Computer Graphics Research

Unit 78- Digital Graphics for Computer Games

Artistic Styles; There are various different artistic styles; anime, photorealism, abstraction, cel-shading and more.

 Anime is exaggerated imagery, natively from Japan, it can be hand drawn or computer animated. The word anime is itself short for animation, generally the images or characters are very bright and vibrant, usually with pink or blue hair. Anime stands out from other forms of artistic styles. http://anime.about.com/od/animeprimer/a/What-Is-Anime.htm

Photorealism is an art form of which an already captured image is recreated, there is also a group called United States Art Movement. The US Art Movement specialize in photorealism, the group began in the late 1960’s to the early 1970’s. Artist such as Audrey Flack, Chuck Close and Ralph Goings began to recreate what they caught on film. This particular artistic style was created from the Pop Art industry. Photorealism is reliant on photography to be able to transfer the imagery onto a canvas to create the final piece. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/762693/Photo-realism

Abstraction can take the form of either a painting or even a sculpture, usually in an exaggerated or distorted fashion. This art form began in 1911, a piece of art was created by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. This artist believe that different colours meant different things. For example; Blue was deep and supernatural and White was silent but full of possibilities. http://arthistory.about.com/od/glossary_a/a/a_abstract_art.htm

Cel-Shading is a computer rendered artistic style that imitates the look of art work that has been hand-drawn. The first computer game to be codified with cel-shading was Jet Set Radio, by SEGA Dreamcast. However     cel-shading isn’t just used for video games, but it is the main platform. Some animated television shows use cel-shading to gain the right look. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CelShading

 

 

Computer Games Graphics; There are many different types of graphics that are used within the computer gaming industry. Things such as Concept Art, Background Graphics and Texture Art are all different types of computer games graphics.

Concept Art is used to portray a design idea that is to be used in a computer game, comic book, animation or a film. Concept art is used to show the bigger picture, it starts with a brief design and then evolves into a finished product. Concept art is mainly used for characters, vehicles, environments or weapons. Different form and illustration, concept art is used to explore ideas quickly. http://www.creativebloq.com/career/what-concept-art-11121155

A background graphic is what’s known as a sprite, it is a image or animation in a 2D format.  Background Graphics, walls, clouds and forests etc… The background graphics may be more objects than anything else, however it would be objects that aren’t functional.

Forests are common things to see as a background, mainly to platform games, however they may be on others too. On the picture on the right you can see the detail in the background. Another common graphic used in computer games are buildings, though a completely animated game you can see the detail gone into the castle in the background of Super Mario Bros. The graphics change a game and show how much attention to tiny little details has taken place. http://www.slideshare.net/Cameron321/computer-game-graphics-22609618

Textures are often found more in games that are three-dimensional. Texture artists may use real photographs of what they are trying to create to be able to imitate the textures. Below is a dragon from a video game, I believe it to be form Skyrim. Although the image is small you can still see the texture of the scales, and the detail gone into it. Not only in the dragon, but the surrounding areas and not to mention, have a look at that breathe of fire. http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/articles/video-game-texture-mapping.htm

Pixels; Pixels, may seem like a lot more work but the detail that goes into the production is mind blowing.

A pixel, short for Picture Element, is a single point within an image. Pixels are millions of points within a display screen. They look as though it is all one picture, because they are so close together.

As you can see to the left, this image of an eagle has been zoomed in, it appears to look blurred. But when zoomed in further you can see all of the tiny pixels made up to create a larger image.

Some pixel pictures, like the eagle, look like normal pictures but most pictures have pixels within them, it just isn’t as noticeable.

Many iconic retro characters, and games, were made out of 8bit pixels. Some like; Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Pikachu, Mega Man, Zelda, Link and Sonic. However these days, most characters have been re-developed into pixel form.

Here are two famous superheroes, Hulk and Captain America. Both made out of pixels, yet still completely recognizable. Many argue pixels are too small to make an affective image, as you can see the final outcome is a well put together image that is one hundred percent recognizable.

When games were first made the 8bit resolution made it easier to see the pixels, but in today’s day and age you can’t see them unless, like the eagle, you zoom in to examine the image closer. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/pixel.html

Types of Digital Graphics; There are many different types of digital graphics, the main things being raster images and vector images.

Raster images are digital images that are either captured or created. Raster is also referred to as bitmap, because the information that is contained in it is mapped directly to the display grid. If a raster graphic is blew up in size then you can see the pixels, making the image look like its made of blocks. http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/raster-graphics

Vector images are not made up of pixels, like JPEGs, GIFs and BMPs. They are instead made of paths which are have a start and end point, as well as curves, angles and other points within it. The good thing about vector images is that they can be produced to a bigger scale than a pixel image as they do not lose any quality from the image. Different from a raster, if a vector is made bigger then the quality is still there.  http://www.techterms.com/definition/vectorgraphic

File Extensions; BMP, PNG, GIF, TIFF, JPG and PSD are all types of file extensions. These are all types of ways to store and save an image. Jpg, or JPEG is the most common way of storing a file. It is a lossy compression file, which means a file with lesser quality. PNG, Portable Networks Graphics, is the most lossless way to store an image. Another extension could be .txt, this is used in Microsoft documents. File extensions help people identify what programme a piece of information, or picture was developed on.                                                               http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/f/fileext.htm

 

Compression; Compression is a computer generated system that help you to make a file smaller, reducing the bytes and bit of it. This is useful for storing as it will take up less space. As I previously mentioned, JPEG, like the image of an orange, is the most lossy file extension. Which means some of the quality will be lost. On the other hand, PNG, the image of the little mouse, is the most lossless extension, meaning most of the quality will remain. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/file-compression.htm

 

 

 

 

Image Capture; Capturing an image, using a camera, screenshot, a scanning machine or any other method of being able to get an image onto a screen. Capturing an image isn’t the hardest thing to do but as a photographer it is important to capture the right thing. If you were working on a game based on street crime in London, for example. Then taking pictures of a park in Manchester isn’t going to be right. Researching what you need to do before doing it is important to gaining the highest quality of imagery possible. http://www.livingpictures.org/imagesequipment/nikon701eq.jpg

 

Optimising; To make the most of the resources you have. Using the resources you have to create a better image, or document, by doing everything possible to develop it better. Image bit depth is important, making sure that it isn’t too big in order to make the website, or game, it goes onto isn’t slow. Another way of doing this is to reduce the resolution and dimensions of the image. Another way to optimise your images is to check it’s file extension and that the image isn’t too large, also that it is still of high quality.  http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/optimisation/imageoptimisation.html

Storage of Image Assets; Storage of an image asset means the file size, how big the file is. Name, what the file is going to be called. Storage, where will you save it. Saving and storing a document, or picture, correctly is important to assuring you don’t lose it. Also naming it appropriately will help you find it easier. For example, take Mario. If you were to have a folder with various different Mario’s within it the folder would be best called ‘Mario’ the files within ‘Mario 1’ Mario 2’ etc… http://jackwt1995-jackwt.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/storage-of-image-assets.html