Part 3 — Art fundamentals
The art skills behind good 3D: shape, value, colour, light, composition, scale and reference.
Seeing like an artist
- CompositionTopicArranging forms, light and colour so the eye reads a view in the order you intend. In games, you compose for a camera the player controls, so you pick the moments that matter.
- Focal pointKey termThe place in a view where the eye lands first, created through contrast in light, colour, detail, scale or motion.
- Visual hierarchy and readabilityTopicRanking what the player sees, from most to least important, so a scene reads at a glance. In games, readability is a gameplay requirement before it is an aesthetic one.
- Leading linesKey termEdges, alignments and directions in a scene that carry the eye towards a subject. In games they often carry the player's feet as well.
- ValueTopicHow light or dark something is, regardless of its colour. Value does most of the work of making a scene readable, so plan it in greyscale before you worry about hue.
- Notan and value thumbnailsKey termTiny sketches that reduce a scene to two or three values, so you can judge its big light and dark shapes before any detail, colour or lighting exists.
- Colour for environmentsTopicUsing hue, saturation and colour temperature to set mood, separate spaces and guide players. Colour works on top of value, needs a limited palette, and must never carry critical information alone.
- Colour scriptsKey termA strip of small paintings that plans the colour and light of a whole film or game, beat by beat, so the palette follows the emotional arc.
- Colour blindness and accessibilityKey termMany players cannot tell certain colours apart, so anything a player must notice needs a second cue such as shape, value, pattern, icon or sound.
- Light and shadowTopicHow light reveals form, sets mood and steers attention. The art side of lighting: light and shadow families, key and fill, shadow shapes, and lighting a space the player moves through.
- Three-point lightingKey termA film and photography setup with a key light, a softer fill and a back (rim) light. It is the basic vocabulary of lighting, but it assumes a fixed camera, which games rarely have.
- Motivated lightingKey termLight that the viewer can explain by a source in the scene, such as a window, lamp or fire, even when the actual engine lights are invisible helpers placed around it.
- Shape languageTopicBuilding characters, props and spaces from a consistent set of round, rectangular and pointed forms so players learn what each one signals. Useful as a convention; disputed as universal psychology.
- SilhouetteKey termThe outline of a form filled with a single flat colour. If an object reads in silhouette, it will read at a distance, in the dark and in motion.
- Scale and proportionTopicHow big things look relative to the player and to each other. Consistent scale makes a world believable; deliberate exaggeration makes it feel grand, cosy or threatening.
- Forced perspectiveKey termAn optical illusion that makes things look bigger, smaller, nearer or farther than they are by controlling their scale relative to the viewer. It works only from planned viewpoints.
- Gathering and using referenceGuideHow to collect, organise and actually use reference images, from mood and lighting to materials and scale. Good reference is curated, annotated and revisited throughout a project.
- Cameras, lenses and field of viewTopicHow field of view, focal length and camera height change what the player sees and how the world feels. Gameplay cameras and cinematic cameras want different settings, and engines even measure FOV differently.
- Field of viewKey termThe angle of the game world visible on screen. It is quoted horizontally or vertically, changes with aspect ratio, and affects comfort, perceived scale and what your environment must hold up to.