Computer Games Graphics - Types of digital graphics

Unit 78 - Computer Games Design - Types of digital graphics.

Types of digital graphics

Raster

Raster graphics are made up of pixels/points of colour. Raster graphics are stores in several image files.

Raster Image Types

• BMP (Bitmap) - Used to store bitmap images.
• GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) - A file extension for animated raster graphics.
• TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) - Used for printing and publishing, can be compressed or uncompressed using lossless compression.
• JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) - A lossy compression technique for colour images, can compress files up to 5% below their original size.

Vector 

Vector graphics are made up of geometrical properties such as lines, curves and different types of polyogons. They are based on mathematical expressions.

Vector Image Types

• PSD (Photoshop Document) - A layered image file that lets users to edit the image.
• WMF (Windows Metafile) - Portable between applications.
• FLA (Adobe Flash) - Stores movies and animations made with Adobe Flash.
• AI (Adobe Illustrator) - Stores single paged vector based drawings.

File Extensions

File extensions let the user identify what type of program created the file.

• BMP
• PNG
• GIF
• TIFF
• JPG
• PSD

These are all file extensions

Compression

Lossy 

Lossy Compression is reducing the size of a fail but discarding partial data such as quality.

Advantages 

• Can compress multimedia files such as audio or still images by a huge amount. For example a 100kb PNG file can be reduced to 4kb, that is a 92% reduction from the original size. 

Disadvantages

• Cannot compress text or data files because it removes data to reduce the file size, this would make these files unreadable.

Source - http://www.tech-faq.com/lossy-compression.html

Lossless

Lossless Compression is reducing the size of file perfectly without losing any data. Used for ZIP and Unix file formats.

Advantages

• Can compress files without losing any data what so ever.

Disadvantages 

• File cannot be compressed as much as a Lossy compressing process.

Sources - http://www.maximumcompression.com/lossless_vs_lossy.php

- https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100112100442AAHYEf6

Image Capture

Digital Camera - Encodes digital images and stores them for reproduction. Digital camera's quality works with a pixel sensor, a 1000x1000 pixel sensor is 1,000,000 pixels which is 1MP, the higher the megapixels the higher quality of photo. 

Scanner - Optically scans images placed inside such as, handwriting, texts, objects etc

Graphics Tablet - A computer input device that allows the user to draw on a pad and trace whatever is drawn to an image on a computer.

Optimizing

Optimizing is creating a balance so the quality and file size of the image are reasonable for the purpose of the image.

Target Destination - Saving all of the graphics in a secure, organized file.

Bit Depth - Bit Depth is the volume of colour in each pixel, this requires the choice of reducing bit depth or not which will result in loss of image quality or slower load time.

Resolution - Resolution can be optimized meaning a better quality image for viewers but slower load time fo your or optimized file size which will lose quality of the image. 

Dimensions - Dimensions is the length and width of the image and making it smaller or bigger for certain purposes.

Intended Image Output - The intended image output provides guidelines for creating graphics, to make sure it's the right size and good quality.

Source - https://07268grum.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/optimising-target-destination-bit-depth-resolution-dimensions-intended-image-output/

Storage of image assets 

Storage of image assets is organizing, and managing digital rights and permissions. Storage is important for group work so files can easily accessed by other team members.

File Size

file size is important for storage as if a files too big it could cause problems when transferring etc, the more bytes a file has the larger the file.

File Naming Conventions

Having a system to name files uniquely is important, having two files with the same name could overwrite existing work. 

Asset Management

Naming the file is highly important as losing or overwriting an existing file would could cause huge problems, a good solution to this would be to number images depending on how they were created. For example 'Illustration_1', 'Illustration_2' etc.

Computer Games Graphics - Pixel

Unit 78 - Computer Games Design - Pixel

Pixel

A Pixel is a single point of illumination, one of many that creates a graphic on screen. Some graphics like CGI are initially made up of polygons and rendered which takes the geometry and changes it into viewable pixels that make up an image. 

Image Resolution

Image resolution is the detail within a digital image, film or game.The image will be have better quality and detail depending on how high the resolution is. Resolution consists of how many vertical lines can be close to each other without the image losing quality, the more lines, the higher the resolution. 

For example a 1080p monitor is 1920 wide, 1080 tall.

Source - https://recombu.com/digital/article/what-is-hd-the-difference-720p-1080i-and-1080p_M10888.html

Picture Resolution

Picture resolution is the quality a picture can be printed at, the more pixels the better quality.

