Creating Environments:
Intro
What follows is a new way of looking at the creation of an environment. It is my be-
lief that all environmental solutions can be narrowed down to four basic ‘Genres’
…’Hostile’, ‘Mysterious’, ‘Romantic’ and ’Tranquil’. Lets take a look at each of these
genres characteristics.
Hostile
Outright hostility...Combat and attack
Brooding danger...storm, lava flows, fire, flood etc.
Careening or falling objects
Explosions or shattering materials
Ceremonial violence...torture, murder and assault
Dangerous activity...Mountain climbing’ sky diving etc.
Mysterious
With additional twists...becomes scary
Unfamiliar or veiled locations
Unfamiliar or veiled silhouettes
Unusual plays of light and shadow
Shadows of unexpected shape, scale or location
Any structure curiously devoid of life
A path that fades into the distance
Potentially any lighted or darkened opening
Any ‘out of place’ object
Romantic
With additional twists becomes...fantasy
Characters or scenes ‘idealized’ to a personal or conventional vision
Normally ‘Hostile’ characters or events gone restful
Any character or object depicted as heroic and ‘larger than life’
Tranquil
With additional twists becomes...lonely, and finally...desolate
Threatening elements distant or non-existent
Little rapid movement indicated
Small or resting human presence in a scene
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Creating Environments:
Genres - Hostility
Hostility Below are the major types of hostile environments in graphic form, ranging from
combat to simply dangerous activity as described in the previous ‘Hostile’ characteristics text.
It is by subtle changes that the simple idea of a hostile environment can indeed change the
viewers reaction from one of fear and revulsion, to a sense of impending doom or just nerve
wracking excitement. This is a concept , that while intuitively known by professional story tell-
ers in all media, has never been introduced as it is here to students.
The above images are: Combat, Natural disaster, Falling objects, Explosions, Wanton violence,
and Daring human activity. All these variations on the genre of hostility are fraught with dire
danger.
Assignment: Pick one of these categories and develop a sketch with a new situation, composi-
tion and elements. Keep it small 3.5 x 6 in. or (8.8 x 15.2 cm). These are more horizontal
(similar to Cinema) than the examples since the squarer format shown is more difficult to com-
pose inside. It will be of tremendous help if you first study my online Composition and staging
course. These two work hand in hand to develop successful visual solutions.
Keep you sketches crisp but broad and simple...without tedious detail as these are concept ide-
as for the staging of a more finished work. Work on tracing paper and refine with overlays.
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Creating Environments:
Genres - Mysterious
Mysterious Below are the major types of mysterious environments in graphic form, ranging
from veiled and mysterious, to unknown or with elements out of place, to outright frightening.
Assignment: Create a sketch as before... but pick a version of mysterious from the various
types mentioned above. As always stay crisp and simple...its just a concept.
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Creating Environments:
Genres - Romatic
Romantic Below are the major types of romanticized environments in graphic form, ranging
from personally idealized to fantacized a larger than life character.
Assignment: Create a sketch as before... but pick a version of from the various types men-
tioned above. As always stay crisp and simple...its just a concept.
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Creating Environments:
Genres - Tranquil
Tranquil Below are the major types of romanticized environments in graphic form, ranging
from enjoyable and peaceful to lonely and eventually to desolate.
Assignment: Create a sketch as before... but pick a version of from the various types men-
tioned above. As always stay crisp and simple...its just a concept.
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Creating Environments:
Motifs
What follows is the second new way of looking at the creation of an environment. It is my
belief that nearly all environmental problems can be solved by using one of these listed motifs.
We look at them first alone and later in combinations and with modifications...the resulting
possibilities are endless. The images follow the list left to right and top to bottom.
Motifs
• Half Pipe
• Canyon
• Overhang
• Shelf
• Shallow Trough
• Deep “V’
• Ridge
• Nested Bulges
• Vertigo Point
• Foot of a Slope
• Pinnacle
• Tube
• A Broad Flat
• Foot of a Bulge
• On a slope
This page is a refresher for reference on the available motifs. Get very familiar with this list as
the following assignments will draw heavily upon these as we modify and use them.
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Creating Environments:
Motif Modifications
Assignment: After revisiting modifications to motifs, it will be your next task to select two of
the motifs and modify them in at least two ways.
Point Of View...Very low, Low and High. This can be applied to any motif.
Essing...The ‘S’ is a common motif in composition and is usually relegated to an ‘S’ shaped
path upon the ground surface. This can also be used to create a meandering character along the
vertical sides can be applied to many motifs. Paths of all types can meander over any of the
flatter or bulging motifs. This can involve ’porpoising’ or an up and down motion as well.
