Digital Lighting & Rendering, Second Edition

CHAPTER SEVEN: Composition and Staging 195

It is important to note that your perspective on a scene changes only when

the camera is moved to a new position. Perspective is not changed by the

camera’s zoom or fi eld of view. When the camera is left in the same position,

the perspective will be the same, no matter how telephoto or wide-angle

your lens. Choosing a longer focal length for your camera in 3D graphics

gives you just the same perspective as if you had rendered with a short focal

length and then cropped the image down to the close-up you wanted.

High-Angle and Low-Angle Shots

The most normal-looking shots will be the ones taken with the camera at

eye level. Moving the camera to different heights can create other camera

angles that are sometimes more interesting or dramatically useful.

A low-angle shot, with the camera positioned below your character, looking

up at her, can serve to make a character look bigger, stronger, more honest,

or more noble. Low-angle shots can also exaggerate the size of environments

and architectural spaces.

A high-angle shot, with the camera aimed downward from a position above

the character, can make a character look sly, small, young, weak, confused,

cute, or childlike. Figure 7.7 shows how a character looks from a low angle

(left) and a high angle (right.)

[Figure 7.7]

A character will be

perceived di erently

from a high angle (left)

than a low angle (right).

Images by Andrew

Hickinbottom, www.

andrewhickinbottom.co.uk.