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#Post#: 6--------------------------------------------------
Interesting ways to frame scenery
DIR By: Pam
Date: May 20, 2021, 4:15 am
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Framing interests me in adventure game art, especially when
outside the actual piece of art itself, and separate elements
treated as a frame, as it's not something I've done a lot of.
It's fascinating to see what other artists have experimented
with. Some games frame their scenery with large interfaces, such
as Waxworks, shown above. Here we can see a large amount of
interface that naturally frames the shot - with elements like
the inventory down the bottom, various options to the right, and
movement controls to the left. One particular detail I like is
the character shown in the top left corner, showing the person
whose story we're experiencing at this point in the game.
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This character graphic changes depending on which story we're
experiencing, as can be seen here, and helps insert some of the
character into an otherwise fairly generic interface. It was
common to show a static icon or portrait of your character in
games where the view is a long way away, or when we see from
their eyes. Along with the decorations, such as the columns and
stone relief details, they help to give the interface a nice
feeling of style.
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Dreamweb has the character portrait even bigger - our
protagonist's constant presence takes up a pretty large section
of the screen, and it juts out in an unusual silhouette. The
actual framing of the scene, however, is mostly done by having
the actual walls visible, and surrounding the rest with a
vaguely metallic patterned texture. This acts as multiple levels
of framing - the walls of the scene, then the backdrop of the
texture surrounding, which is then framed by the GUI and
portrait. This mostly works because of the very zoomed out view,
and would probably be less useful for a more traditional sort of
view.
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Even the simplest of elements can help an interface that's
framing a shot to feel more dynamic. The Dune GUI, shown here,
breaks the otherwise straight frame with a sculpted figure whose
silhouette breaks out of the frame and into the scene, an
interesting and artistic alternative to the very common
rectangular GUIs we're used to seeing. The fact that the
figure's head looks up and down depending on our action helps
this to feel more dynamic still, and helps the GUI and game from
feeling so separate from each other. It might be a small
connection, a minor intrusion beyond the boundary of the scene,
but sometimes it's the little touches that count.
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Loom, however, does the opposite. Here we can see the tip of
Bishop Mandible's dark cathedral jutting out past the point
where the letterbox frame - a very common way to frame an image
- has its boundary. It's the smallest of touches, repeated often
in the game, but it feels like a nice subversion of the image's
frame - allowing this one particular element to jut out past the
border of the scene feels like it's adding depth and interest to
the scene.
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Sometimes this can be taken to the extreme - as shown here in
Laura Bow 2. Rather than painting the ceiling in, an unimportant
part of the image, the artists clearly chose to leave it blank,
making the pterodactyl stand out very clearly. It's an odd way
to present scenery, and perhaps not the best, but it is
certainly an interesting approach to adding an artificial
framing element in, rather than painting something that would be
unimportant anyway.
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It feels a little more natural in Codename: ICEMAN, where the
shape of the submarine we're in frames the shot, as well as some
foreground elements. Here, rather than showing what's outside
the scene we're in, they merely suggest the shapes of certain
things, and deem the rest unimportant to show. This has the
interesting effect of lending an interesting shape to the scene,
redolent of submarines, and supports the art more nicely than
the previous example.
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This can be taken to an even more interesting, evocative idea -
such as in this cave in King's Quest 4. The sinister nature of
the cave is conveyed wonderfully by shaping the black frame of
it like a skull, well supported by the niches in place of eye
sockets. I love that the artists decided to make the shape of a
skull here - it's bold, inventive, and doesn't get in the way of
actually playing the scene. A great way to have fun with the
shot and add some creativity.
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Another option, other than using pure black, is to use a
difference in saturation to guide our attention. This shot from
Gold Rush shows the artists greying out the unimportant
elements, using the coloured areas to guide our attention to
where we need to look. This is an interesting idea - it means
that the framing elements get a lot of detail that help show the
world, without taking away from the important parts we need to
focus on.
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This shot from Future Wars shows a variation on this idea - here
we see a cutaway of one scene, as framed by elements of another
part of the scene. The small palette of the game makes this
framing very effective - it's easy to see where one part of the
scene ends and the other begins - because our framing is still
being done in pure black. An effective way to outline one part
of a scene, while keeping it connected to another part of the
scene.
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A really fun example of this idea is shown in this scene from
Goblins Quest 3, where we can see one character looking in on
another scene, and his presence acting as part of the framing of
the shot. This is a really fun example - it not only shows two
things at once, but does so in a fun way. I particularly like
how the hands break the frame of the crystal ball, which breaks
the silhouette of his face.
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One particularly impressive - and bizarre - example is in the
B.A.T. games, where we see multiple parts of the city at once.
Within the frame that our mouse is focused on, we can interact
and pan the scenery, while still being able to see wider shots
of the city at the same time. This makes overall composition
very difficult, as our eyes have many elements to be distracted
by, but it definitely lends a unique feeling to the games, and
presents us with an interesting alternative. The fact that each
micro composition within a panel manages to be readable, stylish
and evocative is very impressive, and really shows the power of
strong compositions even around the thumbnail level.
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Perhaps the most bizarre and impractical use of interesting
framing is in Fascination, where scenery is often shown as
cutout elements seen in the silhouettes of various things that
were somehow deemed relevant to the location - the shapes of
books, cars, even the silhouettes of people, as seen here. This
is such an odd approach, and rarely practical (would you believe
that this is an actual playable scene from the game, with actual
hotspots we have to click on?) but no doubt the artists had fun
playing around with the idea.
Framing, then, presents many interesting avenues in which an
artist can experiment. They're not always practical or useful,
but for certain moments, or certain projects, framing a scene in
an interesting way can add a lot to scenery. This is definitely
outside of my realm of experience as an artist, but very much
something I've admired and been interested in, and maybe there
will come a time where I'll find an interesting use for such an
idea. Until then, I'll simply keep an eye out for examples like
these, and collecting as many interesting variations on the idea
as I can.
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