How to make an Optical Illusion Poster (MC Escher Style)

I've had a lot of people ask me how I do my Impossible Map Posters, so I thought I'd make a Guide

Prerequisites

The Most Important thing needed for these posters is this Panel Model, as it will act as our building block for the Illusion.

I also recommend looking up some impossible objects for inspiration and how they can be created in real life.

Here is an Example:

Notice the way the Shape is manipulated

Perspective is also Extremely Important.
Something that looks like this:
Looks like this from a different angle:



Once you have a Shape you like then you can begin making the Poster

Panel Model Basics

The Panel Model has 8 different points you can move:

Try Moving One of the Points:

If you select 4 points on the same side you can make the Panel Wider:

You can also move it side to side to give the panel a slant:

You can pinch two points together and make a wedge shape:

These are the basics to Using the Panel, but it can be used in many more ways too. Don't be afraid to mess with it a bit.

Actually making the Illusion

For Simplicity Sake, I'll be making a Penrose Triangle[en.wikipedia.org], which is one of the simplest ones to create, but the steps could be easily applied to create other impossible objects once you know the basics.

Let's Just Jump into It

1: Load in the Panel Model

2: Extend the Panel Model and create a long rectangle

3: Create another rectangle but have this one going up

4: Here's where it gets a bit tricky. Create another Panel branching off from the vertical rectangle you just made (I changed the texture of mine so it's easier to see), and re-position the camera and first rectangle until the top rectangle and bottom rectangle line up on the side


Did you get all that?
5: Select the bottom 2 points on the top rectangle, and then pull them backward until they line up with the edge of the bottom rectangle



(if you can't get the points to line up then try decreasing the field of view on the camera so you can zoom in a bit, as long as you don't move the position of the camera the illusion will still work)

You should now have an Impossible Triangle!

Lighting

One last thing I want to mention is that Lighting on these can be tricky to get right and if messed up can spoil the illusion.
For Example, in the image below, the lighting shows an obvious split between the bottom and top rectangle, which makes the illusion look strange:

So make sure the Lighting is in a position that makes everything look natural (or natural as possible considering)

Scenebuilding

Now to the most time consuming part (most of the time that is), Scenebuilding
This is where you would start adding Props to the Scene to give it a unique feeling.

I don't really have much advice in terms of actually scenebuilding, however I do have two tips:

1: search "props" in the model browser, and it gives a bunch of detailing props that you can use

2: don't add so much detail that it over-shadows the illusion



Try and give the Shape a Personality, and try some of the different textures that the panel has and build around a theme or Existing Map Style.

End

Thanks for Checking out my Guide, and feel free to link me anything you Create using it.
Good Luck!

[TJ_4874]

Hey it's ray! The creator of the game title pending that has released on steam right now!

[xealstrag]

Hey, I used your guide to make my own illusion! Thanks for your help!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2469941802

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