Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games Digital graphics is the one of the key assets to the games industry. The visuals for most games is their main selling point to attract a large an audience as possible. Most AAA games such as Battlefield, Fifa or Call of Duty will settle for a more realistic art style because the developers know their target audience will be bought over by a game because it looks good or looks realistic, this art style is referred to as photorealistic. However for indie developers making a game can be a lot more personal to them so the art style they choose for their game can reflect them as a person or how they want their game to be interpreted by the audience, for example Limbo, a puzzle platformer developed by Danish company Playdead, uses it’s bleak monochrome colour scheme to emphasise the feel of being stuck and alone in this death trap riddled world. This color scheme of black and white with some grey area combined with Limbos simplistic cartoon art style sets a truly grim and unsettling tone.

Pixel Art Pixel art has become a growingly popular art style because of its nostalgic feel. The style was derived from old games such as Mario, Zelda or Castlevania where developers were limited by technology they had no choice on what kind of art style they used. Pixel art has shown recent popularity especially in indie developers and smaller developers due to it’s simplicity to create quickly and use very little processing power. Furthermore, modern developers like Vlambeer (Luftrauser, Extreme Fishing) or Subset Games (FTL: Faster Than Light) make games with the art style of pixel art to bring back those memories of original, old school games. Something Vlambeer do especially well is mirror the art style with their gameplay . Super Crate Box was

released in May 2010 and is a 2D action arcade game. Enemies will continuously spawn from the top of the map gradually increasing in numbers. With 3 different enemy types (small, flying and large) each one only has around 10 sprites for movement. This can relate to original games having to limit sprites due to memory storage space. Whereas when you look at games like Cave Story+ ( Pixel Studios 2011) they use multiple sprites because they are no longer limited by memory.

Super Crate Box also plays like a very old school game; it is incredibly difficult to play even though the controls are extremely basic, movement, jump and attack, and it is a continuous game so you're only playing to get your name at the top of the leaderboard, just like an old arcade game. By using these game play aspects the replicate old retro games and they use pixel art as the icing on the cake to complete their gaming experience. This link will show you some gameplay of Super Crate Box Pixel art also often uses bright colours so pixel games are often comical or happy games to play. Fez (Polytron, 2012), a puzzle/ platform game, plays well into this hand. Using bright colours to bring the world to life and simple synthesizers for an uplifting soundtrack to make a peaceful and relaxing gaming experience for the gamer. The player must collect 32 cubes to restore the world around you, however, the game begins in 2D but you soon discover there is a depth element to the game and the player is able to rotate the game 90 degrees to reach new areas and explore secret levels. Fez also makes you think about how the world around you works as you transition from 2D to 3D. This would not have such a big impact if the game used rounded shapes like circles. The use of pixels creates a stark contrast due to the shapes harsh edges. Here is a look at some Fez gameplay

Exaggerated Exaggerated art style often refers to a more eastern theme such as Street Fighter or Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. It is derived from anime animation or manga drawing and is designed to be over the top.This art style features enhanced features including hair and muscles. This exaggerated style is also used by western companies such as Epic Games in Gears of War. This series features soldiers in the future with enhanced body features including chest, legs and arms. The game is set in the future so the exaggerated features compliment the game when you're fighting creatures from Earth's core . However when Gears of War was released on 7th November 2006 they featured the track “Mad World” by Gary Jules. Playing a track like this over footage from the game about the war and tragedy creates

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juxtaposition between the chaotic fighting seen visually by the audience and the sad, slow song heard by the audience, moreover this song compliments Gears of War’s gritty colour scheme. This shows a much more sensitive side to the game rather than a plain shooter with little depth in terms of characters or story. Exaggerated art also emphasises the masculinity and raw power of the soldiers as they fight for humanity's survival. Street Fighter is a fighting game similar to Tekken or Mortal Kombat. All these games feature exaggerated art style and utilise this art style with their fast paced action gameplay. In an eastern fighting game the characters show enhanced muscles to emphasise their strength and power in game. The trailer for Street Fighter uses a less sentimental touch than Gears of War, using fast based electronic/rock music to hype their game to the audience. Unlike Gears of War, Stree/t Fighter uses bright colours and the fast paced soundtrack to enhance the gameplay for the audience which works well with Street Fighters playstyle. Artists will also use exaggerated art styles to develop characters emotionally for example, the use of big eyes for example can visually express a character is sad. This Trailer for Street Fighter Gameplay shows how the exaggerated expressions and physical appearance of the characters support the high energy gameplay.

