Skyrim
Screenarchery for Everyone - Composition Tutorial

Image information

Added on

Uploaded by

napoleonofthestump

About this image

Hey, all.  I've been shooting images on here for a hot minute now, and folks tend to say pretty nice things about my work.  I've kept the roof over my head selling my art (sculpture and painting) in the past and have learned a thing or two in school and in life about how to make a piece of visual art work effectively.  (In my career as an artist, I also learned how to overwork a piece until it's a wreck, blow a deadline, doubt my own abilities, be way too overconfident in my abilities, ruin perfectly good materials with shoddy craftsmanship, waste time, triumph against insuperable odds, fail despite favorable odds, and other valuable life skills.)  Nowadays I get some of my artistic jollies taking real pictures in pretend worlds.  Since screenshooting tutorials are enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment, I figured I'd throw my hat into the ring as well.

There are a bunch of really great tutorial posts hidden here and there on the Nexus.  I'd like to take a minute to talk about an aspect of screen-shooting (or any visual art really) that has yet to be specifically covered (to my knowledge, and please correct me if I've missed someone else's tutorial on the subject): Composition.  This is by no means a comprehensive guide, nor even a properly thorough introduction- just some pointed conversation starters and artistic prompts for all y'all archers and quiver-caddys out there in fantasy-land.  What with Excellentium's new compilation accepting submissions at the moment, there's a great opportunity to try out some fresh techniques.

What is Composition?


Composition is where stuff goes inside the frame.  Composition is the backbone of an image.  No matter how many pixels you can cram onto the screen, how dope your ENB effects look all turned up to eleven, how buxom your waifu, how optimized your LOD, how tweaked your textures, or how skilled you are as a face sculptor, if your composition is poorly thought-out or poorly executed, your image will be boring and instantly forgettable.  Sorry to put it so bluntly.  On the other hand, even if you're using an abacus inside a shoebox to run your game and all your characters look like Mrs. Pac-Man (even the dudes) if you can line up a technically solid shot, anyone who sees it will be thinking about it for days.  

Composition is not a matter of personal taste (no matter how polite one is when responding to images that are well/poorly composed) it is about the physical relationship of visual elements to one another.  Whether that arrangement 'works' or not is a matter of personal taste, but human beings are similar enough in our wiring that some things tend to 'work' for a lot of people, and a lot of things don't 'work' for anyone.  This guide will provide some general pointers for making your shots look more interesting and 'work' for a wider audience.  I will never in a million years offer specific criticism or advice to anyone who doesn't ask for it, but I will offer it generally with the gentle suggestion that no matter how good you think you are, no matter how good you actually are, you can always become better.  Thus is a critic the most sincere optimist.  Most of us (self most definitely included) could stand to get better at composing our shots.  So, what makes a well-composed image?


The Rule of Thirds


Every tutorial on photographic composition starts with the Rule of Thirds.  It's easy to grasp and pretty intuitive.  Works like this: Imagine your frame divided into three equal parts top to bottom, and three equal parts left to right.  Do that and you get nine rectangles between a loose grid.  Line up the primary focal point of your image (i.e. what you want the viewer to pay attention to most) at the junction of any two of those grid lines and BAM! instant OK composition.  It's tempting to put the focal point of a portrait (usually the eyes) dead center of a frame, but that's quite a bit harder to execute effectively than you might think.  Console in "TFC1" and try taking one face/mountain/boob/dragon shot centered, one aligned with the Rule of Thirds, and one semi-randomly, all of the same subject.  Compare with your own eyes and see what you respond to best.


See how the focal figure in each image is roughly a third of the way into the frame from the left/right?  Also notice how the focal point on the figures is also about a third of the way into the frame from the top/bottom.


Balanced Elements


Now that you've shuffled everything off-center, you may notice that there's a big, distracting open space to the left/right of your subject.  Arbitrary wildlife/architecture/vast expanses of grody LODs/distracting negative space can take an otherwise pleasantly framed picture and make it come out pretty blah.  Consider what's in your background.  If you don't want to muck about with perfectly lining up some Whiterun knucklehead so he doesn't distract from your combat-bondage outfit, just shoot against something non-distracting like an interestingly textured wall, or the sky, or what-have-you (see Negative Space below).  If you do want to make your whole image enjoyable for the eyes to rove over, try to work something interesting and complementary in that empty 2/3 of the frame.  The key word here is 'complementary'.  If your focal image features strong vertical lines, consider a horizontal complement (unless you really want to accentuate the height or upward/downward directional motion of the image).  If you focal color is blue, try complementary elements in orange (unless you're working in monochrome).  And so on (and so on); the variations on this theme are endless.


