perspective help please

[tesorone]

Hey, guys I need your help again! I'm practicing my environmental and perspective skills, and I really do need some help on the stairs! I didn't have a ref for this and tried to find some for the stairs, but somehow it just doesn't look right. So I'd appreciate any help, and of course other comments are welcome too

[Tony Meijer]

Hi,
I dont think that the problem is the stairs actually, they converge towards a virtual horizon since they are angled downwards, I think that the problem is the thing to the left that converges to a problematic point. Take a look at this image:

[tesorone]

Haha, "the thing". Yeah that's supposed to be a sort of down hill where people with wheel chairs and such can go, but I wasn't entirely sure how to put that in perspective either so you are probably right. But how do I follow the real horizon line and make it a hill? Wouldn't it have it's own horizon?

So you're saying that the stairs are good then, I only have to fix the railings?

Thank you for your reply!

[David_a_ray]

Build a box in perspective, then slice it diagonally at the angle you want it. Just be aware of the ground plane. In the image above you've got the ramp trying to take up the same space as the steps.

[Tony Meijer]

Haha, "the thing". Yeah that's supposed to be a sort of down hill where people with wheel chairs and such can go, but I wasn't entirely sure how to put that in perspective either so you are probably right. But how do I follow the real horizon line and make it a hill? Wouldn't it have it's own horizon?

So you're saying that the stairs are good then, I only have to fix the railings?

Thank you for your reply!

Okey, the problem with what you did their is that you also put the streetlights vanishing to the same perspective point as the ramp, which makes it... wonky

To my eye the stairs looks good, except for their railings yes.

No problemo.

[tesorone]

Aaaah, I see! The streetlights make sense, I'll fix that up. Thanks

[tesorone]

ok, I fixed the street lights, now my question is; does it look better with or without the stairs?

[a8acey]

Without.
The stairs make my eyes move up and down. From the sunset/rise to the stairs and back.
I get dizzy. I think you should take it out if you want the focus to stay on the horizon.

[bill618]

With or without the center steps, you need to pay attention to scaling or size relationships between similar objects at different distances. This could be remedied if the perspective drawing were accurate. Images may have a give away object to determine scaling, such as a person of average height (sometimes hard to determine without many people to average). In your case, you have train tracks, which have a standard width (varies with country). In Norway the width gauge is 4ft-8 1/2 inches (as in the US and other countries). You can use this ref to deternine the siz of other objects in the scene. Right now you have hand rails that range from 2.5 feet high to 5 feet high, roughly.
If the viewer were 6 feet tall he/she would be 18 feet off the ground or standing at the top of the center stairs. The horizon line represents the viewer’s eye level.

Your train tracks shouldn’t terminate at the horizon. It doesn’t look natural in your scene. It creates that ‘falling off the edge of the Earth’ feeling. A lot of interesting things happen at near horizon distances, such as perspective compression and atmospheric haze, etc. The sky is wrong. It should compliment the perspective effect.

[tesorone]

Wow, you know your stuff! Thank you, there's obviously a lot more to pay attention to here than I've done. Haha, the 5ft railings for starters..

[Tony Meijer]

I really like that method and do believe that I will start to use it. Thanks Bill618.