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December 01, 2004
One Point Perspective
In one-point perspective, all parallel lines perpendicular to the image place recede to or radiate from a common point in the center of the image. That center can only be moved by cropping the final art in one place or another. The "speed" with which lines parallel to the image plane "pile up" can be altered by changing one's sense of camera lens and placement.
When talented artist Robert Chang mentioned on an art forum that he was experimenting with layouts to explore the depiction of depth in 1-point perspective for a new work of his, I decided to take a closer look at the issue myself.
Here is a typically dramatic one-point perspective layout. The figures are mapped with alpha-controlled transparency onto a vertical wall at one end of a long checkered corridor.
If I simply zoom in from a 20mm to a 40mm lens, the distortion will not change (why?), but the layout will enlarge. If I re-frame the figures by moving the camera further away, the layout seems to "flatten" a bit.
If I zoom in again, this time from a 40mm to an 80mm lens, the distortion again will not change (why?), and the layout again will simply enlarge. If I again re-frame the figures by moving the camera further away, the layout seems to "flatten" a bit more.
Notice how as the lens lengthens and the camera pulls away, the relative jump in depth from one checker square to the next diminishes. In all cases, however, the vanishing lines stay the same -- things just "stack up" on them differently.
Foreground figures courtesy of Robert Chang. Used with permission.
Posted by digital artform at December 1, 2004 08:46 AM