Reports on Theory of Digital Graphics

Artistic styles used in computer games

Photorealism
Photorealism is where a piece of art is brought together by painting it, drawing it
or any other way like this to recreate the image from a photograph to make it as
real looking as they can possibly make it. This is usually used through uploading
a drawn image onto the computer and then moving it round and editing the
shadowing, gradients and colours on the computer graphic to make it realistic.

This is the process of photorealism. As you can see,

the image starts off as a simple sketch of a man, but then has been made to
look realistic by just using paints, watercolours etc.
Photorealism isn't as popular when creating games as it takes a lot of time and
effort. Time being the main reason as most companies may decide to have a
short deadline meaning that they won't have enough time to do other areas as
this takes a lot of skill and hard work put into it.
A game example of photorealism is The Last of Us, in this image below.

Cell-Shading
This is used to make computer graphics appear more flat than how 3D it
originally was. The process is to select each pixel and decrease the shading tone
you have in it. Its often used to look like comic books or cartoons to give it a
more characterised look. Cell Shading comes from Cel which is the clear sheets
of acetate which were used to paint on to originally create 2D animations. CellShading starts with a 3D image, and the different shading and gradients are
decreased so the image looks more flat.

This image shows a 3D looking image on the left, but when

the different shadings have been taken away, you get the image on the right
where it looks more flat onto the page.
Cel-shading is more commonly used to achieve a comic kind of look in video
games. It is also known as 'Toon-Shading'. An example is Zelda.

Abstraction
This technique is more or less completely different to photorealism. Where
photorealism is about making the image look as though it's realistic like a
picture, abstraction is making it more unrealistic with different shapes and lines
being put into it to create a digital image which doesn't really make sense to the
human eye. The whole point of abstraction is to not be able to see a whole
object. An example of a computer game which uses abstraction is The Unfinished
Swan where you have to click the screen to 'throw paint' to create some sort of
image.

In this abstract image, you can only see shapes and

colours, and not an actual image.

Exaggeration
Exaggeration is most commonly used in anime and manga where the artist
literally exaggerates the cartoons in a way where the character don't look at all
realistic or humane, but in these types of cartoons especially. The way they do
this is creating the characters so they all look similar, like big eyes with small
noses and small mouths but a head bigger than their body. This is overly
cartooned but has a lot of gamers playing games (and watching movies) with
anime and manga in them, its quite popular being originated in Japan.

These characters are exaggerated as they

don't look human or realistic at all. They have been made to all look slightly
similar with the same eye shape, face structure and body type; the only thing
being different is their hair and eye colours.
Exaggeration in manga is more used in doll dress up games. The manga
character is very soft, kind looking being aimed at the target audience of
younger girls who'll enjoy these kind of games. If not in these games, manga is
mostly used in cartoons more than the anime characters which used in more
adventure and story lined games.

Computer game graphics

Pixel art is squares being put together and coloured in to create characters and objects within the game, usually through the
software to use to create raster graphics. To create pixel art, you cannot use any gradients (where the colours flow into each
other), just squares. The outlines of pixel art are coloured black, then the colours inside can be whatever you desire. Pixel
art is usually used in games which were played in old computers or consoles.
2D and 3D sprites are both produced as bitmap graphics. They can be either
animated graphics or just a static image. Sprites were the main way to insert
animated graphics into video games back in the early days of video gaming,
which is where 2D sprites come from; small images of objects, characters and
icons. An example of a sprite is when in Super Mario, when the main character,
Mario, jumped on a bad guy, he'd be flattened.

Concept art is the design ideas the artists create before the final product is created. Here they are able to change the design
around before the final piece. Its usually created on the computer and can then be easily edited. Concept art is the visual
representation of the product. It is important as most video game companies will be spending hundreds of thousands of
money on the video games, which could all be thrown away if they aren't careful when checking that the art looks ok
before they make it an official piece to go into a game. Its the same with movies as well.

Characters are usually hand drawn at first. This is where the creator can easily change around anything they dont like
about the character before the design is made into a graphic. You can then use this drawing as a sort of template when
creating it on the computer. You can use software where you are able to create the character quite detailed and human like.
Theyre created on the computer as its then easiest to transfer onto the devices and consoles as the graphics are similar.

Environment settings are basically the backgrounds and objects within the game so you could have a game which has a
detailed environment created by using the method where the artists can take an image and then change it around on the
computer to make it a digital graphic.
Weapons in games are usually used in action games. This is to be able to kill your enemies with guns, swords or any other
fighting object. Usually games with weapons in have the age certificate of teenagers or 18+ as weapons are a source of
violence which may encourage young people to think it's ok to use weapons on a casual term. Popular games with
weapons in them
Vehicles are used for transport in games to help the character get around. They can either be used in simulation games such
as Forestry, which is a driving simulator game for PlayStation, Microsoft flight simulator, which is a flight simulation
game, or just games like The Sims or Grand Theft Auto where the vehicle isn't playing a huge part in the game, but the
player is still able to use it to get around in.