Cartoon Cartoon art styles is an illustrated style typically referring to a non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing. Deriving from influences like comic books, cartoon moved into an animated media with shows like Tom and Jerry and Mickey Mouse. The cartoon art style suited games perfectly because it often has a non realistic effect using bold colours and sometimes gory deaths. Super Meat Boy (October 2010) was created by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes (Team Meat) and is the

successor to Meat Boy, a 2008 flash game. Edmund McMillen, the artist for Team Meat, uses a cartoon art style to express himself. He uses this style because he creates very unrealistic games like a boy made of meat, his games compliment these radical ideas with basic block colours and thick black outlines, similar to comic books which influenced his childhood drawings greatly. However some

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games such as Binding of Isaac tackle very serious topics such as religion but his use of cartoon art softens this issue so the game is taken less seriously

Abstract Abstract art uses form, line and colour to often visually represent references in daily life. Games such as Thomas Was Alone (Mike Bithell, 2012) use simple block colours and quadrilaterals to represent each character from the game. Thomas Was Alone is set in a computer mainframe, where some event has caused several AI to become self aware, each one distinguished by their coloured shapes. Thomas Was Alone is a puzzle platformer where the player controls a number of shapes. Each shape has a unique ability such as a double jump or being able to float on water. The player uses these abilities to solve each level by getting each shape to their portal. The use of abstract art gives the game a visually simple look which works with the colour scheme of basic block colours. Abstract art also allows the player to focus more on the development of each character and allows the player to perceive each character in their own unique way, this is due to the fact that abstract art lacks detail so players are not influenced by the artist interpretations of a character. Each character is solely perceived by what they say and how they respond within the game. This can be reflected in the real world by people being discriminated or judged on their appearance rather than their actual personality. This link will show you some Gameplay of Thomas Was Alone Where Thomas Was Alone uses abstract art to reflect it’s simplicity and to focus more on the narrative, games like Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved use abstract art to create a much more hectic game focusing heavily on gameplay with little story. Geometry Wars Retro Evolved was released July 2008 on the Xbox Live Marketplace by Bizarre Creations. As the title, Retro Evolved, says it follows a similar pattern to an old arcade game called Asteroids implementing a hard, survival horror in a small contained space with increasing number of enemies.

Using abstract art to stay loyal to the visuals in Asteroids but also implementing vibrant colours and lighting to make it feel a more modern gaming experience. Gameplay of Geometry Wars Retro Evolved (Explicit Language).

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As you can see Geometry Wars focuses on out of control gameplay to immerse their audience compared to Thomas Was Alone which uses abstract art to draw more attention to it’s story and characters. Both games use abstract art for different reasons but each game uses the art style effectively to compliment their game.

Cel shaded Cel shading is a form of 3D rendering and is a combination of art and technology. Cel shading often resembles a comic book design. Cel shading is a fairly new art style but is becoming increasingly more popular with the new HD release of The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker and the Borderlands series. Cel shaded is a very different art style and is very separate to the other types of art styles, this allows developers to make their games standout and create a unique look for their game. Borderlands is renowned for it’s comical yet very mature style. The visuals help add this comic book look and the hyper aggressive gameplay also supports this hectic game world. Similar to the cartoon art style cel shading allows the extreme violence of the game seem much less serious and more fun instead. It is safe to say that borderlands would not be the same game or even near as popular as it is without it’s distinctive look.

Photo-Realistic Photo-Realistic graphics is the most popular 3D art style. It aims to create the most realistic look and is often used in games with a more realistic setting such as the Battlefield series and Fifa. This type of art aims to create the most realistic looking game possible and lots of work is directed at this when developing the game. Most blockbuster games will use this style to attract a large audience who can be bought over by how the game looks rather than it’s story or gameplay. However realistic art does often feed into the theme of the game. As I said before a game with real life themes such as fifa would not use a cartoon art style as it would go against the real world feel to the game. The Battlefield series runs off an engine called FrostBite. The game has been using Frostbite since Battlefield Bad Company in 2010 and now Battlefield 4 uses FrostBite 3, the latest installment of the FrostBite engine. This engine is designed to create photorealistic games with emphasis on the environment, character details, weapons, projectile physics and lighting. All these features really elevates Battlefield as a realistic games as these features are rarely found in other shooting games such as Call of Duty. As you can see art in video games is often used to emphasise the feel to the video game. Each game has it’s own take on the art style and uses it well to support their games narrative, gameplay or atmosphere. Art styles in games is vital to give games a unique feel and style.

Digital Graphics Technology There are 2 main file types. Vector and Raster (often called Bitmap). Vectors are a set of instructions on how to construct an image and can be enlarged to any size and still remain the same quality because of this. Raster files often have large file sizes and represent photorealistic images, compared to vector which will more often represent images on a screen.

