Unit 78 Assignment 1 Report

Artistic styles used in computer games:

Photorealism
The name Photorealism (also known as Hyperrealism or
Superrealism) was coined in reference to those artists whose
work depended heavily on photographs, which they often
projected onto canvas allowing images to be replicated with
precision and accuracy. The exactness was often aided
further by the use of an airbrush, which was originally
designed to retouch photographs. The movement came
about within the same period and context as Conceptual art, Pop Art, and Minimalism and
expressed a strong interest in realism in art, over that of idealism and abstraction.
Flourishing during the 1970s, Photorealism engages the Marxist critic Walter Benjamin's
influential treatise, "The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction," which attempts to
position art within the sphere of mass media.
Among several male practitioners of Photorealism
there is an interest in themes of machinery and
objects of industry such as trucks, motorcycles,
cars, and even gumball machines, whereas Audrey
Flack, the sole female practitioner, infuses her works with greater emotionality and the
transience of life.

However, the art has now transferred over to the gaming

world during this modern day. The way the photorealism
method work is a gaming company such as rock star will
higher real life people to act as the virtual characters.
Furthermore, having real life actors helps the game
developers capture small details within the facial
movements of the speech as well as how the character will move, for example walking and
climbing over certain objects. How gaming companies captures these movements are by the
actors place themselves in a latex suit covered in motion picking up balls that are detected
by the computer displaying a stick outline of the
actors movement onto a computer screen, this
provides a bases for the developer to see how a
person moves in real life it also helps the
developers build onto the stick structure taken from the movement detecting balls on the
latex suit.
Yet this method is used by high levelled gaming companies that have a lot of income to
spend on this way of photorealism in the gaming genre. However, for other less high up
gaming companies such as Blizzard as for their photorealism technique the companies use
green screens to get the idea of the movement of a character in the real world and transfer
the green screen footage onto a computer and work on the games character that way. Most
gaming companies use this type of photorealism as its cheaper to do then capturing the
movements and muscle contractions in certain movements by the use of a special made
latex suit with motion capture balls on.

Cel-shading
The typical process for Cel shading is
starting with a 3D model. Furthermore, cel
shading differs from conventional rendering
as it is a non-photorealistic illumination model. Moreover, conventional lighting values are
calculated for each individual pixel and then this pixel is quantized to a small number of
discrete shades to create the characteristic flat look, where the shadows and highlights
appear more like blocks of colour rather that a smooth mixture.
The next process is creating the actual object. This process starts with Black ink outlines and
contour lines that can be created by using a variety of methods. One popular method is to
render a black outline, slightly larger than the object itself. Back-face culling is inverted and
the back-facing triangles are drawn in black. Carrying on the process, for the silhouette to
dilate the back faces may be drawn in wireframe multiple times with slight changes in
translation. Alternatively, back faces may be rendered solid-filled, with their vertices
translated along the vertex normal in a vertex shader.
After drawing the outline, back-face culling is get back
to normal for the shading and optional textures of the
object. The object is finally composited via Z-buffering
this then helps the shading be seen on the object.

Abstraction
Abstract are styling in games is opposite to photorealism, as the style doesnt strive to
resemble realism in anyway and often has features that are very unrealistic and may look
different in dissimilar perspectives of not the same people seeing the game. The abstract
style usually makes use of a lot of shapes and lines that
do not resemble any object that can be seen in the real
world. This can be difficult for game developers to hit a
good amount of audience because of the large increase
in realistic games and the fan base around that type of
graphical gaming abstract gaming which doesnt have
any real objects in it may struggle to get a fan base. This
means that there arent many abstract games. Most abstract game use lines and shades to
create certain atmosphere and gameplay but abstract games also use colours to entice
audiences to gameplay. Example of games that are out in the gaming market that are
abstract are games such as Geometry wars which use
the abstract method in a different by using the bright
colour technique and using shapes to represent
characters that can be in the game.

