Visual/Artistic Styles
A visual style of a game is how it looks whether it’s cartoony or a military style. There are 4 main visual styles, Abstract, Photo Realistic, Cel-Shaded and Exaggerated.
Cel-Shaded:
Cel shading is a non-photorealistic rendered style of games which make the game look like it’s been hand drawn. Cel shading is mostly used to make games look cartoony such as Borderlands and World of Warcraft, even though they are not the same genre of game they have the same style.
Photorealism
Photo realistic graphics are used in styles of games like Military games. It is the most difficult and demanding visual style out of the other styles. The most popular games that use photorealism are Call of Duty, GTA and Halo.
Exaggerated
This style is roughly based photorealism, but most attributes have been enhanced such as ridiculously muscly characters or outrageous hairstyles. The best examples of exaggerated games are Tekken and Final Fantasy.
Abstract
Abstract is one of the most unique visual styles as with an abstract game it doesn’t tend to look like any other style of game. Many abstract games use bright colours while some have very elusive colours. The best example of an abstract game is geometry wars.
Pixel
“A pixel is a point sample. It exists only at a point. For a colour picture, a pixel might actually contain three samples, one for each primary colour contributing to the picture at the sampling point.” – Alvy Ray Smith
Most people think a pixel is a little square, but they are wrong. A point sample that can contain several different colours that the picture you are using has.
The lower your pixel dimensions the quality will worsen and the more “pixely” and distorted
Each pixel is made up of sub pixels containing red, green and blue.
In the picture above is the image resolution or the pixel dimensions.
Computer game graphics
Pixel Art:
It is a form of digital art, it is created through the use of raster graphics, where the images are editing on pixel level. This is mostly used on old computer games and mobile phone games.
When pixel art is at too high of a resolution it becomes to look blocky or pixellated, this is called pixellation.
As 3D are the games to play now, a lot of pixel art is lost and not used much now, but as mobile phone games are quite popular as well so not all pixel art is lost.
2D sprites are used for 8-bit games, everything in the game will be a flat image. Take the old 8-bit Mario games for instance his movements are limited such as one screen capture for jumping, crouching and walking.
3D Isometric sprites are 2D sprites that give the impression of depth, posed in 3D. They are used in games now but mostly on foliage such as grass and leaves on tree turning towards you to give the impression of depth.
Concept Art:
It is a form of illustration used to carry an idea for use in films, games, animation or comic books before it is put into the final product. Concept art is also known as visual development
Texture Art:
It is the element of arts that gives the way it looks and feels, in this case the texture art of a video game such as Call of Duty: Black Ops would be old, grungy, dirty and military styled.
In-game Interface:
The in-game interface or the HUD (heads-up display) or the status bar is a method put in the game to either tell you the score, your health, time, ammunition, minimap, the reticle/cursor/crosshair.
Print Media Art:
Print media art is important in the games industry, as people buy games that are colourful and attracts their attention. most games now have a special edition or a pre-order bonus to buy separate from the regular edition.
Types of Digital Graphics
Raster Images:
TIFF (also TIF), file types ending in .tif. TIFF images are a very large file sizes, They are uncompressed and therefore store a lot of detailed image data. TIFF images are very flexible when it comes to colour, they can be grayscale, CMYK for print or RG for web pages.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) JPEG files have been compressed to store a lot of information in a small-size file. digital camera have been programed so that when a picture has been taken it saves as a JPEG so you are able to take more photos as it is a small file size.
GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) this format compresses images, but it is not the same as a JPEG. when the compression is made no detail is lost so therefore the file size is not as a JPEG.
Vector Images:
PSD (Photoshop Document) a PSD file is a file format that is only available in Adobe Photoshop. When a file has been saved as a PSD it contains the information of layers with masks, transparency, text and more.
WMF (Windows Metafile) it is an image format that was designed for Microsoft Windows in the 1990s. WMF files are flexible throughout different software and contain both vector graphics and bitmap components.
AI (Adobe Illustrator Artwork) it is a proprietary file format created by Adobe Systems for representing single page vector based in both EPS and PDF formats. The AI file format was originally called PGF.
File Extensions:
a file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file applied to show the encoding of its contents. some file systems have limited the length of the extension.
Compression:
Compression involves encoding information using less bits that the original product. it is useful as it helps reduce resource usage.
Comparison of 2D and 3D
Both 2D ad 3D games have their similarities but also their differences. but the main difference is that 2D games are flat, using X and Y dimensions while 3D use X,Y and Z which is the depth. the third dimension is used for rotation ad multiple perspectives.
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