Tag Archives: Depth Perception

Fishing Boats by the Shore in a Calm

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“Fishing Boats by the Shore in a Calm” (ca. 1660–65) Oil on canvas by Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707)

This is one of my favorite paintings from Legion of Honor, for I always have this obsession with paintings of boats and ships. Willem van de Velde the Younger used many cues to give depth perception to this painting. One being occlusion, I can tell that the two boats on the far left seem to be parallel together, and the first boat is in front of the second boat because the first boat appears to be closer to where I am, and the second boat is further away from me. I also know that all the boats are about the same size based on my knowledge. This is the familiar size cue, even though some boats appear to be way smaller, some bigger, I still know that they are approximately the same size. So are the people in the painting, I know that they are about the same size as well, the two people near the tent are not x5 larger than those on the boat on the far back based on my knowledge. Another cue present in this painting would be aerial perspective, the fainter and the lighter color on the sky indicates that it is further away from me because the distance between me and the object of the background  is further. And the bolder colors tell us that it the object is closer to me. Texture gradient tells me that the closer the objects are, the more details I can see. Therefore, I am able to see more details of the first boat that is closest to me than the ones that are further away from me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image source: http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Dutch-and-Flemish-masterworks-at-Legion-of-Honor-2355389.php

Creating depth

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Because one of my passions is art, I constantly relate the things I learn in this class to drawing concepts. At first I was surprised that there was so many similarities and overlaps but the more I thought about it the more sense it made: this class is, essentially, all about seeing. Art is (generally) about looking. In my last blog post I wrote about geons and how they relate to art but in this one I’m interested in the concept of depth. We have pictoral depth cues, which is when 3-D worlds are projected onto 2-D surfaces. How do artists create depth in art? By mimicking the way the eye perceives depth. Occlusion is one of the easiest ways to create depth when drawing or painting. Because the eye automatically perceives the occluded object to be further away or behind, it’s a simple way to create the illusion of depth. A lot of the things artists do in creating depth are less about specific artistic techniques and more about automatic reactions: we don’t consciously think about the fact that smaller objects look farther away or occluded objects look more distant. But as I draw I know that these are essential things to do if I want the picture to make sense spatially.

One of the most important, basic elements of trying to artisitically create the illusion of depth is linear perspective. One of the first things an artist should do when they begin a piece is find their vanishing point. Once those parallel lines are on the paper, it’s a matter of making sure everything you draw follows those lines. While drawing, the diminishing lines guide me in terms of how big or small whatever I draw should be. We learned about anamorphosis, which is purposefully distorting something so it only makes visual sense when viewed at a certain angle. This is something that a lot of artists do and I’ve used this technique a few times myself. But it’s very difficult because before you try to distort depth you have to already know how to create it normally.

Fetch’s Anamorphic Projection

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So, this perhaps may be the nerdiest blog post of the year, because it deals with a really cool detail in a video game called Infamous: Second Son. In the mission, you are finding clues about a rogue character named Fetch who has special powers, because you want to find her and absorb them for your own use. Her power is the ability to manipulate neon energy for use as a weapon and a way to be very mobile throughout the city. The clue search takes you to a hideout inside an advertisement sign and here you take various photos about Fetch’s personal life. She accidentally killed her brother Brent over drug use and wants to avenge him by killing drug dealers, so one of the clues is a neon viewpoint of his face that she created. However, this viewpoint is not any regular viewpoint but actually an Anamorphic projection.

Accidental viewpoints are viewing positions that produce a regular image not seen in the real world. The way that the retinal images align in our eyes, the image appears in a way that it is not seen at other angles. This comes back to the theme that an infinite number of images in space can create the same images on our retina and in our brain at various angles and viewpoints. Now, what is seen in Infamous may not be a true Anamorphic projection, since this view is seen from above and not necessarily uses linear prospective as a monocular clue. Still, this is an accidental viewpoint and instead of the image looking normal at all other angles but one, this image looks strange at all angles but one. There are 3 separate images in different parts of the viewpoint. One is located right where the person is standing and the other two are located in spots down below on a rooftop and the street. When the main character takes the picture for the clue, he needs to move to a position where the 3 pictures align perfectly to see the normal image.

This was very awesome to see the first time playing, because immediately I recognized this as an accidental viewpoint relating to the ideas we talked about in class. It was very interesting that video game developers would use an aspect like this in a video game although it is probably much easier to produce art like this in a video game rather in real life.

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Images from YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHTTw36VQOo&list=PLs1-UdHIwbo6msTIJm0OtY_GKjt5r92AK