Datasheet

Form, Space, and Composition
Space is defined as your canvas or frame. Since ultimately your canvas will be a rendered
image, your design space becomes your image frame. Whether that frame falls into a tiny
web window or a huge IMAX screen, the basics of design always apply: how you arrange
your forms and divide your space says a lot.
A form in design is anything that can be seen; it has some sort of shape, color, or
texture that distinguishes it from its frame. Basically any object you model or animate
becomes a form in your frame when you render the scene. How these objects lie in the
frame defines your composition. The space behind and between what is rendered out is
the ground, or background plane. Objects become positive space, and the background
becomes negative space.
To viewers, positive space tends to proceed forward from the frame, while negative
space recedes. Playing with the position of positive and negative space greatly affects the
dynamics of your frame. Add to that the element of motion and you have a terrific chance
to play with your canvas.
Design a static frame in which the objects are all centered and evenly spaced and your
viewer will wonder why they’re looking at your composition. Arrange the composition
so that your subjects occupy more interesting areas of the frame, in which they play with
negative space and the eye can travel the frame, and you create a dynamic composition,
with or without animation.
In the tutorial in Chapter 10, you’ll use light and shadow to make a still life of fruit a
dynamic and interestingly composed frame.
Balance and Symmetry
Balance in a frame suggests an even amount of positive space from one side of the frame
to the other. A frame that is heavier on one side can create a more dynamic composition.
Symmetrical objects in a frame are mirrored from one side to another and create a cer-
tain static balance to the frame. An asymmetrical composition, therefore, denotes move-
ment in the composition.
A popular technique used by painters, photographers, and cinematographers is called
framing in thirds, in which the frame is divided into a grid of thirds vertically and horizon-
tally. Interesting parts of the frame or focal points of the subjects are placed at strategic
locations in the grid. Placing your subject in the lower third would make it seem small or
insignificant. Placing it in the upper third would make the viewer look up to it, magnify-
ing its perceived scale or importance. Figure 1.4 illustrates the difference between a static,
symmetric frame and a frame based on thirds.
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