Texture art is 2D but usually 3D designs where the game may look like it has some sort of material on it. Usually texture
art is created upon surfaces with a rough texture to is as then it's easier to design on than flat surfaces like normal A4 paper.
Texture art is created by layering any type of material onto polygon mesh. Artists use this technique to show off their skills
in attempt to be hired by gaming companies.

Pixels
Pixels are used to make up an image. They are what determines whether an image is high quality or not. The more pixels
used in the image, the better quality it is. Pixels are a certain shape been made up by little squares going across and down in
rows. These squares do not have more than one colour in each one. In high quality images, there are more much smaller
pixels, you can tell when its better quality as when you zoom in on the image, and you can almost see the pixels. Smaller
pixels mean that there will be a much more detailed coloring as theres more squares to use. This makes it easier for the
viewer to see. However, on poor quality images, the pixels will be much bigger meaning you can see how its made up
and the less squares means that theres not much use of colour as you cant fit it all on. This image of a cat shows how
many small pixilated squares there are in the image.

When you stretch an image out; it is harder to see as it is not the regular shape its use to. This is what image resolution is.
Again, image resolution is the quality of the colours and whether it is more detailed or not. These images show how the
famous painting of Mona Lisa looks with bad quality compared to good quality.

The intensity is the colours in the image, whether theyre bright colours or dull. More black and white dull colours means
that it can get away with not being seen as pixelated as the image isnt using many tones of colours at all whereas a brighter
image with lots of colours you can tell its low quality as there is only a limit of 256 colours allowed to be used on the
image.
Types of Digital Graphics
Raster images (bitmaps) are what the image type is. Raster images are made up of small squares in rows and lines in the
image. Each square is made up of a colour of its own, it cant be 2+ colours, just one. When you zoom into the raster
image, it stretches and you can see all the pixels. They take up a lot of space compared to a vector image.
.BMP: stands for Best Management Practices. A bmp is what stores the raster image.
.GIF: stands for Graphics Interchange Format. This is widely used on the web to create small animations using the raster
image type.
.TIFF: stands for Tag Image File Format. It is used for exporting grey scale images to other programmes.
.JPG: stands for Point Photographic Experts Group. A JPG is like a GIF but you can have more colours on it. A JPG can
be used on websites which you dont need to zoom into as a JPG hasnt got great quality.

When you zoom into the raster image, it stretches and you can see all the pixels. They take up a lot of space compared to a
vector image. With raster images, they need a colour for each square they have but vector images low on lines which can
change colour as they go along. Vector images can be shaped into anything like lines, curves and polygons
Raster images are often used in GIFs (Graphics Interchange Format) and is why the quality in GIFs arent that good and
the colours arent all HD. Vector images are good for being used in logos as you can put them on small leaflets or business
cards but also on huge billboards as they wont be all pixelated and therefore be seen clearly. With vector images, it doesnt
matter if its been zoomed or stretched, itll still be clear and unchanged. This is all shown on these images above and
below. Vector is very close to see zoomed in, where raster isnt.

.PSD: is a Photoshop Document. When you save work from Photoshop, it saves as a PSD which can
work with all the layers. In Photoshop, you can then fatten your layers together and save it as a JPG,
GIF or TIFF file.
.WMF: This stands for Windows Metafile. This allows you to store information from both vector and
bitmap images. This can be used on the main Microsoft softwares including Word, PowerPoint and
Publisher.
.FLA: is used to save flash formats. You can use these for saving animations on to put on a website.
File extensions
.BMP stands for Best Management Practices. A bmp is what stores the raster image.

.PNG: stands for Portable Network Graphics. It is a file format for image compression. A PNG allows
the person who created it to adjust the colour, brightness, file size when the image has been
compressed.

.GIF: stands for Graphics Interchange Format. This is widely used on the web to create small animations using the raster
image type.

.TIFF: stands for Tag Image File Format. It is used for exporting grey scale images to other programmes.

.JPG: stands for Point Photographic Experts Group. A JPG is like a GIF but you can have more
colours on it. A JPG can be used on websites which you dont need to zoom into as a JPG hasnt got
great quality.

.PSD: is a Photoshop Document. When you save work from Photoshop, it saves as a PSD which can
work with all the layers. In Photoshop, you can then fatten your layers together and save it as a JPG,
GIF or TIFF file.

Compression
Theres two types of compression. One being lossy, and the other being lossless. Lossy means that in
order to fit an image onto a disc, the image quality must be reduced to fit on which therefore means
that some information is lost and it becomes poor quality.
A Lossless compression is the opposite as whatever size the image is, even if the file size has shrunk,
the image will still be high quality and clear. This is a more effective way of compressing an image
simply because the quality will still be well although sometimes this means that it takes longer to
process compared to lossy.

