Preparation - Blender Master Class: A Hands-on Guide to Modeling, Sculpting, Materials, and Rendering - page 22

was particularly true for the Jungle Ruins project,
where the goal was to create a final image from
a single vantage point. Remember that you want
the final results not only to look convincing and
detailed but also to be pleasing to the eye when
placed within the setting of your final renders.
Composition is a very rich subject, and it is
beyond the scope of this topic to cover it in detail,
but here are some basic principles.

horizontal division of the image (about one-third of
the way up from the bottom or down from the top),
with the sky occupying the area above the horizon.
If the main points of interest are situated above the
horizon, such as a tall building or a lit moon in the
night sky, we might place the horizon above the
lower third of the image to allow the building and
moon to occupy more space. On the other hand,
if the main points of the image are below the hori-
zon, say some boats on a lake, placing the horizon
at the upper third division would allow us to give
the boats more space while creating a balanced
composition.
The rule of thirds doesn't always apply to images
containing single characters, however. For example,
if your image is a portrait or full-body shot of a char-
acter, it will likely make more sense to give the subject
center stage. But even in these cases, you might apply
the rule of thirds to other aspects of the image, such
as the character's eyeline or a heavy object carried in
his arms.
It's worth pointing out that the rule of thirds
isn't the only theory driven by the beauty of asym-
metry and imbalance. Other rules, like the golden
mean, which places the grid lines according to the
golden ratio (approximately 1.618:1), have similar
effects and share the goal of not dividing an image
into obvious symmetrical halves.

The Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds principle argues that the points
of interest in an image should fall roughly in line
with an imaginary grid drawn over the image. This
imaginary grid splits the image into thirds along
both its length and width. The goal is to carve the
image into less symmetrical areas to produce some-
thing that is generally more pleasing to the eye, as
opposed to an image split right down the middle by
the various points of interest. Figure 3-3 shows how
I split an image into a total of nine sections, using
three rows and three columns.

Silhouettes and Negative Space
For your image to read well, it must have a strong
silhouette. The silhouette is the outline of your sub-
ject, as shown in Figure 3-4. If when looking at your
image's silhouette you can still tell what the image is,
you have a strong design. If the silhouette looks like
just a jumble of shapes, however, viewers may have
a hard time processing the image, even in its final
state. To get a better idea of your model's silhou-
ette, try adding a black material to it with no specu-
larity (see Chapter 12), and render it on its own
to see it as a black shape on a plain background
(Figure 3-4).
In the same way, the negative space around and
between your subject and any other objects also
affects the appearance of your composition. For
example, when placing the horizon on a rule of
thirds line, as discussed in the previous section, we
are likely to create a pleasing negative space in the
form of the sky.

Figure 3-3: The Jungle Ruins project at the blocking-
in stage, with a rule of thirds grid overlaid

For another example of the rule of thirds in
action, think of a scene showing the sky and a hori-
zon together with some buildings. Applying the
rule of thirds, we would place the horizon at one