Diorama
What is a diorama?
A diorama is a 3D structure that can vary in many sizes, that represents a scene in a story or history to help give a clear picture of the scene at hand.
There are a few types of diorama and they are used for a large variety of reasons. Movies and games can use dioramas for sets or scenes of a fantasy landscape, builders can use dioramas to work out building structure and the impact on the area around, and museums especially use them to replicate scenes of history.
Entertainment dioramas are used if forms of entertainment; video games and movies. Mini figures are used a lot too, especially for dioramas involving table top games like D&D. What I like most about entertainment dioramas is how each strongly showcases the style of either the movie or the game, being both realistic dioramas but also dioramas on the more cartoon side. These dioramas can help me understand perspective for more a world map and the scale of the environment and world of a piece of media.
Museum dioramas are grand in scale to depict creatures or events from history. I enjoy the detail put into the environment and models on the scene and how they are usually put to scale to the real life counterpart. Dioramas that are paintings instead of fully sculptured scenes are look really well done and represents whatever it is showing very well. The level of detail done with the environment is helpful with perspective and with how the closer parts of the environment are a model and further parts are a painted background, this really helps understand the placing of the scene.
Architectural dioramas help see a building from an outside perspective. I like the level of detail put into these dioramas with the building itself as well as small parts of the area surrounding it. It really helps give the diorama a sense of scale and impact on the world around it. These dioramas can help with a massive piece and help with the layers of detail within a set.
Diorama usage in Games development
Dioramas can be used by concept artists so they have an accurate analysis of the environment they are drawing and understand what the piece looks like from all angles. This would help them out with knowing what each inch of the environment looks like so they can draw it out from many other perspectives and styles.
For 3D modelers, dioramas can help with a sense of scale of objects in the environment and how they react to one another. It aids with proportions looking neat and accurate.
Pixel artists can use dioramas to uniquely showcase what the outside and inside of an environment can look like using isometric art. This is helpful for level design when taking into consideration the inside of a building or a cavern.
Sasha Level 3 Games Dev 2nd Year 