Human width in perspective

[Yitcomics]

First of all look at this image


As you can see,I know how to figure out the height of human proportion in perspective,but how do I figure out the width.On a side note,i'm not too sure if my 7 head proportion is correct,so if you have comment please do.Ok back to my main question,what is the best way to figure out the width through guessing.

Image of just guessing the width:


And if I wasn't just guessing,let's just say I know exactly that this box(image below) is the width,how do I divide it to 2 1/2 heads(that's the male width proportion right?,correct me if i'm wrong)

[Cassiebsg]

What you want is draw parallel diagonal lines.

Made a little drawing for you:


Hope it helps.

[Grok]

This way you could make a box in a one point perspective, and redraw it at a different point.

An easier way is to just determine what the height should be at the new placement. Rescale the original picture with locked proportions to the new height, and your done.

If your question is more about how to in a perspective having the same scale for height, width and depth, you will need a 2-point perspective.




Seven (or 7 1/2) heads high, is a realistic proportion for a grown up human. In game art you often will use proportions where the head is bigger.

[Yitcomics]

If your question is more about how to in a perspective having the same scale for height, width and depth, you will need a 2-point perspective.

Are you saying that if I want zero scaling in my game,I should use 2 point,can you elaborate more on this.

[Grok]

Are you saying that if I want zero scaling in my game,I should use 2 point,can you elaborate more on this.

What I am saying is that if you want to draw i.e. a box in perspective, and you want to be able to measure hight, width and debts so that these measurements are in  scale with each other, you need to use a 2-point-perspective, as illustrated in my drawing. The black lines are where you have the measurements.



So the box that is constructed in the drawing, is 7.5 units high, and 2.5 units wide and 2.5 units deep.

Personally I would not use this method as an aid to draw a person, but if you want to be able to use measurements to construct a perspective drawing, this is a way that you could do it.

I hope this makes it a bit more clear.

[Eric]

Are you saying that if I want zero scaling in my game,I should use 2 point,can you elaborate more on this.

If you want zero scaling, you'll need an axonmetric drawing (like Isometric), I'm pretty sure. Those are tricky to do in AGS, from what I understand, so I think the key to not scaling is to keep a fairly shallow walking area so there's not much distance from the "camera."

[Yitcomics]

I think that is one my weakness,I'm just not good at making a shallow walking space and make the background felling spacious.The game is set inside a mansion where you don't set your foot outdoor except for a few places.Also its not just about the game character scaling or not,I guess it's the environment as well.I kept worrying "is that too big?" "how large do I have to draw that chair so that it doesn't looks off in perspective?".

In fact this thread is a good example,I kept worrying "is that character too wide" which is why other than how too calculate it correctly,I also asked how can I guess and get the best accuracy i can with guessing the width,cause I really need the speed.So if I can just draw everything without worrying if the scaling is off(without resorting to isometric),so yeah any tips .

EDIT:
To be continued here:
Here

[Snarky]

Why don't you just sketch out the character at some default scale, and if you need it smaller simply scale it down in your image editor before the final drawing? An understanding of perspective is nice, of course, but there really shouldn't ever be any need to do perspective construction to figure out human proportions.

[portableTaco]

So I'm editing this post because in order to answer your question better, I thought it might be fun to make a little tutorial or something. So I'm doing that right now.  For now, here's a quick bit about getting your object's depth to be right anywhere in your image.  I'll make a post with all the tutorial parts when I finish them, I think.

PortableTaco's Measuring in Perspective, 4ft x 4ft Box, Step 1:
The line in Purple is a Measure Bar, I've established the "1ft" measurement on the GroundLine (GL) towards the bottom of the image and just
carried it up to where I want my 4ft x 4ft Box.  I've drawn every measured point as a grid, just to make things easier to see.


PortableTaco's Measuring in Perspective, 4ft x 4ft Box, Step 2:
In step 2 all that happens is I copy the horizontal 4ft measurement, rotate it vertically and place
it to create the sides of the Box.  I've also drawn the top of the Box.


PortableTaco's Measuring in Perspective, 4ft x 4ft Box, Step 3:
Here I have drawn my Purple orthogonals back to the Vanishing Point (VP).  Where is the back of the Box? To find it, I measured four measurements to the left of my left-most orthogonal line (the left side of the Box) and drew a Yellow line back to a *Measuring Point (MP).  In this case, I drew to MP2 so it would cross over my Purple orthogonal.  *Measuring Points are found by creating two 45 degree angles from the Station Point (SP - where you the viewer are stationed).  I'll go over more in-depth later in the actual tutorial.


PortableTaco's Measuring in Perspective, 4ft x 4ft Box, Step 4:
Last step here, is to measure off points on the Yellow line going back to MP2. Each time it crosses an orthogonal line, that is 1ft back in space.  We're looking for 4ft back in space.  You can see three red dots leading up to the final Red line which shows the back of the Box, each dot represents a point at which the Yellow line crosses an orthogonal. 


Well that's it, finding your measurement depth anywhere in space.  You can make a measurebar anywhere you like, and go off the grid from your GL.  You can do it vertically too, so if you want a guy who is always the same height, say, then you would measure your arbitrary height vertically from the GL, and obviously follow that top point back to your VP and then anything along that line is the same height.  You can definitely get by with eyeballing all of this, which is I think what Snarky was saying, don't get locked in to making everything so rigid, but it's really great to understand how it all works.  The great thing about this is that the more you just look at it, the more you find shortcuts to getting what you're after without complicated perspective setups. Cheers!

[Snarky]

No, I just meant that proportions don't change with scaling, so there's no need to do perspective construction to work out the width. If you scale to half the height, it also has to be half the width, and so on. Just draw a human body of correct proportions, and it will be correct at any scale.

The only exception is if there are significant perspective effects within the body itself (e.g. the arm or leg that is closer looks bigger), but in conventional adventure game perspective these effects are minimal.

[portableTaco]

Oh yeah, that's all true, the proportions don't change unless you are caught in a witch doctor's voodoo.

[Eric]

...Or unless you're using a more complicated form of perspective, say three-point or fish-eye. But again, not often used in adventure games.

[Yitcomics]

@portableTaco,appreciate the tutorial,like you said I did find myself getting easier to eyeball perspective after learning and doing a lot of perspective.At the moment i'm just trying to draw without concern too much about perspective cause it was making me crazy.But this will be useful for practice

[portableTaco]

@portableTaco,appreciate the tutorial,like you said I did find myself getting easier to eyeball perspective after learning and doing a lot of perspective.At the moment i'm just trying to draw without concern too much about perspective cause it was making me crazy.But this will be useful for practice

Yes, it will make you crazy if you obsess over it and let it lead your drawing.  Usually, I just draw and when I'm ready to tighten up my drawing, then I make sure the perspective is correct and all that towards the end.  I throw down something loose to start with, then I paint, then if I super care about that particular background I get the pen tool out and make sure it's right.  Store your tutorials in a folder, and refer to them when it matters to you.