Porpoising & Wyes...The last six images are examples of these common mods applied to a
number of different motifs from nested bulges to tubes, canyons and ridges.
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Creating Environments:
Motif Modifications
Above are two sets of three step-by-step demonstrations of the ‘shelf’ motif. The upper set is
very basic while the lower set is more involved and employs both ‘Essing’ and ‘Porpoising’
with its up and down action which follows a more realistic and natural shelf condition.
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Creating Environments:
Applied Motifs
On this page are some applied motifs shown as one might find a need to use them. You will
note that the application is often an analog to the original motif label...most noticeably in the
overhang being an airport terminal and the castle rampart being the ridge motif.
The city skyline with a bridge and flood channel and the pyramids are both ‘Shallow Trough’
motifs. In the ‘Pinnacle’ motif application the sandstone spires are seen not only from a high
viewpoint, but with a tilted horizon to allow seeing the peaks.
Changes of view height P.O.V. is probably the most important modification you can make
when starting the scene building process. It can give enormous drama to an otherwise boring
subject.
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Creating Environments:
Ingredients
In this section we revisit ‘Ingredients’. These as you recall are the locality characteristics that a
specific location exhibits. They vary wildly both in natural and ethnic ways and are essential
to include if we wish to be convincing. The following images will include...rock types, terrain
variations, vegetation and finally architecture.
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Creating Environments:
Ingredients
The images below illustrate the major types of terrain.
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Creating Environments:
Ingredients
The images below illustrate the major types of vegetation.
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Creating Environments:
Ingredients
The images below illustrate some diverse types of architecture. Research is al-
ways necessary before starting any finished work. The internet is a vast resource.
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Creating Environments:
Ingredients
The images below illustrate some diverse types of architecture. Research is al-
ways necessary before starting any finished work. The internet is a vast resource.
Assignment:
• Imagine a location and an appropriate motif that suits it.
• Add any land features at this point...water, hills, mountains, rock areas.
• Include a small group of appropriate structures placed off center.
• Add appropriate foliage in foreground middle and background...overlap
the structures if appropriate. Remember lights against darks!
• Using the same general composition...create a new locale by changing
the structure, foliage and land forms (near and far). Make any other mi-
nor adjustments you feel necessary. This is a real education in environ-
mental design!
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Creating Environments:
Picture Building
The images below illustrate the simplest form of scene building... a simple street
with a building, sidewalk, a vertical sign and a shadow on the ground (all indicat-
ed in silhouette with straight lines and no details). It has a single vanishing point.
An auto is inserted. This is followed by simple forms of buildings beyond. The
buildings are completed with addition of a few lines and a rectangular ‘avatar’
representing a person on the sidewalk. Scene completed!
The concept here was to show how we (in this case) started with a reverse ‘L’
composition of building and shadow, and subsequently added silhouetted objects
one at a time in values (darker or lighter) and at locations (left to right) that al-
lowed all to be easily understood as they overlap one another. Small changes in
location or darkness can make a huge difference in the clarity of your picture.
Once you are comfortable with this simple approach we can move on to introduc-
ing two-point or even three-point perspective. Remember... ONE ELEMENT AT
A TIME!
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Creating Environments:
Scene Building
There are two examples below which are almost as simple as the previous con-
cept, but we now have limited two-point perspective and a somewhat more de-
veloped finish stage. The objects are still handled very simply, but the scenes are
more believable. There remains, little or no detail in the objects, but we are pro-
gressing toward a more polished look. The essence of the approach is to represent
complicated objects with the simplest possible shape, and in subsequent steps to
carve into and add on to until the result resembles the desired finish objects.
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Creating Environments:
Scene Building
Below are more examples of the previous concept of scene building one element
at a time, very gradually adding to and adjusting silhouettes for a finished scene.
It is important that you always have an idea in your mind before starting. Choose
your point of view, followed by the appropriate terrain & vegetation shapes. Center
of interest is next. All of these are gradually developed in each stage, improving
your drawing and design while keeping lights and darks playing against one anoth-
er. Always think of yourself as a Film director and feel free to move things!
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Creating Environments:
Scene Building
Here we have a scene similar to one in a popular Sci-Fi film. We have an air-car,
a desert canyon and an apprehensive young man looking through a pair of hi-tech
binoculars. The sequence of scene development is seen below.
As discussed: a point of view (low and in front of), a rising slope with canyon
walls and a high sun angle plus some fallen rocks in the foreground. Note the va-
cancy under the vehicle (very important to feel it is hovering).
