Uncomfortable

2021-11-17 15:13

So what you're largely describing is an important aspect of this course - that is, the ability to construct solid, 3D objects without needing to fall back to far-away vanishing points, but rather to use what is more central to the drawn object itself to get what we need - and to more generally train our instincts to be able to estimate proportions with greater accuracy. One example of this is learning to focus more on how members of a given set of lines converge to infer their shared vanishing point (and thus looking at those lines each time we need to add a new line to the set) rather than needing to have a specific vanishing point plotted out.

When it comes to differentiating between rectangles and actual squares in 3D space, we do this in a few places, though again they're all fairly late in the course:

• In the 250 cylinder challenge - specifically the cylinders-in-boxes section - we develop our instincts for estimating the proportions that are required to make a pair of opposite faces on a box proportionally square in 3D space, regardless of how it's oriented in the world. We do this through repetition and analysis - drawing boxes, then testing how far off one of their pairs of planes are from representing squares in 3D space. This "testing" is done by checking aspects of the ellipses themselves, as explained here.

• In Lesson 7, we reiterate the same concepts in the section labelled "Creating a Square in Perspective". It's also addressed in this video.

• Also in Lesson 7, we leverage that concept of creating squares in 3D space and transferring those measurements across into other dimensions to create unit-grids as explained here to help us construct our vehicles to a more specific set of pre-planned proportions.

Note that all of these things are discussed much later in the course simply because they are advanced concepts, and students are generally able to understand and apply them more effectively once they've got more of the course behind them. Earlier in the course, we talk more about boxes in a general sense - not actually going out of our way to stick to any specific "cube" or "square" proportions.

One thing I did want to comment on was your use of the word "isometric" - I suspect you may be using the wrong word there. Isometric refers to a very specific approach for projection (that is, a technique to represent 3D space on a 2D page, of which "perspective projection" and "isometric projection" are entirely different approaches). I'm guessing that you're really just referring to a "perfect cube".