perspective - related geometry..

[Anton Chigurh]

I model in 3d references I need for objects or backgrounds that may be tedious to plot out in multiple panels with different camera or viewpoint angles. I mean, I wish I could charge clients extra cuz I layed out my perspective like how the Renaissance masters did (the inventors of perspective theory). But I haven't found a client yet with such requirements so I just combine theory with practical 21st century techniques to help me deliver the goods and beat tight deadlines.

[Whune]

How about sharing with everyone?

jsyk:
he was just offering to link me up with a PDF of David chelsea's book "Perspective For Comic Book Artists"
(which I own and think is awesome... even though I get lost at the cone of vision part and from there on)

[Whune]

Whune:
Time will pass whether you and I like it or not.
In June 2017 will you look back on this and wonder what your life would be like if you had just spent a LITTLE time with geometry every other day?

i agree

that's what I meant by "longer term goal"
rather than hyper-focusing on it

it seems to me that I'm basically just going to have to start with the first vid Khan Academy has on geometry... and work my way through them (and actually probably do alegra first... question: do I need to get through everything about algebra first? isn't there something like college algebra... but geometry is high school right...? but Khan Academy says that once you get to a certain point with the geometry lessons its assumed that you understand algebra

..?

[Whune]

I model in 3d references I need for objects or backgrounds that may be tedious to plot out in multiple panels with different camera or viewpoint angles. I mean, I wish I could charge clients extra cuz I layed out my perspective like how the Renaissance masters did (the inventors of perspective theory). But I haven't found a client yet with such requirements so I just combine theory with practical 21st century techniques to help me deliver the goods and beat tight deadlines.

this would be a great tip for me...
if I had some understanding of how to use said software
(I'mma have to learn new to me stuff regardless of what approach to the problem i take)

[Inkthinker]

...and just so everyone knows that was not a typo, 95% of the time I agree with you, BUT...

Hypothetical situation. You have a story that is set in the past before digital time-pieces. Time is important so you have to draw a clock multiple times. Your first drawing of that clock will probably be face-on when it is a circle. You have to divide the face of the clock into twelve sections. Trivial example, but you now have to divide 360 by 12 and then get out your protractor. If the clock is not an important part of the story you can just eye-ball it, but if it is important you have to make the calculation.
Yes this is a trivial example. Yes, MOST of the time I just eye-ball it. But there are rare times that I have had to know when triangles are congruent and what that means when I try to divide a space.

If I need to use paper and pencil to draw this scenario, you're right... I'm up against the wall, estimating spaces and hoping for the best (god, please don't let it be a closeup).

As a digital artist, I would cheat like an absolute bastard.

Nevertheless, your point is entirely valid.

[CyberLord]

As a digital artist, I would cheat like an absolute bastard.

LOVE your answer, but I am surprised! I would have thought digital techniques would require a greater knowledge of geometry to apply. Very surprising.

[Smitty]

...and just so everyone knows that was not a typo, 95% of the time I agree with you, BUT...

Hypothetical situation. You have a story that is set in the past before digital time-pieces. Time is important so you have to draw a clock multiple times. Your first drawing of that clock will probably be face-on when it is a circle. You have to divide the face of the clock into twelve sections. Trivial example, but you now have to divide 360 by 12 and then get out your protractor. If the clock is not an important part of the story you can just eye-ball it, but if it is important you have to make the calculation.
Yes this is a trivial example. Yes, MOST of the time I just eye-ball it. But there are rare times that I have had to know when triangles are congruent and what that means when I try to divide a space.

You're confusing geometry with drafting. I remember this lesson from a book my father gave me in the Philippines which would've been 1st grade. I couldn't even read yet, I pulled it off having never heard of geometry, without a protractor and no idea of the degrees contained within a circle. How? Drafting. T-square and triangle. I knew if I used the "funny shaped" one I could divide a circle into 12 parts. I had no idea it was a 30-60 triangle, I had no idea what a degree was (outside a thermometer) I had no idea it was division or what division was, I was 6 years old. Yet I could draw that clock, both as a plan and in perspective, with no formal geometry education.

You can't play putt putt without geometry yet, as a real golfer in real life with an A+ average in Geometry and Algebra, my grade school nephews would kick my butt up and down the course. They had no idea what geometry was.

Drive a car without geometry and you'll kill yourself and everyone around you yet, hundreds of thousands of people drive safely every day having never taken a geometry course.

If you have the playground geometry of a child too young to read, if you can steer a bicycle without falling down and killing yourself, you're good to go.

[Inkthinker]

LOVE your answer, but I am surprised! I would have thought digital techniques would require a greater knowledge of geometry to apply. Very surprising.

So, case in point: To create a circle, I use either the circle tool (Manga Studio) or the circle marquee (Photoshop), holding down Shift to ensure that it creates a perfect circle and not an ellipse. Then, if I need to divide it, I create a line (both have a dedicated line tool) and bisect the circle using the snap function (which guarantees that the center of the line rests in the exact center of the circle). Then I can duplicate that line, and rotate it by whatever degrees are necessary, literally inputting the value into the appropriate dialog.

Then I make as many circles with lines at the appropriate angles as needed using copy/paste, and I transform them into the proper perspective for the illustration in question. And if I feel like it looks too mechanical or I get bad fuzzies from anti-aliasing (more of a PS problem) then I take that circle, fade it out to 20%, and TRACE that bad boy to create new lines that contain a bit of hand-drawn life in 'em.

Like an absolute BASTUHD!!

In all seriousness, there is some risk in relying upon digital tools to handle these functions, insofar as it's much more difficult to accomplish those tasks if the tools are taken away from you. I'm equally good at organic drawing when I work in pencil and paper (people, animals, etc), but my skills with mechanical drawing and drafting are much less effective when I'm forced to work with traditional tools like rulers, compasses or protractors.

I know this, but it rarely comes into play. I'm able to accomplish nearly all my work digitally (even if I did physical work I'd still need to deliver digital files) and my clients don't care how it gets done so long as it looks awesome at the end of the day.

Though I do keep a set of those old tools in a drawer. I have a couple of awesome compasses that I inherited from my grandfather. Wicked hard to do ellipses with 'em though.

[CyberLord]

Wicked hard to do ellipses with 'em though.

Trammel!
Hard to do with real accuracy, but when you do you get a real GOOOOD feeling that a template can never achieve! Anyway, templates NEVER have the exact size or angle you need.

[amadarwin]

wth does knowing geometry have to do with basic perspective? It's just like smitty said, geometry is a factor in a lot of things, but one does not HAVE to know or grasp it to succeed. How many of you do mathematical calculations while playing pool? That's rife with geometric possibilities, yet I've never seen anyone whip out a compass or protractor to figure out a shot.

perspective is about knowing where your horizon line is and then converging everything to their respective points.

Whune just needs to sit down, quit over-thinking things, and start from the beginning...with 1-point perspective. Practice. Then move onto 2-point, and so on, and so forth. There are many tutorials online for the basics.

Here's some to start:



Website: http://www.one-point-perspective.com/