The first shot is a classic Rule of Thirds composition, with the horizontal shape and diagonal lines of the building mirroring the angled lines of the skull, and contrasting the vertical shape of the pole in the foreground.  In the bottom image, the strong vertical lines of the trees on the right re-enforce the figure's upright posture.  The rightmost tree also 'walls off' the edge of the frame in the same way that the figure's back walls off the left edge, together drawing the eye into the center of the image.


Leading Lines


Images that are composed in the direction you read a sentence tend to flow more naturally.  If you speak English, that means left to right; Arabic, right to left.  Strong linear visual elements can help guide the eye where you want it to go, reinforcing the natural directional flow, redirecting it, reversing it, or dividing it.  Like a lot of polygon-based imagination-lands, Skyrim largely avoids the gently curving lines that our for-real-real world is full of.  Plenty of strong verticals, horizontals, and diagonals to play with though, in the form of horizons, solitary trees, towers, crepuscular rays, outstretched swords, etc.  One interesting corollary of this that I've noticed has to to with wide-angle or letterboxed shots that feature a single figure or  focal point.  Oddly, many of these shots seem to work better when the focal point is in the rightmost third of the frame rather than the left or the center.  Bonus points if you can explain what's going on here.


Whereas the lines in the first image are pretty obvious (sword, brow, armor edges) the line in the bottom image is invisible.  The 'line' here is, in fact, a line of sight.  Here's how it works: The viewer's' eyes are drawn from right to left across the black negative space to the face on the right side of the image (because it's big and orange and a face).  Then the left-looking angle of the figure's eyes draw the viewer's eyes back along the line of her sight into that pile of negative space on the left.  In theory, this should balance the image- and I think it does!


The Rule of Odds


Traditions like this are often more palatable with a pinch of salt.  Conventional photographic wisdom states that an odd number of focal points (one, three, five, etc.) create a stronger impression than an even number (two, four, etc.)  It does seem to be the case that consistency between the odd or even number of focal subjects and focal elements works better than mixing them up.  Three archways with three characters looks better than three archways with two characters (unless they're both going through the same one).  When in doubt, one is the safest odd number to use.


Then again, even numbers of focal points can work just fine.  I don't think three birds here, or one bird, would measurably improve this image.


Fill the Frame


Don't waste space.  Capture what you intend to capture and nothing more.  The Field of View (FOV) settings are your friend.  Use one of the many free-camera improvement mods out there and try raising the FOV number to get a wide-angle fish-eye lens or lowering the FOV number for a macro effect.  I love working with letterboxes and pillarboxes (AKA "How do I disable the black bars?").  Borders are a fabulous device for training the eye to see patterns; I cannot recommend them highly enough.  Get an ENB that has them, or MacGuyver them into your visual setup of choice.  I would recommend making sure that you can adjust their size on the fly via the in-game ENB settings so that you can painlessly experiment with different frame aspects.  Muck around until you find something you like, and then use it to cut that distracting image-fat right out!


This landscape also fills the space effectively, though in a different way than that pink elephant on parade up there.  Notice how there's something going on in each third of the landscape.  The eye is drawn from left to right across the image to fixate on the horse silhouetted by the river's spray, but it takes its time in getting there.  Honestly, if I had the chance to do this over again, I'd probably situate the city in the distance a little farther into the frame.  It's proximity to the edge distracts from the central vista, even if it does create a nice counterpoint to the scene-within-a-scene with the mammoth.


