A question on the illusion of scale

[saltydogdesign]

Well, one thing that can make a big difference would be camera placement. Remember that most of the photographs we see are taken from about 5-6 feet off the ground -- a natural result of the fact that that's where our eyeballs are. I see a lot of 3D renders in which the camera is positioned somewhat above the object. So it stands to reason that if you render, say, a model of a building from above, you are either implying that the viewer is flying or that the building is very small. If you shoot the same building with a camera positioned six scale feet off the ground, you'll have to tilt the camera back a bit to see the top, and it will look big.

As for focal length, that shouldn't really make a difference in the perceived scale of your objects, though it can affect perceived distance. Find a good book on photo composition and you'll get a better idea of this than I can convey, but in the short term I'd experiment with where you are putting your camera.

[gabio]

I rely this effect on these particular point:
1-DOF. Help the viewer to calcul the scale, because a small object askyou to get the rest pretty blurred (if you'r realy near) we expect this to append.

2-Len size. go in perpective mode and zoome an object, at some point the camera will go through and the object will get ultra deformet, mean you are realy close to the object, you could fake zoom from far away by rendering with high lens value in edit windows on the camera.

3-position & env. I place these two together. as explained above, and also the environement because a humain need a scale ref to sort the scale out of something most of the time.

the 3 point together give you almost complete control over the "effect" you want to give.
after all, in cg all is about what the poeple see.

[wireFrame]

The reason why they use large models in fx production is because they have to add lots of details on to their surfaces. And with lot's of details, they are close to the "actual" thing they want to achieve. For example, in the movie "Titanic", they have to use a large model to put in minute details (like rivets). If you build that model in a lower scale, you'll have difficulty in adding details. You can't also match the water/ocean where you'll put that boat model since real water or waves is fixed in scale.

I agree with gabio's reply. There's what we call "Relativity" when it comes to how things will look compared to something as a reference. Another thing is also, we tend to relate something to objects we're familiar with. A ball for example is hard to make huge because it's fixed in our mind that a ball is a small object. To better achive the illusion, we have to add some details on it plus objects we can compare that ball to look huge. We scale up the ball and composite it to a landscape and add cars and houses around it so there are reference objects.

Last, huge objects tend to move slower due to their size as affected by gravity. A midget and a tall basketball palyer move differently from each other. Huge objects has to appear slow moving or in "slow motion" to achieve the illusion.

Camera placement and lens will greatly enhace the illusion if used properly.

[crashd]

If you ever get the chance, take a look at the Gnomon Analogue DVD's of Feng Zhu's Concept Design, he does a good 30-40 mins on how to give thumbnail sketches and concept art a real sense of scale; as wireframe says, it's mostly down to relativity. One good technique is to include something in the scene to relate the really large/small object too, a human being is one obvious choice, or something like a car.
Another trick is to use repetition of themes and styles, so you can see that the building 300 meters away is massive, and the one you are looking straight at is a similar size, or a repetition, so this building must also be massive.
That 2nd point is a bit harder to explain in words, so if you want some examples just buzz me :]
-dave

[Integrity]

I don't know if this will help any, but I had thought of it when I realized no one else mentioned it. Light falloff will look different in different scales. I guess I'll take a simple example...a hand-held sized ball and an entire planet. If you compare the two, the area where light goes from light to dark...or from lit-side to shadow...will be "sharper" or change faster in distance on the planet than on the ball.

I had the same problem you have now when I was trying to render out planet's in Lightwave...then I went and read about the surface settings in the manual and learned the program has a "Diffuse Sharpness" setting that will render the light falloff sharper like the name implies.

The effect in real life may not be noticable until you compare very huge objects. The ball will have a very soft falloff whereas larger objects will be sharper. Science defines light falloff as the inverse squared distance. Since distance is in there scale will have a major role in determining it.

I hope I explained that well enough.

I hope this helps.

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