Intensity

Every pixel has a pixel value which is the colour and brightness of that pixel. The most common pixel format is the 'byte image' where the stored as an 8-bit integer giving a range of 0-255. (0 being black, 255 being white and anything inbetween is a different shade of gray. 

Source - http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/value.htm

Picture Element

A picture element is the smallest physical point in a raster image which means it's the smallest controllable point on an on screen image.

Unit: 78 Digital Graphics in Computer Games

Unit 78 - Computer Game Design - Computer Game Graphics 

Computer Game Graphics

Pixel Art (2D and Isometric 3D Sprites)

Sprites are pictures of player models for 2D and Isometric games, they are how a player is made to run, jump, crouch etc, in other words every single movement that a character makes in a 2D game has a picture behind that movement.

E.g to make a character look as if they're walking forward a developer would take two sprites, a picture of the character with one leg in front of the other and vice-versa. These two sprites put together would create the animation.

For more detailed animations more sprites are required. 

<<< These are the sprites for this animation >>>

Isometric games have a rotated camera angle so the player can see more of a 2D environment,

isometric games require isometric sprites which would include all of the character movements from all high angles. Again in more complex isometric games require more sprites for a more detailed experience.

       

This is an isometric sprite animation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1l9FfH8oGw

Concept Art/Design

Concept Art is the initial idea of all the contents off the game characters, weapons, vehicles, environment etc. For example Grand Theft Auto V is a modern photo-realistic game therefore the weapons are going to look and act as real as possible, e.g. they shoot real types of ammunition and they would have been based off of a real firearm also the weapon would have to be reloaded
after the the magazine is empty, triggering a realistic reload animation.

The Bullpup Shotgun's look and other properties such as fire rate, bullet velocity/damage and the use of slug rounds are based on the real life KSG 12 Pump action shotgun.

This is a video i recorded on GTA V to show the realism of the in-game weapons and damage.

The video is brief but it shows the in-game reload animations, damage on glass and metal, bullet spread and the sound of the weapon. All of these things are nearly identical to how the weapon would act in real life.

Rockstar Games also based Grand Theft Auto V's city of Los Santos to Los Angeles.

      City Of Los Santos

       City Of Los Angeles

Not all games concepts are the same, Saints Row: Gat out of hell is a much exaggerated game, as the player is running around the mythological setting of Hell and uses guns such as the ''Armchair-a-geddon'' which is a regular armchair but with mini guns and recliner rockets installed.

These two games are completely different due to their use of two extremely different concepts.

All concept are first an idea which is sketched up briefly and then worked on to develop a final product which will be implemented into the game.

This is some character class concept art from the development of Destiny.

Texture Art

Texture art is essentially an in game surface, regular things that you see in games like floors, walls, doors and other props/objects are all applied textures to make them look real or how the developer wants them to look. In simpler games there are more 2D designs rather than 3D whereas in newer complex games to make a realistic looking texture both 2D and 3D designs are used.

    

In games like Minecraft the player has the ability to install a 'Texture Pack' that will change all in game textures to a specific style such as 'Medieval', 'Sci-Fi', 'Fantasy' etc. 

         Minecraft Original Textures

''Dokucraft'' Textures

Background Graphics

Background graphics are used to create horizons, skies, or anything beyond the playable area in a game. Backgrounds tend to be 2D pictures as the player can only see the background and not access that area of the game.

For example in Mortal Kombat X the players are not allowed to go into the city behind them as it's just a background, this background also has animations for the flags blowing in the wind, people walking around, smoke and birds flying around. 

In open world such as Grand Theft Auto V, if the player stands on one side of the map, the other side can faintly be seen giving the effect that the character is far way from it, this creates a much more realistic background because all of the map is accessible meaning that it has to be detailed for the character to travel around it.

In-game interface/HUD 

The in-game interface shows the player their health, radar, objective, ammunition/weapons, currency, XP bar etc. Some games' HUD stays on the screen throughout the whole game but in some games the HUD will appear in times of combat and vanish for key parts of the story. 

The HUD is vital for modern day games as they're more complex and players need to be aware of multiple things at a time, the HUD is is where all the things are.

Some games also have the option to turn the HUD off for a more difficult challenge, this will sometimes be set automatically if playing on and 'Ultra Hard' difficulty.

