Tips for making scenes feel less "flat"?

[Nithhogg]

Hi everyone, I've been working on some renders for a game and I was just looking for some general tips to make my renders look more interesting? In this particular scene you have just broken into the room and knocked someone unconscious so its really just the POV camera and the environment without any characters to interact with. How do I make my renders more interesting when in this scene I don't have any characters to play around with? Also in this scene you are using the computer and looking for data on there. I'm not sure if I want to make some screens to actually use as the computer screen so something is happening there or just leave it as the default screen and describe what you are doing through text only. Does anyone have any advice? Thank you for your help!

Spoiler: Images

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[MissFortune]

What you're running into here is the reason why many POV games eventually move away from POV. It's quite limiting to compose, light, and make a render interesting when you can only use one angle.

Render 1: An easy way to create some visual interest here might be to make it look like a fight went down before the protagonist knocked him out, throw the white cup on the floor (and possibly broken), knock over a few of the servers and spread them around a bit at various angles. Might want to use a bit more of a natural 'unconscious' pose here, too. Feel free to toss something on one of the screens, too, but add a slight DoF to hide exactly what's on it. That way, there's still some element of surprise when the protagonist approaches it.

Render 2: Keep the focus on the screen as you originally intended, but drop some things on the desk to keep the players on their toes. Maybe a family photo with the man and his family, maybe a wallet with his ID in it. Give the player a face to the man knocked out. Who is he? Why is he in this situation? Why is he there? Why is the protagonist there? It could serve as a good introduction as to who the protagonist himself is, and some background. That is if you haven't already. Maybe have some information that might seem irrelevant early on to players be written somewhere that'll become important later. Drop some clues for those paying attention.

Render 3: First off, I'd turn off the headlamp. Your renders should match throughout a scene. If your protagonist pulls out a flashlight/headlamp, then show it in their hand before/after they turn it on so the player is aware of that. If I were making this third render, I'd probably put the camera in front of the knocked out guy and use some DoF to focus on the protagonist's legs behind him.

 

[Nithhogg]

Thanks for the advice! Its a bit silly but the unconscious pose is a reference to the family guy pose although I don't know if thats gonna be picked up by too many people. I did want to add some story info that will come up later on the computers but I haven't decided whether to show it through renders or through text. The info is that someone has stolen data from multiple different companies and groups but I'm not sure if I should put an error message saying "data missing" on the screen because that might not be picked up. I like the suggestion for the protagonist standing behind on the third render as well! I was going to make the game be entirely pov but with scenes like this I think third person makes it easier to be interesting because its a bit boring if I use a scene I've bought online and only add a camera.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

Hi everyone, I've been working on some renders for a game and I was just looking for some general tips to make my renders look more interesting? In this particular scene you have just broken into the room and knocked someone unconscious so its really just the POV camera and the environment without any characters to interact with. How do I make my renders more interesting when in this scene I don't have any characters to play around with? Also in this scene you are using the computer and looking for data on there. I'm not sure if I want to make some screens to actually use as the computer screen so something is happening there or just leave it as the default screen and describe what you are doing through text only. Does anyone have any advice? Thank you for your help!

Spoiler: Images

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Analyzing the scene he got knocked out from the front. Just with the arms to the back. It probably would be better to have him fall forward and on his face with perhaps a bruise of sorts that you can see. Head should touch the floor.
I like the environment. Lights look ok to me.
But the pose looks very odd to me. I would take inspiration from a real phot shot of the same situation.

The way i imagine composing a scene is the drama. The image should match dialogs and self explainable even without dialog.
I am sure i am missing some details myself. Just a thought of mine.

 

[rayminator]

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