Negative Space


In visual art, nothing is something too.  'Negative Space' isn't really a void, it's simply the presence of a more or less uniform patch of something or other that isn't whatever it is you're supposed to be looking at.  Negative space can be lighter or darker than the focal elements in the image, and any color, shade, or hue,  but is most effective when it contrasts with these focal points in one or more ways.  Big chunks of negative space have the tendency to draw the eye towards them like moths to a flame.  This can disrupt your composition, or be the key to making it work.  Most backgrounds consist of at least some negative space.  Many screenshot styles benefit from simple, bold compositions that use a lot of negative space to isolate and draw attention to the focal point of an image.  Think about the unused parts of your image (i.e. whatever surrounds your focal point and isn't deliberately a complementary Balanced Element); where does your eye tend to want to go in the image, where does it settle, and in what order?


Both of these images use negative space in unconventional ways.  In the top image, the negative space is the expanse of black foliage that the eye moves through between the figure in the lower right third, and the starry sky in the upper left third.  The sky, usually negative space or background, becomes a balancing element to the figure and his glowing whatzamajigger.  The bottom image contains two layers of negative space.  The dark silhouette of the figure draws the eye away from the negative space of the sky.  Then the eye is drawn to the highlighted face within the ring of dark negative silhouette.


Look, Shoot, Compare, Critique, Repeat


None of the above 'rules' of composition are hard and fast.  Somewhat they're conventions lifted from traditional photography and painting, somewhat they're natural outgrowths of the way our binocular eyes work.  Again, this is by no means a full and complete list of all of the elements of traditional composition.  There's nothing to say that unconventional compositions can't work just as well.  The caveat, of course, is that you're way more likely to develop a good eye for unconventional compositions if you hone your skills on the more familiar styles first.  Making art is a learned skill, not an in-born talent- just like growing a garden or riding a horse or cooking a meal or shooting a gun or writing a poem.  Some people may find screenarchery easier than others, but that doesn't make them better at it.  You're probably not going to get better unless you find where your edges are and push them.  You will definitely get better if you work right on the margins of your comfort zone.

The best way to do that is to request, and listen to technical critiques.  What is invisible to you is obvious to another, and vice versa.  Some things, like a busy background or an evenly distributed set of focal points, are objective parts of the image, and while it is a subjective opinion as to whether the whole image looks good or bad with them in it, you can still identify elements of a visual vocabulary and suggest how they contribute to the overall success of the picture.  Don't ask yourself 'is this picture good/bad?' or even 'is it pretty/ugly?'; ask 'is this picture memorable, and in what ways?'  

It's up to you how willing you are to put yourself out there for critique.  Art, even video-game art, comes from the heart, and to hear a negative response to something that is a part of you is always painful- especially when you can see the truth in the critique!  So, find where your edge is, make it crystal clear so that folks know how to help you get better at what you love doing without hurting you (we're none of us mind-readers) and work there.  Between the kindly screenshooting community and the occasionally quickdraw banhammer of the Nexus social crimes unit, I'd wager this is about as safe a space for a respectful culture of mutual constructive critique as they come.  If you ever want constructive feedback but don't feel comfortable with airing it in the public view, PM me and I'd be happy to shoot the shot about screenshooting with you directly.

The second best way to improve your eye is to give critical feedback (but please don't be a bag of dicks; only provide negative critical feedback if it is specifically requested.  Your personal progress is not worth someone else's bad day.  See above.)  Be specific, even when you're being positive (especially when you're being positive).  What is 'awesome' or 'beautiful' or 'great' about that shot?  What is it that appeals to you in your favorite image in a set?

The third best way is to be your own critic: Take a lot of shots, of everything, everywhere, any time you feel the yen.  Shoot things you never shoot.  Take many slightly different shots of the same subject, even when you think you've really nailed it (especially when you think you've really nailed it).  Then go through and think about what makes the better shots better and the worse shots worse.  You can always delete the excess, and share only what you're most proud of with the rest of us here on the Nex.  We love you for it.


I've heard it said that the average internet user's patience for reading is limited to two seconds per unit of text.  If you've persevered to the end of this minor pamphlet, I congratulate you on your uncommon maturity, literacy, and sanity in these trying times.  There's a lot more to be said about composition, but I'll leave that to some for-real-real photographers to say:  Dig them groovy words, yo.  If you liked this tutorial and would like to see others like it, please let me know which aspects of photography/screenshooting/visual art you'd like to learn more about.  If I know it I'll share, and if I don't I'll try to make something up that sounds convincing.