Exaggeration - Anime
Anime is a Japanese animation which is viewed by both adults and children. Anime is often
covering more serious topics than a typical cartoon. Moreover, in the United States and the
United Kingdom a cartoon is considered to be a form of entertainment meant for the
younger generation (children). However, in Japan, many people of all ages watch their type
of cartoons anime. Furthermore, most anime is created for children, adolescents and young
adults yet there are many different genres of anime that are made for the older crowd.
There are many different types of genres in anime with
basic categories such as comedy, romance, action,
drama and pornography. There is also anime with
content especially created for boys and also for the
female viewers and also for business men. The most
common genre in anime is the Giant robot anime also
known as Mecha. This form of anime includes giant
person-shaped robots and the normal anime
characters. This genre isnt in the same common factor yet it is the most popular as it can be
watched by any age. This popularity in this type of genre is due to how the cartoon
characters are designed and how the anime episodes are played out due to the storylines.
Yet, other genres are popular such as action and adventure.

Exaggeration - Manga
manga is somewhat controversial. Outside of Japan, the term usually means a cartoon or
comic from Japan, and even more specifically, drawings by a Japanese mangaka which is a
cartoon or a comic artist. In recent decades, however, people from other countries have
started working in this style, and the Japanese traditionally have used the word to refer to
any cartoon or comic, regardless of where a person drew it or where he or she lives. Some
experts argue that its better to categorize these works based on the
specific characteristics usually found in the drawings for this reason.
Manga often is published in magazines, which usually are no more than
40 pages long. Comic books usually are around 150 - 200 pages. Graphic
novels, which are different from regular comics and comic books in that
they give a complete story with a beginning, middle and end, can be
several hundred pages long. With the exceptions of this long form and
collections of previously published works, the comics are typically
published serially or in instalments, because the intent of the publisher
is to keep the reader interested and coming back for the next piece of the story. This means
that manga is different to anime as manga is cartoon but taken more seriously and is more
commonly found as a comic strip whereas anime is a cartoon which can be enjoyed by
children and is shown mostly on the television.

Computer game graphics:

Pixel art
Pixel art is a form of digital art wherein images are created
and edited at the pixel levels using a graphic editing software.
What defines pixel art is its unique visual style, where
individual pixels serve as the building blocks that make up the image. The effect is a visual
style very similar to that of mosaic art, cross-stitching and many other types of embroidery
techniques.
Furthermore, pixel art has existed ever since the first image editing software and the first 2D
games with the graphics that come out. Pixel art has now expanded in the modern day as
this old style of art has now transferred its way onto games. Many games have this style, an
example of this style in a game is Pixel kingdom as
the look of the game uses the pixel art look to
entice users into wanting to play the game.
Another game which uses this style and is
extremely popular in the gaming world is a game
called Minecraft. This game has sold a lot of
copies and this is not only due to the gameplay
aspect of the game and the crafting system etc., but the style and look of the game. The
game is very pixelated to provide a unique look to the game. The game also allows people to
place graphical mods onto the game and create a new spin off the regular pixelated look.
Furthermore, these mods that can be easily downloaded onto the game can change a
normal pixelated look to a realistic pixel look to make the game unique to other rival pixel art
games.

Concept art
There are many ways of seeing concept
art in the game. The most common way
game developers place concept art in
games is by the user who will play the game receives them as collectables. This means that,
the player can do a certain side mission and within that mission there could be a secret
room or another area to the map where the player can explore. If the user does decide to
explore the other area a collectable can be grabbed which is most likely going to be concept
art. Well known games do this method such at the Batman Arkham series and Assassins
creed series as its similar to an Easter eggs due to the fact of the collectable is hidden from
the player unless the player explores that secret area of the map to find the collectable.
However, another way concept art can be implemented into the game is through the market
and the franchise. For example, the game alone could cost around 40 yet, if the player buys
the game for an extra 15 they can
get additional gear and a concept art
of their favourite character in a
poster form this not only benefits
the player as they get additional
content but it benefits the games
company as it provides them with
more income.

