal ends with the focal point. Usually, this area is in focus (=sharp) - but itdoesn´t need to. The purpose of the diagonal is to lead the eye towards the focalpoint. An image with a clear focal point will feel relaxed, well balanced and with aclear intention.

The goal is to draw the focus of the beholders eyes towards the focal point – themain center of action in the image.

Placing the main character or an object of importance in the focal point will enhancetheir appearance dramatically. Other uses of the diagonal is to place a road directlyon the diagonal that leads towards a distant city or a tree.

A focal point is usually placed at any of the rule of thirds “Hot Points”.

Note: Rule of thirds is simple composition rule. The image is divided into three equal

horizontal and vertical sections. In other words two vertical and two horizontal lines.Each intersection, where the lines meet – is a hot spot.




Air vs Cropping

As a rule, I tend to give some air or space around the key elements in a scene. I

avoid placing a head of a character near the edge. When an object is too near anedge and I don´t want to add more air – as that would increase the overall view – Isometimes move them closer to the camera and crop them instead.

To crop an object you can often cut it into half or show ¼ of it.. Showing more than ½will most often not look good. In those cases it´s better to show the whole object.Showing less than ¼ will look awkward – as something is missing.

Focus on the Story

Some artists add too much stuff into their images. I tend to do the opposite. Simplicityrelaxes the eye, and makes it easier to tell a story. Of course there is a time for animage with 100´s of objects. But even with such a huge render, there should be aclear key element that focuses the eye.




Practical Examples

Here is a render of Sector 15 by Stonemason done in Lightwave 9.3. I havedeliberately placed the camera a bit awkward to illustrate some points.

Knowing what´s wrong in an image is often easier than seeing what´s good. Just thenature of the eye! Let´s use that fact to our advantage…

The goal of this render is to showcase the door opening to the control room in aninteresting way. Each time we make a new render, we´ll take a closer look at what´swrong.

What are our key elements here? Well, for starters the door opening as that´s whatwe wanted to showcase. More? The large fluid tank is nearby and is quite big – so itcan be used as a key element.

The stairs along with the bigger parts of the reiling. Less dominant is the floor and

parts of the ceiling – but those areas will most probably be included in our final renderas they are very close to the opening - so we can mark them as medium important.

Now, let´s disect this render.

The first thing that´s obviously not good is the large floor. There´s simply too much ofit as it doesn´t serve a purpose. It could if we had a large shadow on the floor – froma backlight of a character in the door opening – but as we don´t have that here – itdoesn´t work.

Next, the view is too large as there´s too many distracting things in the image for our

goal. Also, the camera is showing an area of the set that´s black – in the upper rightcorner. So, let´s correct those things and make another render.




Disection time!

What did we do? The camera was moved closer to the door opening and also thefocal length was increased to tighten the view. This did remove some of thedistracting things and also the black area outside the set.

We did also get less floor as the camera is pointing more straight this time.

Now, what can be improved?

Well, repositioning the camera did reveal another key element. The large windows!Notice the right window has it´s right frame very close to the edge of the image. Asthe window is a key element, we need to either widen the view to include moreoutside the windowframe, or we can tighten the view to crop the window – leaving outthe distracting frame.

We´ll go with the latter because we want the camera angle as tight as possible.

Another thing distracting is the fluid tank. It´s also placed very near the left edge,which is distracting. Key elements either need air around them or they need to becropped properly.

The fluid tank is so close to the opening, that we´ll include it in the render. However,we don´t want to crop it – as it looks too interesting for that and also is way to smallfor cropping out in this particular view.

Somewhat less dominant but still distracting are the ceiling lights that are very closeto the edge as well. Let´s leave those out for now and get back to them later…

Another render…




Better! Allthough we are pretty close to utilizing the rule of thirds, we lack a properdiagonal which gives the image a flat look.

Also, removing the right window edge by moving the camera to the left, made one ofthe reiling details to get cropped. And another detail to show up to the left of thewater tank.

To add a diagonal we need to move the camera away from the center and rotate it torealign with our key elements.

Which way do we move it? To the right. Why? Because moving it to the left would notcreate a good diagonal with our key elements. Remember that key elements shouldbe aligned to increase the diagonal effect? In this case the door opening and the fluidtank would make a nice diagonal.

Well, take a look at the next render…




Great! What do we have here? The camera was backed a bit, moved to the right andthen rotated on the Y-axis.

