Ratio and Proportion

[Neb]

This is a really minor discovery of mine that probably doesn't deserve its own thread and will only interest me, but I couldn't see another that I could post this in.

 

I was playing around with blocks of different sizes using ratios to see what looks nice. Almost every room I make is 160 units high because it feels right. 2/3 of 160 is about 104, which is the height of most of the doors I use. 4/9 (which is 2/3 squared) of 160 is about 71 which is close to level with the player's vision.

 

Maybe my mathematics skills are rudimentary, but my mind == blown. I'm going to play around with some more ratios and see what happens.

 

 

[Jesps]

160 - 104 = 56

56 * 71 * (4/9) * (2/3) ~ 1178

 

In 1178

Five Canterbury monks see what is possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1178

Now I am scared

[Neb]

Gimme a minute. I'll find the 23 in there too, but I'm not as good as you.

 

Really, though, I read that 2/3 and 4/9 were fairly common in architecture and then noticed that that lines up with my ceilings and doors.

 

 

[Neb]

Now that I'm not seriously deprived of sleep I can see that I was overestimating the significance, but I'm going ahead with a small project. I'm making a simple command line program that takes one or two values and computes Alberti ratios, a scale of golden ratios, and also arithmetic, geometric and harmonic means. On top of that I've also been experimenting with a scale built from knee, waist, vision, tip of head, and door height.

 

This may come across as slightly crazy, and I don't want to fool myself into thinking I've found some kind of magic formula for nicely proportioned primitives, but I was fascinated from reading about how Greek and Renaissance architects used ratios like this, and wondered if applying similar techniques would give any kind of authentic effect.

[bob_arctor]

If you read about Palladianism you will see how "ideal" ratios drove architecture in the 18th Century in England.

 

I find certain ratios do tend to work in TDM, but it's worth remembering in games that level design doesn't match reality, for instance you need more width to move around in in games, because you aren't as thin and mobile as a real person, you are in a fact a box!