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#Post#: 13--------------------------------------------------
Atmospheric perspective in adventure game scenery
DIR By: Pam
Date: May 20, 2021, 7:11 am
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Atmospheric perspective, also known as aerial perspective, is a
very old artistic technique where objects that are further away
from the viewer are weaker in colour compared to those close to
us. Usually the colour of the object shifts towards the colour
of the sky - the idea being that dust and water in the air gets
between us and the object we're looking at, and the more
distance between us and the object, the more dust and water in
the air to weaken these colours. It's very common to exaggerate
this to direct focus, as can be seen in the Willy Beamish shot
above, and it's interesting to see other examples of this in
other games.
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When atmospheric perspective isn't used, the effect can be a
little jarring - in this scene from The Case of the Serrated
Scalpel here we have deep blue water, despite a grey sky, which
doesn't make any sense outside of the context of us expecting
blue water because we're used to seeing it reflecting a blue
sky. More relevant, though, the dark grey tower also feels like
it's quite close, because it's darker than much closer objects,
and it's somewhat hard to read the distance. The colours aren't
representative of their environment.
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In this scene from The Secret of Monkey Island, we can see
aerial perspective in play. The trees close to us are a vidid
green, and then the tree covered mountains in the distance are
much bluer, making it really feel like they're further away from
us. It's still easy to see greenish hues on the mountains, but
the closer and further greens are much easier to distinguish
because of this effect.
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This scene from Loom shows a great use of dithering to show
distance - with the mountains in the distance clearly showing
the different layers of depth very clearly. Here the mountains
start blue and recede to a white sky - it's not about making the
distant colours blue, it's about making them closer to whatever
colour the sky is.
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In this shot from Simon the Sorcerer the clouds recede from a
creamy-yellow colour to a purplish grey and finally to a medium
blue - almost the opposite to the blue to white we saw before.
The effect works both ways, as long as we can tell what's a
foreground image and what's a background image. Here the layers
of distance also give a nice sense of physical perspective due
to their arrangement, a nice use of these layers of atmospheric
perspective.
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In this scene from Gabriel Knight, for another example, the
trees recede from a dark green into a lighter green. There's not
much of a hue shift this time, but the effect is still pretty
clear - the colours change as they become more distant, from one
shade to another, in a linear progression, and this helps to
indicate distance. Here we get the impression of light coming
through the trees.
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Again, we see the opposite effect here - we get the impression
of trees receding into shadow from this shot in Simon the
Sorcerer. Despite using totally opposite shifts in value, the
effect is very similar. The main difference is that the dark
distance in this shot supports bright nearer objects like this
fallen tree, whereas in the previous one it supports darker
objects closer to the viewer, like the dark tree and Gabriel
himself. This particular example is less like atmospheric
perspective and more like lessening levels of illumination as
the thick forest blocks out more and more light going back, but
the effect is very similar.
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The light itself has a big effect on how these colour gradations
should be picked. For example, in this shot from Discworld we
see the distant trees going to a bluish green, a fairly light
colour compared to the shadowy blues in the nearer trees next to
it. There's still green highlights on the trees, showing the
warm, yellow sunlight hitting the tree and making it look
greenish.
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The same scene at night shows the distant trees without any
green and all, and now a darker blue. Because there's no
sunlight hitting the trees, making them green doesn't make much
sense, so an ambient blue light is used to inform the highlights
instead. The effect of distance is still quite readable, though,
because these trees are once again closer to the sky's colour
than the closer trees.
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In this scene from Gabriel Knight we can't really see the sky,
but the dappled sunlight of the scene suggests day time, which
means it makes sense to make the top left hand corner recede to
a light blue rather than a dark blue. In scenes such as this
it's sensible to assume a shift to the colour of an imaginary
sky, despite the high horizon line meaning that the sky isn't
visible.
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Weather conditions also play a big part - here the foggy air
means that the trees and stones in the distance fade very
quickly, which really helps to convey a thick, misty atmosphere.
In this scene from King's Quest 6 you can directly see the
moisture in the air, which really allows for a strong separation
of foreground and background elements. A great way to convey
depth and atmosphere, as well as direct focus.
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This scene from Broken Sword does something quite different and
uses a very bright, strong sunlight to make the foreground
elements have very strong highlights and shadows, and makes the
distant objects feel quite washed out by the glare of bright
light. A great comparison is the very richly coloured textiles
in the foreground versus the much smaller, much paler textiles
in the distance. Their much smaller size helps this to read
clearly, but the fact that they're so much more washed out
really makes the distance here read very well. This is an
excellent way to bring the focus right towards the foreground
and away from the background.
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And one last example from Full Throttle, just to prove that
there's no specific rule that works all the time. Here the
foreground rocks are a rich, vibrant red colour, while the
distant ones are pure black, despite the fact that they're
receding to a blue sky. Here the lighting of the scene takes
precedence, and we still read the forms as being distance
because of the implied direction of the sunlight - we read the
distant rocks as having shadow cast on them by the larger,
closer foreground rocks. Here lighting trumps the trickery of
atmospheric perspective, and we can read the distance perfectly
clearly. Much like the whites of the background in the last
scene, the darks of the background here make the lighter
foreground colours read much more clearly, and bring the focus
towards them.
Atmospheric perspective is a great way to show distance, and to
direct focus. It's easy to get caught up thinking about one form
of aerial perspective, but as can be seen from these examples,
there's many ways to use the idea. It's a neat, versatile little
trick, and a very useful one to have for when painting or
drawing scenery like this.
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