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Creating Environments:
Scene Building
Assignment: Compose a scene with a (boat or ship...any type but one with char-
acter please). Using the same proportional format as the samples. Draw first us-
ing very basic shapes...second with enhanced shapes... and finally as a finished
sketch. Submit all three on one sheet (feel free to tape all three in place and trace
them all together)...which is a good trick to crisp-up your drawings.
As you can see types of vessels and scenes vary widely from industrial to histori-
cal. Locations and ships with a sense of adventure and mystery can add much.
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Creating Environments:
Magic One Point
In this section we will briefly discuss ’Magic One-Point’ perspective extrusions.
This complicated description is actually a very simple way to explore where you
would like to place your point of view in any semi or totally enclosed space. The
concept requires only a section through a space. The example that follows is an
imagined section through an underground railway station. In all four views the
section remains unchanged, but the single vanishing point has been moved from
left to right and from low in the section to very high. The results of moving the
vanishing point are four very different scenes. The scenes have only been extrud-
ed a small distance so they would fit on the page, however any could be extruded
further so we could be totally inside the scene. The advantage here is that we can
explore many possible points of view in just minutes.
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Creating Environments:
Magic One Point
Below you will see View 2 from the previous page extruded fully. Of special note
here is the nearest seam on the platform. Note that it is not parallel to the horizon
line, but angled ever-so-slightly so as to converge with it at some distant point to
the left. If your drawing is not too large the point will be accessible, and all lines
in our scene that go from left to right will use this point! We have turned our one-
point into the feeling of two-point with no difficulty! A section of the train is on
the same section shape as the station itself and will be extruded in the same way.
This is not a class on perspective so creating equally spaced joint lines and
such will not be covered, but the quick extrusion of any profile to place yourself
within a space will be enormously useful for finding your viewpoint.
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Creating Environments:
Magic One Point
Below you will see another example of a section for extrusion. This time a sec-
tion though a docking bay in orbit with a shuttle profile floating inside. A single
vanishing point has been arbitrarily placed and used to extrude all key points on
the profiles. The evenly spaced joints are unnecessary and could as easily be
faked. The message is the extrusion and the ability to select various viewpoints
quickly by just moving the vanishing point.
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Creating Environments:
Magic One Point
Continuing with extrusions we will now add the ‘Zig-Zag’ which simply means
we extrude our profile an arbitrary distance toward an arbitrary V.P. (vanishing
point) and draw a profile at that point. We then place another arbitrary V.P. and
extrude again. This ca either be forward towards us or backward into the picture.
Here is a bold red master profile that has been first projected an arbitrary distance
toward the #1 vanishing point. A second V.P. was then selected and used to ex-
trude forward toward us from the master profile. The result is a diamond shaped
tunnel that has a zig-zag. It doesn’t look like much, but with a walkway and some
‘greeblies’ added to the walls it will become a sci-fi environment.
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Creating Environments:
Magic One Point
In the top image you can faintly see the last image peeking through to show its
relationship with the further extruded overlay. At the bottom is the clear image of
the new environment with walkway...ready for inhabitants and perhaps more
elaborate pipes, lighting and paraphernalia to be added!
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Creating Environments:
Magic One Point
Assignment: Using one of the profiles below or perhaps one you invent-
ed...construct a zig-zag environment using at least two V.P.s . The circular one is
easiest if you have a plastic circle tem-
plate... extruding from the bottom and up-
per center marks till the two are the same
height as a larger or smaller circle opening
in your template and draw that circle there.
To the right is a circular example. Do at
least two very different exercises with
some character if possible.
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Creating Environments:
Magic One Point
Assignment: Now that we have done the zig-zag extrusion, we return to a sim-
pler one vanishing point extrusion but with the added complications of creating a
believable (Film shot caliber) scene showing massive post apocalyptic damage
and perhaps overgrowth. Below are examples to get you going. Extruded profiles
can be of any suitable shape, viewed from within or from outside.
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Creating Environments:
Final Project
Assignment: As a final project in environmental design you have the challenge
of creating, again... a film caliber concept sketch. The requirements are: an Az-
tec / Mayan style pyramid rising out of a shadowed jungle. Use lighting in a dra-
matic way...full sun, partial sun (shadow across it?), or in full shadow. Use sev-
eral distinct tonal passages to describe the jungle as seen in the two examples.
The level of finish should be sketchy in style...similar to above. Tracing over
your sketch using tracing paper and attempting to simplify any needlessly com-
plex areas in the process... will produce ever crisper results!
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