A small, but noticeable diagonal. See - the small angle makes the image less flat andmore interesting. Allthough we have a huge fluid tank, the main focus lies on the dooropening. Why? Because that area is placed where the diagonal ends.

Notice how the railing parts are free of distractions. They don´t bump into othervertical objects and neither do the windowframes. None of the windowframes is closeto any edges as the right window is cropped.

Also notice how the fluid tank is placed against the windows in the back. No verticalbumps with any window frames. Another thing – the back windows have frames aswell. See that there is no vertical frame edge on the left edge of the image? It´scleverly cropped out of the sight – and the frame edge visible has enough air to theleft of it.

Adding the angle / diagonal also deleted the problem we had with the lined up ceiling

lights that lied to close to the edge of the image. It´s still there, but it´s less of it.

Look underneath the stairs. Part of the floor acts like “air” under the stairs. Also, partof the ceiling acts like air above the door opening. See – the key elements arecarefully either surrounded by air to give them some space in the image – or simplycropped out of the way.

So, can we improve anything here? Yes, we can! To add more tention to the image,we can lower the camera. To compensate for the low camera position, we need to tiltthe camera up. Another thing we can do is a slight Z-axis rotation to add even moretention.

Another re-render…




Very nice! This is what I would call a good enough composition. It looks clean, yetinteresting with the key elements well balanced. No major objects are bumping intoeachother. The two large railing pillars on each side of the stairs do indeed bump intothe windows, but they are well positioned and don´t touch the vertical frames of thewindows.

Notice there´s a similar amount of air above the door opening, to the left of the fluidtank, below the stairs and to the right of the right hand railing pillar. Also, the lowercamera angle hides the floor in the control room, which makes the walls and allgadgets in there more dominant.

This particular render would suit perfectly with a character standing in the dooropening.

So, what other options do we have here? Well, with a Stonemason prop – there areplenty of camera angles to choose from. Let´s try to maintain the door opening andfluid tank as the main key elements, but add some foreground objects to spice thisrender up and give it even more depth.




Backing the camera revealed some interesting props in the foreground, but it alsokilled the nice close up of the control room and therefore made it less dominant in theimage. We don´t have any particular focal point in our render anymore, as there isnothing in focus. The eyes wanders all over the image without attaching to any part. Also, there´s some bad cropping of the large pillars and other objects bump intoeachother.

To fix this, we need to zoom or in another words increase the focal length of thecamera until we have a similar cropping as before. Next, we´ll try to move the cameraaround to find a suitable foreground that matches our key elements.




Looks ok, and allthough the foreground objects are well placed, the image has lostit´s power and we have some unavoidable bumps. The right railing in the foregroundhits the right railing pillar where the stairs are. And we have an ungly wall edgebehind the fluid tank. Besides – the image looks flat.

The thing to notice here, is that when you move the camera far away from something – you also shift perspective – especially when you zoom in.

Let me explain. Before this operation, when we had a good enough render – thecamera was pretty close to the stairs. When the camera was moved around, all thekey elements were “moved” as well – which made it easier to avoid bumping objectsinto eachother.

At this distance, with a focal length twice the size – we have less control over theobjects near the door opening and more control over the foreground objects – thatare closer to the camera.

In another words, when we move the camera on the X-axis – the objects in the

foreground appear to move more relatively to the image and the objects near thedoor opening move less. Have this in mind when you try to avoid any bumps in theimage!

Framing this particular render seems very difficult, if not impossible without alteringthe objects in the scene themselves. We can always do that – move objects aroundthe set to feed our composition needs.

However, let´s move the camera instead and find a different composition.

We´ll now get rid of the door opening as a key element and go for the fluid tank only.

This will give us less objects to worry about and we´ll probably have an easier timeadjusting the foreground as well.




Please notice that it´s ok to discard an idea if it doesn´t work. Instead of forcing usupon the original idea, we can adjust it slightly and get away with less gray hair!

I admit, that I spend a lot of time constructing a good composition. I would say 80% ofmy “design time” is spent on placing all the items and adjusting the camera. Only

20% on the lighting.

The reason I do this, is because from my point of view – a well balanced image is theground – the foundation it stands on. A well lit image looses it´s attraction if thecompostion is bad.

Let´s do another render here…

Looks pretty ok! Not the best composition i´ve seen, but it tells us a few things…

There is a good perspective diagonal in this render. It starts with the pillars on theleft, and wanders through the image towards the main target – the fluid tank. Theimage has a clear focal point where the eye eventually stops. The diagonal helps to

target the fluid tank and therefore enhances the effect of the focal point.