Image capture
Scanners are device which can print off whatever you put in it. You can place some images, text, or
objects in a scanner and they will be printed o= like how it will be printed off from your computer.
This is a simple scanner. You put your item/paper onto the glass part, shut the lid and it can scan it as
an image onto your computer or print it out. There are some scanners which allow you to scan 3D
images. From these scanners, you can further then construct 3D models. This is an image of a 3D
scanner working on something.

As you can see, you dont need to lay the object down, it can scan stood up on a table. Scanners are
also used for human purposes like x-rays. X-rays scan usually the bones in a human body which can
be printed out to allow the doctor to see whether a bone is broken. Scanners however are quite
expensive and large which means you cant take them out somewhere in case they break and they
wont fit into a bag.
Digital cameras are cameras that stores digital images that you can upload onto your computer and
you can display it on your computer immediately if you wanted which you can then later upload onto
a disk or print it out. This image is different types of digital cameras. They all look different because
of different size lenses but they all work similar to each other being digital. The cameras at the top are
a lot more expensive than the ones at the bottom as they take better quality images and videos. They
also have a more complex setting which makes it harder to use but if you use it right, it has a light
sensor which can decide whether you need an automatic flash on your image or not. The cameras at
the bottom are a lot cheaper, a lot simpler to use and is small enough to fit into your pocket. It
however isnt the best quality to take pictures or videos with. It does use a flash, but most of the time
you need to set that yourself manually. With cameras, you are able to take as many shots as you need
and then be able to upload them into a video editor software where you can edit them all together to
create a short or long animation video.

A tablet can be used for creating the hand drawn images, animations or graphics with a stylus sort of
pen which will appear on a computer screen in front of you which is an easy way to transfer simple
images to your computer. Simple because unlike drawing on paper with a pencil, a tablet be become
quite fiddly and awkward to use as youre doing it onto a computer so youre unable to see the little
detailed lines created. However, tablets are perfect for shapes and simple objects, sometimes
characters if they arent too detailed.

Optimising
Target image output is used as sort of guidelines when creating your graphics as you need your
graphic to be able to fit onto whatever youre putting it onto. For example, your character needs to be
created so its able to fit onto devices like PS4s as well as XBOXs, Nintendos etc. if your game is
for multiple platform uses as such.
Bit depth is the different shades of colours in the image. It is basically how HD an image is whether
the image is clear or not. On this image, bitmap is shown when it says 1-bit as there is only about 2
colours being used which, as you can see, isnt very clear and hard to see the features on her face.
However, on the 8-bit, there is more shading, even though its in greyscale, you can see more facial
features as the shading of the picture is more detailed.

It also works on colour images. On this image below, you can see how much better the quality is on
the bottom eye as her actual eye colour is brighter and the mascara and eyeshadow is more defined
even though there is only 6-bit of difference between the images.

Resolution is the pixel sharpness (density) of a digital image on a computer or a digital camera. The
dot pitch (how many pixels) determines the limit of pixels. It may change depending on the screen
size. You can use resolution to enlarge images which will be an advantage to the user.
Dimensions is the size of something in a certain direction. So a line on the cube will be 1 dimension,
the line and the height will be 2 dimensions and the line, height and depth of a cube is 3 dimensions.
The dimensions change when you make the image bigger or smaller, what doesnt change are the
amount of pixels, they only grow when you enlarge the image as they will have to cover more space.
Compression is to reduce the image data, removing all the irrelevant data so we are able to store or
transmit the important data efficiently. There are two main compression methods; lossy and lossless.
Lossy means that in order to fit an image onto a disc, the image quality must be reduced to fit on
which therefore means that some information is lost and it becomes poor quality.
A Lossless compression is the opposite as whatever size the image is, even if the file size has shrunk,
the image will still be high quality and clear. This is a more effective way of compressing an image
simply because the quality will still be well although sometimes this means that it takes longer to
process compared to lossy.

Storage of image assets

File size. Having size limitations can be annoying as even if your file is an only one GB bigger, you
wont be allowed to put it onto the memory stick. So if you had a file 4GB, you cant put it onto a
3GB stick. This will mean you to have to delete some stuff on it.

Handheld devices have size limits too. Normally what I find takes up the most memory of my
handheld device is mainly text/imessages and my images and videos. These take up a lot of space and
you often get warnings about having to delete some stuff to make more file room. This can also slow
down your handheld device or make you not able to take pictures/videos.

File-naming conventions is what you name your files on your computer. Renaming files makes the
whole process of finding what you need easier as you know the name and can therefore find what
youre looking for fast and efficiently.

Asset management is keeping your assets within a certain group on whatever you're filing them into.
For example, on a game you're most likely to have assets separated into videos, characters, objects,
backgrounds etc. Which'll just break everything up and keep them organised so you aren't wasting
time trying to find a certain object you need to place in the game.