Characters
In the gaming world each game needs a character for
the game to be based around. This means that most
genres of games have a character or many characters.
Carrying the point an example of this characters are in
games such as Skyrim and The Witcher as there are
the main characters and side characters which provide
the main character with mission and task etc. most
games only use around three characters which interact with the player. The three characters
roles are main character, a comrade and finally a villain. Other characters may be seen in the
game but most game developers use the other characters as NPC and just uses them to
attack the main character not for storyline dialog. However, open world games such as the
ones I mention before Skyrim and The Witcher use many characters to interact with the
player. Furthermore, each interactive character is an NPC yet does interact with the player
supplying them with new missions and creating new twist within the games storyline.
Weapons
In most games weapons are a big value point as the user needs weapons to move forward in
the game that is depending on the genre of the game.
However, if the game is an adventure quest game or a
shooter game then weapons are very useful. Games such
as battlefield and call of duty make the user play with
weapons and allows the user to customize their weapons
with camos and attachments. However, in open world
games weapons have a larger purpose. In games such as the Division doing certain side
missions or hard missions gives the player a reward weapon meaning when the player
completes the difficult mission they get a better weapon they have previously and then can
progress forward further into the game.
Additionally, weapons can also benefit the
business when the game is released in extended
packs. For example, pay 50 instead of the usual
40 the player can get extra weapons and
weapon skins along with additional content.

Vehicles
The way vehicles are used in games are for transport purposes. This is due to open world
game maps are rather larger and walking to each missions may be tedious, therefore having
a transport option makes that lengthy journey less long and
more straight to the point. Most games use a Fast travel
feature which makes needing a transport option not as
needed. However, most games dont like placing fast travel
features so the next best option is adding transport such as
horseback, cars, trucks, planes etc. the game which used the
vehicle system to the fullest is the game created by the game developer Rockstar which
created GTA 5 (Grand theft auto) this game used many different vehicles for the user to
travel around the map. From peddle bikes to armoured tanks and jets the game gave a wide
range of vehicles to keep the player interested as it allowed a new aspect to having transport
is games.

Environment
When developing a game an environment is a key part in making a game successful. Most
games create an environment which doesnt exist such as
Skyrims map is known as tamriel which doesnt exist but has
a feel of being a real place to the player. However, there are
games which use real places and incorporate them into the
game. The games that commonly use real places is Assassins
creed as the game is based in the past and the environment is
based in what a real place will maybe look like in the past. An example of this map is the 2 nd
instalment of the Assassins creed series as they made the game environment based around
Venice and Florence in Italy in the year 15th sentry. This made the environment vary as there
were many close buildings and water for the user to
navigate around and use to complete a mission. Each
building used in the game was actually computer
generated Venice in Italy and made the game around
the actual place.

Texture art
Critical to the overall video game experience, video game texture artists work on graphics
and backgrounds making them look as real as possible and giving the game a visual edge.
You may find video game texture artists staring at
the floor, but theyre in fact doing their job. Making
a dirt floor look distinctly different from a cement
floor in the game seems trivial, but is in fact
complicated, time-consuming, and necessary. Video
game texture artists need to be very observant of
their surroundings, in order to gain more insight
into the work theyre doing on the job. Its common
for texture artists to gather their inspiration and research this way. Since the goal is to create
highly realistic work, it makes sense that they mimic real-world objects. On the flip side,
however, modern texture artists are breaking boundaries by creating exotic, unfamiliar
textures and surfaces that keep their games fresh and exciting. As long as texture artists
work within the technical capabilities of the game
console or system (specifically memory), they can be as
creative with their textures as they like.

Graphics research
 Pixels
Pixels also known as a picture element are the
components to make an image. The components are
thousands of dots which are referred as pixels. These
pixels combine together to make an image. If youve set the picture size to a higher quality
this is made by the increase of more pixels expanding the definition of the image, this is
where the term high resolution comes into play. Also sometimes screen image sharpness
is expressed as a DPI (dots per inch). DPI is determined both physical image size and
resolution size. However, if an image doesnt have a high resolution or a good DPI the quality
of the picture isnt as sharp or clearer as a picture that has a higher resolution or a good DPI.

Pixels use specific colours that describe in three blend which are Red, Green and Blue (RGB).
Three bytes of data are allocated for specifying a pixels colour. One byte for each major
colour component. A true colour or a 24-byte colour system use all three of the colour
components. Yet, many systems only use one byte limiting the display to 256 different
colours these colours determine a pixels intensity for example the more of the pixels the
more someone can zoom on an image without losing the high resolution. Intensity of a pixel
is the amount of pixels in the image this determines the quality of the image when the
magnification has increased so the image quality is still good even if its zoomed in.

