From the course: Digital Matte Painting: 2 Perspective

The three types of perspective - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Digital Matte Painting: 2 Perspective

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The three types of perspective

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We'll be spending most of our time in this tutorial on linear perspective. But there are actually three types of perspective you should know about. Those are atmospheric, color, and linear. Most great madshots will show all three of these types of perspective. And they're are valuable part of any mad-artist palette for giving a picture depth. So what are these three types of perspective? Atmospheric perspective is when your lightest lights and darkest darks are in the foreground and as the distance from the viewer increases, the difference between the light and dark values decrease. If you look at this example here you can see that the greatest contrast is in the foreground on these buildings. And as objects recede from the viewer they lose contrast like these background mountains. Here are some other examples of atmospheric perspective. What causes this effect? The air that surrounds us has density, and the further away from you you look, the more that dense air is between you and what you are seeing, until in the very distance, objects will fade into the color of the sky. The second type of perspective is color perspective. And that's where the closer to the viewer an object is the warmer it's color will be. And the further away from the viewer, the cooler the color will be. If you look at the same example from before, you can see how in the foreground there are reds and browns and oranges, all warm colors. But the farther you get from the viewer, the bluer or cooler the colors become. Here are some additional examples of color perspective. Color perspective happens because the sky is blue, and as you look into the distance, more of the blue sky is between you and what you're seeing. Causing objects in the distance to cool down. The reverse of normal color perspective occurs at sunrise and sunset, when the sky can be composed of warm or even hot colors. This causes objects in the background to take on that warm sky color, and objects in the foreground to be cool. This is called reverse color perspective, and is a particularly stunning effect. The third and most complex type of perspective is Linear Perspective and that's what we will be spending the rest of this video tutorial on. Linear Perspective uses vanishing points and lines of conversions to give a picture space and depth. Even though we won't talk about atmospheric and color perspective during the rest of this tutorial, they will be an important part of your map painting tool kit. So keep an eye out for them in nature, and look for opportunities to use them to give your mats maximum power.

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