There is this green wall edge to the left, behind the fluid tank and it distracts a bit.

Another thing I want you to pay attention to, is the actual angle of the diagonaltowards the camera. Or let´s call it the width or length of the diagonal. The width isspecified by the amount of space between the foreground and the focal point.

It´s looks pretty “normal” in this render. Let´s adjust it slightly, to explain in detail whatthis does.




In this render, the camera was moved closer and more to the right of the fluid tank.I´ve also decreased the focal length to widen the view. Notice that there´s still adiagonal in this scene – but it´s wider - or longer if you will. There´s more spacebetween the start – and the end of it.

What angle you prefer, is really up to you. It needs to serve the needs of your render. As a rule, the more narrow the diagonal – the more tention or mystery there will be inyour render.

Notice that we still have that greenish wall edge behind the fluid tank. To fix this wecould simply move the fluid tank itself slightly to the right. Or even move it close tomake it bigger.

Now, let´s do the opposite – shorten the width of the diagonal and see whathappens…




Mysterious indeed! Very tight and short diagonal. The strong light in the lower leftcorner of the render is somewhat strong, but helps in defining the starting point of thediagonal towards the fluid tank.

The less you see in a render, the more mysterious it appears. If you compare thisimage to the previous one – you notice that this one reveals less details of thesurrounding area.

The tention in this render is high – almost scary. The fluid tank looks even hostile!The low camera angle adds to that feeling and increases the scary effect of the fluidtank.

One final thing about the diagonal. It has two axis. A horizontal and a vertical one. A low camera pointing upwards will have a diagonal starting low, facing up. A high camera pointing downwards will have a diagonal starting high, aming down.

Often, a good diagonal has some angle on each axis. Meaning the camera shouldhave an angle towards the surroundings both horizontally and vertically.

Allright, let´s move on to an outdoors scenery with a more pleasant look:Stonemasons “The Streets Of The Meditereanian”.




With our knowledge of composition, we immediately look for a nearby wall, to help uswith enhancing the diagonal effect. We also need a focal point, and one of the archeswill do the job just right.

The camera placed low, will ensure that there´s enough of vertical angle for ourdiagonal.

Not bad! Room for improvement? Definitely! What´s good in this render? Clearly,there´s a diagonal. Very well defined focal point, the upper arch is bright andsurrounded by an area of shadow – to enhance the effect of the focal point.




So, what´s bad then? The wall on the left is kind of distracting. It´s too large, toobright and steals attention from the arch in the upper right corner of the image. Also,there´s a tiny darker section of the wall in the outer left edge of the image.

So, let´s move the camera a little closer to the door and make another render.

Well? The wall is gone, but the door being such a large object is a key element. Andwhat do we know about key elements? We can either have some air around them orcrop them! Now that we have tightened the view and removed the wall, the door hasno air around it. Solution? Move the camera even closer – to crop the door in half.




Awesome! The door helps to define the diagonal starting point, and yet it doesn´tdisturb the image nor steal any attention from the focal point. The camera waslowered somewhat, to show more of the ground illuminated by the sun as that partbecame less visible when we started to move the camera closer to the door.

The sunlit part of the ground, actually acts as a key element and needs some “air”around it…

That´s about it!




Final Words

We haven´t touched characters in this ebook, simply because it´s much harderlearning to compose a large scenery. When you master the scenery, adding

characters is as simple as placing them in the focal point of your image or along thediagonal.

Composition is a broad subject, so wide it would require a thick book to cover all theaspects of it. The possibilities, as well as the solutions are endless. That´s the beautyof art – and the difficulty of it.

I recommend spending some time online, searching for professional photos. Examinehow they are composed. Notice how much attention is put towards placing items,people and buildings. Find the diagonals and study them.

Best of all, if you own a digital camera – go out and take a few hundred shots. Adjustthe composition slightly with each shot, and see what feels good and bad.

All great artists have a unique style – and composition is part of it. You will eventuallyfind your own style, and find your own rules that you apply when it comes to making agood composition.

Practice, fail and improve – that´s really the only way of becoming better atsomething – and the mysterious composition is no different.

Good luck on your journey and have fun!

/Waldemar Belwon, July 2008

Copyright 2008, Waldemar Belwon, Dreamlight AB

You may not alter this ebook, copy or resell parts of it or in whole – in any format without a written permissionfrom Dreamlight AB.


Composition in 3D A d v a n c e d T e c h n i q u e s

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