Muchas smoochas,
Delicious V

33 comments

  1. drakinoid
    drakinoid
    • member
    • 1 kudos
    BRUH the 7th image in the description has the type of glasses i've been looking for for ages, bruh gimme mod link QUICK, also are you still willing to help with screenshots? i have some that i want examined by a veteran to know whether i suck so bad or......not so bad.
  2. Simboker
    Simboker
    • supporter
    • 72 kudos
    Very interesting and informative article. Well, it was the first time i actually read something about screenarchery/photography but after reading i felt like i did at least some things right. Originally, i just captured screens in a way that they "felt right to me" or had some sort of appeal to me. I never thought about composition, number of objects, negative space, centered or shifted objects or other elements, but i always tried different angles, FoV´s, DoF´s, lightings and selected afterwards. The rest was trial and error, learning by doing and of course, your statements about improvement are very true. Examining other work, finding some inspiration and critical feedback and pointing out specific elements i liked in other shots, helped a lot. Still, i am only at the beginning and have much to learn. Gladly i would take some feedback/critique to one or two sets of mine, if you have the time and don´t hold back
    1. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Thanks for writing! Sure, I'd be happy to do some spot critiques for you. Any set in particular you'd like feedback on?
    2. Simboker
      Simboker
      • supporter
      • 72 kudos
      Maybe for the story i am currently working on or its sequel, since i am still working on further episodes, or on this set where i tried a lot of different viewpoints of the same setup. That would help a lot, thank you very much
  3. AliI2627
    AliI2627
    • supporter
    • 17 kudos
    good job on this my friend, you doing amazing work keep it up
    1. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Thanks!
  4. deexatsu
    deexatsu
    • supporter
    • 41 kudos
    A very useful tutorial! Great job!
    1. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Thank you!
  5. Xorp
    Xorp
    • premium
    • 50 kudos
    Makes you think a lot more about making screenshots, very well written and illustrated!
    1. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
  6. respaldoshugo
    respaldoshugo
    • member
    • 171 kudos
    I think you tackled the most important aspect of screen capture. You have explained the subject very clearly, and your images, always very well composed, exemplify it formidably. Excellent post!
    1. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Many thanks, Hugo!
  7. wolfgrimdark
    wolfgrimdark
    • premium
    • 876 kudos
    You are easy to read as you have a great vocabulary and quick wit - so reading through this was both interesting and enjoyable. I know a few of these from chats with folks who really get into screen archery, as well as a couple of artists, so was nice to see it spelled out in easy to digest form with nice images to boot. While I like taking screenshots I admittedly am not the artist type. I have many friends who strive to always improve their art and for them that is their passion. Shots, for me, are more just a way to share a hobby I like. I also enjoy the challenge of doing all shots in-game with no external editing - to see what I can get out of my mods and the ENB preset I am using. To me that is part of the fun of doing screenshots.

    That being said I do try to make at least some effort to frame things, balance them, and have always loved the black bars :) but I lack the desire to spend a lot of time preparing shots (I know some who spend hours on it) since my focus lays elsewhere. However, a lot of this information can just be done with what is on the screen and I know some ENB presets actually provide grids and other tools to help line things up. Got this bookmarked to re-read a couple of times in case a few bits of it manage to sink into the skull.
    1. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Thanks for taking the time to read and to respond so thoughtfully. I remain consistently impressed by your ENB-fu. The way you handle bloom- which can't really be faked after the fact- is especially inspiring. Whether you obsess over the details or not, it's clear you've developed a solid sense of framing over the years. Composition really is one of those "if it sounds good it is good" elements, in that you can get to the same place intuitively or faking it 'til you make it.

      Good call on the grid overlays. Never used them myself, but maybe I ought to dig one up to make that point about thirds a little more visually clear...
    2. wolfgrimdark
      wolfgrimdark
      • premium
      • 876 kudos
      EDIT: PRC has a whole little section in the ENB GUI itself for screen archery which is where I saw the grid - he has different types actually that overlay the screen. Some other tools as well. I have only seen it for FO4 though. I think someone made a similar thing for Skyrim but for the life of me can't recall ... I use so many presets and have tried so many shader files. If I come across it will let you know.

