World and levels › Space and combat
Composition in 3D
A place that looks great in a screenshot can go unnoticed in the game. The player holds the camera, so composition has two halves. One is an arrangement of volumes that reads from any point. The other is a frame, which you can build only where you know where the player is looking. Then what players actually notice, and how to build a view on an approach from a foreground, a middle ground and a background. And why people argue about “leading lines.”
Why this matters
An artist builds a scene in the editor: the camera stands at the best point, the lighting is set, the main castle sits in the center of the frame. The screenshot comes out great. In the game, many players walk past the castle without lifting their heads: they approached from the other side, or were looking at their feet or at an enemy.
In painting, photography and film, the author holds the frame. In a game, the player does. The difference is easy to picture with a postcard and a park. A photographer shoots a postcard: one point, one moment, everything carefully arranged. A park is designed to read from any path. The most important things in it are visible from many paths. A few places, such as a bench above a pond or the end of an avenue, are built as views, because there you know where the person stands. A game level is a park, not a postcard.