Vector Vector images are smaller file types than raster because they usually have a lower colour depth. They are mainly used for graphic designs so Adobe Illustrator saves files as an .ai which is a

vector file. Vector images are made up of geometrical primitives such as lines, curves, equations and shapes which make up the image by following instructions which construct the image correctly. Another type of vector file is .swf which stands for Small Web Format which are normally found using Flash to create 2D animations. Vector images use less colour depth than bitmap so they are less suitable for photorealistic images. During the early years of games the only companies to use vector graphics were Atari, Sega and Cinematronics. In 3D computer graphics vectors are

often used for surface representation. Polygonal representation is a series of points in 3D space linked by line segments to create a polygonal mesh, this can be rendered by a computer much faster because of it’s simplicity.

Raster and Pixels Raster images have, unlike vector images, large file sizes due to their high colour depth. Unlike vector images they cannot be enlarged without a decrease in image quality. Bitmap images are often referred to as raster images or raster graphics for their use in video games.. Raster images are better at representing photorealistic images so they are used for those situations instead of graphics. Raster images use pixels (picture element) to represent an image. A pixel is

the smallest controllable element in a display device. Each pixel is a square which represents 3 bytes of data (Red, Green and Blue). This 24 bit data scheme will allow for more than 16 million colours to be picked to give the correct colour. A high standard monitor will contain 1920 x 1080 pixels – this is also HD resolution.

Early games, such as Metroid and Mario, ran at low resolutions with very few colours (often the primary colours – RGB). These had such low pixel resolution that jagged lines could be seen and gave the game a very unnatural appearance. Graphic Interchange Format is a less common way of compacting raster images to make them take up less space. It is popular on the internet for its ability to animate images stitched together. The Portable Network Graphics (.png) is a very common way of compacting images and is used in email to compress files and make them quicker and easier to send. Raster images are

Output An output device is something that displays a signal or presents something that we would be unable to see otherwise, such as a monitor, a speaker system or a printer

Lossy and Lossless Compressions There are two types of data compression; Lossy and Lossless. Both of these compress but each has a different way of doing it with a slightly different outcome to suit the situation better. Lossless compression compresses data without permanently losing any of the data. It is used by ZIP files, a file format used for compression and archiving files, which creates algorithms to store data effectively. Lossless compression is used when the original data and decompressed data need to be identical, for example executable files and text documents all need to stay the same so they are compressed through lossless data. Lossy data does the opposite e of lossless data. It looks for patterns in a file and replicates them, to use less space. This is why Lossy is not used on text documents because parts of it would be missing. Lossy is used in images by taking an area with a lot of shades all roughly the same and making them the same – such as shades of black in a background. This is usually not noticeable in JPEG images. They aren’t great and representing photorealistic images and can only do a low compression of 84% less information than uncompressed before the quality drops to a noticeable state.

Optimisation Optimisation is known as the process of saving your files and effectively by using the correct form of compression and file type. Optimisation can save a lot of data space and is important when handling big files. This will save download time and the amount of bandwidth being used. When hosting a website it is important to make sure your images or videos are completely optimised to ensure the user is not kept waiting and just hit the back button. When hosting large image websites they must ensure to optimise all images to make sure they don’t take up a lot of space because it’ll save them lots of money dealing with bandwidth. This also means they save a lot in floor space storing their servers. Using Jpeg files to upload to internet is good because they take up less space than a .bmp. Optimization is essential for websites to run smoothly and successfully - they are also used for email use.

Anti – Aliasing Anti – Aliasing uses gradients to blend pixels so they look smoother when viewed from a far. These are used a lot in computer graphics for games. They use anti – aliasing to make things look smoother and more realistic and different graphics cards can give better results than others. Anti – Aliasing essentially tricks the eye into believing a jagged edge is really smooth by blending and fading colours and shades into each other. We see jagged edges on our graphics because of the imitations in the monitors, not the graphics cards. Monitors have no difficulty displaying horizontal or vertical but they struggle when it comes to diagonal graphics, they create a jagged line instead of a smooth one. By reducing the dot pitch (space between pixels) we are able to reduce these jagged lines, but not get rid of them entirely. Using anti-aliasing in a game can slow down frame rates because the GPU has to calculate which pixels need to be drawn in and at what shade they need to be drawn. These calculations can reduce frame rate because they take up processing power which is sometimes necessary to render other parts of a game such as scenery.

File name conventions When working on a project with lots of files, such as a video game, file naming is key for staying efficient with your work. Here, all the objects begin with “obj_” this lets the user know they are looking at an object file. Next the user writes the traction type (wh=wheel, trk = tracks, sk=skis) followed by the passenger bay size (lpb = large passenger bay, mpb = medium passenger bay, spb = small passenger bay) Each sprite is categorised into an appropriate folder. Objects and sprites for terrain(spr_grass, obj_rocks etc) are placed in the terrain folder. All the robots builds are placed in the robot.section. This level of categorisation will help when it comes to looking for the objects to insert into the game For example in terms of graphics you could have several files for one character. You would start each file with the characters name “playername_” then follow it with the part of the character in question “playername_front”.