Print Media

Print media is all the physical graphics needed for advertising a game e.g. game posters, billboards, the game case graphics, manuals, strategy guides etc. This is extremely important for distribution purposes because the more people see these advertisements, the more potential purchases the game will get. Although people don't necessarily look at a poster and go purchase the game but it makes them aware of the product and they will most likely remember it.

Art Styles used in video games.

In this article I will be reviewing the different digital graphics used in computer games. 

There are a few different artistic styles used in the video game industry to make a game look either 'cartoony' or as realistic as possible. Some of these are:

Photo-realism

Photo-realism essentially is an attempt to make the game look as real as possible. Using a photo-realistic art style requires the use of more pixels than a 2D game, this is because a more complex image requires more detail. Photo-realistic games have realistic shadows and light for example, the sunlight in certain games would project a realistic shadow, and the other physics in these games tend to be realistic also such as gravity. Photo-realistic games usually run at 30 fps, 60fps and 120fps.

This is a screenshot of gameplay for L.A. Noire, this uses a photorealistic art style and we know this because of the detail of the character and gun as well as the use of the lighting in the room the casts a shadow of the character.

Exaggeration 

Exaggeration is an art style used to make a character look somewhat realistic but have a lot of unrealistic character traits for example in Anime if a character is sad their eyes will become a lot larger than normal or in games such as Prototype the protagonist Alex Mercer looks like an average man but has the power to turn his arm into a blade type weapon.

This is an Anime character that traditionally have glints in their eyes from the emotions of the character.

Cel Shading

Cel Shading is a comic book style art style that makes objects and characters in games look hand drawn for example, the Borderlands series is an unrealistic comic book style game and the Cel Shading style makes the colours and environment pop. There is a game developercalled Telltale Games that create point and click series with the Cel Shading art style that fits to each story, for example The Walking Dead Telltale game has a darker colour pallet compared to Tales from The Borderlands Telltale game which both use Cel Shading. 

In Telltale games the gameplay looks as good as the cutscenes because of the Cel Shading art style.

I personally find Cel Shading interesting because it has two sides such as the darker and lighter colour pallet which can apply to all different genres from Adventure to Sci-Fi. 

Abstract

The Abstract art style is a style that is mainly used with 2D games, it focuses on geometrical lines and on a colour palette of 3 colours such as Assassin Creed: Chronicles that uses black, red and white. The colour pallet can also be widespread and cover many colours at the same time, a game like Geometry Wars is an example of this.



This is a screenshot of Geometry Wars gameplay, as you can see has an extremely bright colour palette and literally uses geometrical shapes in it's gameplay.






AC: Chronicles is a 2D sides scroller game that meets 3D. Many buildings and props within rooms in the game can be interacted with in a way that shows a 2D shape that looks 3D.

This is a screenshot of Assassins Creed: Chronicles gameplay. AC: Chronicles uses a unique art style that looks a lot like a moving watercolor painting and fits with an abstract art style.

This is a screenshot of how the game uses 2D and 3D graphics.










This is a piece of concept art that emphasizes the games watercolor like art style. 












Pixel Art

Pixel Art is a retro art style inspired by regular pixels such as 8-bit and 64-bit games. Older games such as Super Mario has influence more recent games such as Terraria.

This is Super Mario an 8-bit side scroller that was released in 1985.

Terraria is a 16-bit side scroller that uses the a retro pixel art style, it was released in 2011.

As you can see these two games from two completely different generations, showing how modern day Pixel Art games have been inspired by original lower pixel games.

Pixel Art games use 2D sprites which are essentially pictures of different character movements such as 1st step and 2nd step that would be put together to make the character look like they’re walking.

Gothic

The Gothic art style is based around dark colours, scary settings and give the game all-round eerie feeling throughout the story. Most Gothic games are horrors and this art style fits perfectly with the genre. Some games that hold the Gothic art style are Devil May Cry which is based around hunting demons but the example is going to use is Dark Souls. 

Dark souls hits all targets to fall under the Gothic style as the game includes, cursed players, an Undead Asylum, witches, dragons, undead enemies and not to mention the whole game is inspired by several types of in depth Mythology.

This is a screenshot of some Darksouls gameplay.

The player is standing in a dark hall of some sort surrounded by shadows and a few dim lights coming down from the windows above. The room also looks as if it’s dirty or worn down which fits the Gothic style and gives an eerie feeling to the game.

The Gothic art style also gives developers the chance to add some 'interesting' enemies into their games...