Types of digital graphics & File extension & compression

Raster Image
A raster images are digital images that have been created or captured. For example, by
scanning in a photograph. Furthermore, a raster image has different types of compression.
The first one I am going to be talking about is a lossless file also known as a lossless
compression because it allows the user to recreate an original file exactly. All Lossless
compression is based on an idea of breaking a file into a smaller form, therefore the user
can use it for transmission or storage and then the user can put it back again and proceed to
use it once again.
The other type of compression is known as a Lossy file or Lossy compression and Lossy
compression works very differently to Lossless compression because these programs are
used to eliminate unnecessary bits of information for tailoring the file to be smaller. This
type of compression is used on Bitmap images. Raster graphics are made out of pixels this
allows the quality of the graphic to vary because if the raster image has not a lot of pixels
when the image is zoomed the quality of the image decreases. Yet, if the amount of pixels
increases when the image is zoomed the quality will stay the same.
A raster file is usually larger than a Vector graphic image file. A raster file is usually hard to
modify with losing information, however there is some software tools which allow the raster
file to convert into a Vector file. These software tools are:

BMP (bitmap): is a digital image composed of a matrix of dots. When viewed at 100%, each
dot corresponds to an individual pixel on the screen.

TIFF (tag image file format): is a format which is commonly used for exchanging a raster file
into a bitmap between application programmes.

GIFF (Graphics interchange file format): is an imaging format file which is commonly used
for images on the web and sprites software and is also limited when it comes to the colour
of the image.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group): is not limited to a certain amount of colour. This
means that JPEG is the best for compressing photographic images.

PSD (Photoshop Document): is a layered image file used in Adobe Photoshop. PSD is the
default format that Photoshop used for saving data. PSD is a proprietary file that allows the
user to work with the images individual layers even after the file has been saved.

Image capture

A scanner is a device that allows the user to capture images from photographic prints,
posters and magazine pages. Scanners can come in many different forms such as hand-held,
feed-in and flatbed types. Digital cameras are similar to the traditional film-based camera,
however when the user takes a picture using the digital camera it forwards the image
digitally through sensors in the camera. The sensors are also known as charged couple
devices or CCD. Yet digital cameras do not save images on an analogue film like traditional
cameras. Digital cameras save images / photographs on a digital memory. Resolution is the
number of pixels contained on a display monitor,
expressed in terms of number of pixels on the
horizontal axis and the number on the vertical axis.
The sharpness of the images depends on the
resolution of the image this means that more pixels
in the image the higher the quality the image is
going to be. Furthermore, resolution can still be
effected by the monitor size as if the monitor is small the resolution is going to be sharper
then a larger monitor.

There are many file types for a digital image, yet one file called a JPEG has a file size of 24 bit
RGB which means that there is a lot of file storage to save images. Another file type which is
used for digital image is a TIF. This file type has the file size of 96 bit which demonstrates the
size of the file and how much space there is for images to be stored.

Digital camera & Tablets

A digital camera is a similar to a traditional film-based camera, but it captures images

digitally. When you take a picture with a digital camera, the image is recorded by a sensor,
called a "charged coupled device" or CCD. Instead of saving the picture on analogue film like
traditional cameras, digital cameras save photos in digital memory. Some digital cameras
have built-in memory, but most use an SD or Compact Flash card. Digital cameras have
several advantages over their analogue counterparts. While film rolls typically hold about 24
pictures, memory cards have the capacity to store several hundred or
even several thousand pictures on a single card. Therefore,
photographers can be much more liberal in the shots they take. Since
the images are captured digitally, unwanted images can be deleted
directly on the camera. Most digital cameras also include a small LCD
screen that shows a live preview of the image, which makes it easier
to capture the perfect picture. These cameras usually include an
option to record video as well as still images.

Tablet PCs run on a variety of operating systems, like Android Jellybean, an open-source OS
built by Google, and tablets running on Windows 8 are seeing a dramatic increase in
popularity. Each operating system has a proprietary app store, from which users can
download hundreds of thousands of applications, extending the tablets functionality. Apps
range from games to music production suites, and they utilize the tablets touch screen to
provide an experience very different from the one received on a laptop.