      I am sure you know PRC but here:

      https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/945/42218806712_ed0f06f3ca_k.jpg

      https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/973/42265427011_ed03b71b20_k.jpg
    3. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Cool- thanks for pointing that out! I've long been loving Film Workshop in Fallout, which has some of PRC's guts in it. I'll have to check to see if it's already got these overlays embedded, or if I could just port them over. I'll be doing a sister piece to this one on the Fallout side as soon as I get a set of appropriate images together.
  8. User_33863450
    User_33863450
    • account closed
    • 34 kudos
    I would like to know more about lighting and related effects with or without ENB's. Thanks for this tutorial, made me go back and look at my work here and in RL too.
    1. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Groovy! Lighting- good call. I'll definitely get into tonal balance- highlights, shadows, spot lighting, directionality of light, etc.- in a future set. Thanks for the inspiration!
  9. ista3
    ista3
    • premium
    • 1,110 kudos
    Great info DV very well done
    1. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Thanks Izzy!
  10. Excellentium
    Excellentium
    • member
    • 352 kudos
    Wonderful initiative, DV! Much appreciated to a lot of people I think...

    In my younger days I worked professionally with superb photographers from all sorts of genres, since I was an image editor at one of Swedens most independent and successful image banks. We worked with slides back in the day - this was during the 90´s - so it was right before the real digital era hit hard. I still miss those analogic cameras (I had a Minolta at the time) and the process of developing your images until you could see the result. What some could achieve or make do of entirely upon creativity, technical skills and a visual thinking without any kind of help of Photoshop or "intelligent" cameras beats anything of todays photography, yes I dare say so!

    That said, I believe I've seen every rule or "trick in the book" of photographing, but what stuck the most in my heart was the very wise word of one of Swedens best nature/wildlife/landscape photographers at the time - "Always look with an open mind and see everything. Rules are just a guidance, because what we see as beautiful or interesting, often is to others as well."
    I was no where close to those photographers, but my role as the editor made me truly appreciate images and my experience and knowledge from back in those days helps me a lot in my screenarchery nowadays. I've only been dojng it for three years, and I started in all Vanilla, following the more documentary style rather than the artistic. I've never been one for too bombastic effects, too much tweaking, too heavy DOF...although I admire such images too, it's just not "me".

    The set of "rules" you've listed here goes with any kind of image though and I know about them, even if I do "snapshot" images a lot, "a quick capture of what you see". I seldom spend any time to arrange an image and don't use that many console commands either. I like such images, ordinary captures of the normal gameplay, but if I would take my time to truly make the best of my images, these rules here would be the first to come to mind, so I hope some community members see and read through all of this. It will guide them a lot...
    1. napoleonofthestump
      napoleonofthestump
      • premium
      • 529 kudos
      Thanks for taking the time to check this out, and for the engaged reply! Folks definitely develop an eye for composition (and color balance, and dynamism, and all the rest of it) through association with visual media over the years. Your shots might not be tightly controlled and modified on the back end, but it's clear that the eye taking them is intentionally or intuitively framing the shapes on the screen according to a classic sense of balance. I see golden mean spirals in your work all the time- perhaps a product of osmosis from saturation in the world of photography!

      I hear you on the sense of vivacity or engagement that comes from photography-photography as opposed to digital photography. Laying hands on a piece of art does lend it a certain "aura", to crib a line from Walter Benjamin. Mechanical reproduction 'thins' the piece- though a digital image can still be technically accomplished, and even emotionally moving, I've personally never been as deeply affected by an image on a computer screen as I have by a physical photograph or painting or other piece of nominally 2D art displayed in the real world. Practicing photography from the camera to the shot to the darkroom to the print to the framing gives a fuller appreciation for the medium. When photography first became available to the art-making public, there was a lot of push-back from painters- and they had a fair point to make! Now that screenshooting is gaining a (very little) bit of prestige in the art world, we're seeing some flack from photographers (including digital photographers)- and I think they still have a point! With every step that the generation and presentation of an image takes farther and farther away from the tangible, physical, all-senses experiential real world, a little bit more of the to-the-heart, visceral, emotive engagement of the art is lost. The digital image is a thin photograph, the photograph a thin painting, the painting a thin sight. All well and good as inspirational, educational objects, but no patch on the real thing in all its messily, randomly, seemingly-randomly, beautifully composed glory.