Andrew Dowell

Understanding composition is one of the most important things you can learn as an artist.  Arranging the elements in the scene for a visually pleasing and balanced result will not only dramatically improve your work but it also guides the viewer through the image to what's important. Correct visual communication is everything. The 3 stages of Composition: 1. The focal element The image needs an element which helps to draws the viewer in immediately, this is the main thing the view should be looking at. Having too many focus points is as equally bad. This rendering from the Artist Sparth is an excellent example of Saturation and contrast. Other examples can include objects in motion, faces, and figures, guiding lines, framing, vignette and geometric shapes. 2. Structure The organization and arrangement of objects in the scene based upon a set of rules providing order and balance. a. The Rule of thirds is easy to use and any focus objects should be placed around one of the four cir...

Welcome, we made it to 2018. Well done everyone! It's been a roller coaster of a year but it's important to keep pushing and learning. Every day is a school day. Our big project continues to roll on with extensions and the internal-external pressure to do better keeps us on our toes. This week I learnt some great techniques for UE4. First a simple yet satisfying pulse directional material.  This material is designed to be used as an instance. You can pulse any two colours, broken into segments with a positive or negative speed direction. The emissive power will control the brightness and you can copy the black and white texture box below. A great time saver. (black and white texture box) And, finally how to bake complicated materials back down into a simple texture. Ever had that feeling of jaw-dropping disappointment when you open a new material to discover a spaghetti mess of textures and nodes like the one below? Fear no more, it's p...