Optimising

Bit depth describes the potential accuracy of a particular hardware or software that
processes audio data. The more bits that are available, the more accurate the resulting
output form the data is being processed. Bit depth is commonly used in analogue-to-digital-
converters and bit depth is also commonly seen in digital-to-analogue-converters.
The word bit depth sampling is about the size of the sample of the audio can take up. There
are 16 bit of data and there are 24 bit of data. These are the different sizes of audio files and
24 bit being the largest taking up a lot of storage. The High colour is the colour scale which is
also used for the pixel gradient. The High colour determines the colouration of the image. It
also helps the image quality for when you magnify the quality. The BPP or bits per pixel is
the number of bits stored per pixel of an image or displayed by a graphics adapter. The more
bits there are, the more colours can be represented, but more memory is required to store
the image.

Optimising involves increasing the efficiency or general performance of something, in terms

of digital graphics it involves creating a balance so the quality of the image and the file size
are responsive enough.

Target destination is the destination where the user wishes the graphics to be located on
their network. In order the user needs a folder which they intend to save all their graphics,
this will insure that the server can located their graphics easily and quickly.

Bit depth is the volume of colour per pixel, by reducing the Bit depth it will not only lower
the file size but the user is likely going to affect the quality of the image.

Resolution can affect the file size and also optimise the image quality, however not at the
same time for example you can enlarge the file size which may not be beneficial but risk
having a less quality image, yet for a graphics user having a high resolution image is very
beneficial and not having a very large file size.

Dimensions relate to the length and width of a digital image, by controlling the dimension of
the image, the user can adjust the image size making it smaller or larger depending on the
purpose or the location of the image. When changing the dimension of an image the volume
of pixels stays the same.

Intended image output is essential as they need to not only fit onto a webpage, but also be a
decent standard to get accessed and processed quickly by the user. The output is the data
found in the file which informs on the graphic output.

Digital video capture compression is a necessary function of recording video and TV signals
onto a computer hard drive. because raw video footage requires lots of space, without video
compression, video files would quickly eat up gigabytes of hard drive space, which would
result in only short amounts of video or TV recorded onto the computers hard drive.

lossless and lossy compression are terms that describe whether or not, in the compression
of a file, all original data can be recovered when the file is uncompressed. all of the
information is completely restored. this is generally the technique of choice for text or
spreadsheet files, where losing words or financial data could pose a problem. The graphic
interchange file (gif) is an image format used on the web that provides lossless compression.

Storage of image assets

The file size is the measurement of a computers file. typically file sizes are measured in bytes
or bits. however, the amount of dark space consumed by the file depends on the file system.
the maximum file size is a file system which supports depending on the number of bits
reserved to store size information and the total size of the file system. most files sizes are
measured in bytes or bits (usually 8 bits which are binary values of 1or 0). the most common
file size units are: bytes (8 bits), kilobytes (1,024 bytes),
megabytes (1,048,576 bytes) and finally gigabytes
(1,073,741,824 bytes). yet there are more file sizes but
commonly video file sizes dont generally exceed 1000
gigabytes.

Nearly all video file sizes are large as most encompass

almost all forms of multimedia. keeping the file size low as possible is very important
especially for video developers or user as if the file size is too large this will cause the user as
it can fill up the users hard drives and it may also slow down the users computer system.
however, there are 4 main things the user can take into consideration for countering the
large file size. the 4 main things are: reducing the resolution of the video, reducing the frame
rate of the video, increasing the key frame rate and the user can also change the
compressor. the 4 techniques can easily help the user with the file size and will counter act
the users hard drive filling up and the computer being slow.

2D sprite

A sprite is a bitmap graphic that is designed to be part of

a larger scene. It can be either a static image or an
animated graphic. Examples of sprites include objects in
2D video games, icons that are part of an application user interface, and small images
published on websites. While sprites have become less common in modern video games,
they are still used by software developers for other purposes. For example, sprites are often
used to add buttons, symbols, and other user interface elements to software programs.
Developers can attach actions to sprites within the user interface, such as playing an
animation or changing the current view of the window when the sprite is clicked. Sprites are
especially useful for adding custom graphics that are not natively supported by the operating
system's API.

3D isometric

Designs drawn in isometric projection are normally drawn precisely using drawing
equipment. However, designers find free hand sketching in isometric projection useful. The
mobile phone / music player opposite has been sketched in free hand isometric projection.
It allows the designer to draw in 3D quickly and with a reasonable degree of accuracy. The
design is still drawn at a 30-degree angle, although this is estimated, rather than drawn with
graphics equipment.