Artistic styles used in computer graphics

Photorealism
Photorealism is something which can be created using expensive form or a type of
programming which will allow the artist to be able to study the image or photograph and they
will have an attempt to try and reproduce the image as realistically and similar to the image as
they can. Within video games this could be the entire in game content of designs of the game
like the background, environment, set and characters etc. These are created to look as realistic
as they possibly can to be able to look like real life. Photorealism show that a computer
generated graphic is able to look as real as a real life graphic. Photorealism isnt used by every
game company as being able to recreate a photograph isnt easy to do, althou7gh graphics
today have good photorealism graphics are the best by far. Many gaming companys use
motion capture, which does have high quality graphics and gameplay although photorealism is
starting to become quite big within the industry on the other hand photorealism will become
a longer development time for the game as it takes much longer to create.

Cell-shading
Cell-shading is a non-photorealism which is a method of rendering, non-photorealistic shading
is most commonly used to create a comic/cartoon style character/surroundings. Call shading
is designed to create 3D computer graphics which will appear to be flat by using lesson shading
colour this is instead of a shade gradient or tints and the shades within the graphic. The process
of cell shading starts by using a standard 3D model, this is where the cell shading differs from
conventional rendering this is non-photorealistic illumination model. The conventional lighting
values are calculated for each of the pixels within the image and then they are quantized in to
a small number of discrete shades this is to create the characteristic flat look, this is where the
shadows and highlights appear more like blocks of colour rather than the mixed but looks
smooth. Cell shading became synonymous within interactive media which has the same style
of the Sega dream cast game, but it has been applied within numerous of other games over
the years, which includes more mature titles for example grand theft auto etc.
Abstraction
Abstraction games are able to be creates using any platform which has a pixel rate from 8 to
64. Some abstractions games tend to use a lot of colour within the game. Abstraction type
games dont tend to have a plot or running storyline as the goal to survive. In most abstraction
games, it will always have a score which will notifies the player each time they score. An
example of this type of game would be super Mario bros, on this game the aim is to collect
coins and survive the game until the end when you reach the flag, these types of games can be
addictive as each time you want to get to the flag to get on the next level and each time you
die you get the need to try and complete the game. Super Mario bros has a lot of games out,
which you are able to play on different consoles.

Exaggeration anime and Manga

Most manga games are basic games which are very similar to doll type games which is a game
that involves dressing up different characters or doing their hair and makeup on the character.
A common game which is like this is called star doll within this game you chose a character
and then you are able to go shopping and choose different outfits and then dress up them in
the clothes; within these types games the player must click and drag the pieces of clothing on
to the character and then these clothes stay on the character until the player than changes
them. The clothing options tend to be categorized in to sections from like being tops, dresses,
jeans etc; this than makes it a lot neater and easier to play the game and use. Most makeup
and hair games tend to have the same style and layout to dressing up games. One of the main
difference between manga and anime is that anime has animations and the characters will talk
and move and will be interactive and there are play-able characters. Anime is a type is cartoon
film which has very exaggerated features as their anime style which the creators and designers
which like to make certain parts of the characters exaggerated to be able to give them a certain
look.

Computer game graphics

Pixel art (2D sprites, 3D sprites)
In some computer graphics it is a 2D bitmap which is integrated into a larger scene. Originally
sprites referred to independent objects which are composited together this is by hardware,
with other elements like backgrounds. A sprite is a bitmap graphic which is designed to be a
part of a larger scene. Pixel art is a form of digital art which is created through the use of raster
images which are edited on the pixel level. The majority of graphics for 8-bit and 16-bit
computers and video game consoles as well as other limited systems like graphing calculators
is pixel art. When creating or modifying pixel art characters or objects for video games is
sometimes called spriting. Pixel art is preferably stored within a file format utilizing lossless
data compression

Concept art
Concept art is a form of illustration which is used to convey ideas which they will them use in
films, video games, comic books and different animations or sometimes other media before it
is put into the final product. Most concept art is also referred to as a visual development for
concept design. The main goal of concept art is used to representation of a design, mood or
films. Concept art is developed in serval iterations; when creating concept art artists try serval
designs to be able to achieve the desired result for the work which they are producing. Most
concept art is used for developing work and buy doing this it shows the projects progress to
the directors, clients and investors.

Characters
Characters and avatars are one of the main things when it comes to designing games.
Characters are one of the most important parts when it comes to games design as there has
to be a lot of time which has got to be put in for designing characters and then creating them
and the concept art of these characters. Most video games which incorporate characters or
avatars are most likely link the design of the character to the design of the whole game whether
that would be linking the character/s to the genre or the style or the story otherwise the game
would not be linked together and then the game wouldnt make any sense; so therefore the
whole game who need to be based around characters and the characters would need a lot of
time to design them and create them to ensure they fit with the video game.
Weapons
Depending on the gameplay and genre of the game there may be weapons which will be
useable within that game. The weapons which are within the game are designed to fit the style
of the art and the gameplay of the actual game. Games like battlefield 1 is a series shooter
which is based around war settings so the weapons which are included within this game are
primarily guns or other types of weapons like combat equipment or launchers. The gun which
are included within battlefield 1 are designed around real life weapons, within each of the
battlefields they have a different theme and for each of the games like they design the
weapons to be linked to a specific game theme.

Vehicle
Vehicles which are included within video games are sometimes designed off the theme of
games themselves. In most video games the crew are designed to fit with the present time and
what vehicles people can actually use in real life. When it comes to looking a video games one
of the best games to look at is Mario kart which is played on the WII the vehicles within this
game are designed to fit the genre and theme of the whole game. The vehicles which are
included within this game are designed to look similar to the characters. The vehicles within
video games are there as they fit with the style and genre of the game, most times the vehicle
used within a game can be used for all different reasons for example a vehicle which is used
within Mario kart is used as the main part of the game where as in call of duty is used as a
getaway car.
Environment
The environment is probably one of the most important aspect of designing the whole look of
the game as near enough all the games need to include a background and the background is
the main part which can set the scene of the game and the story of the game. In each game
the environment has to be designed to portray a city. The environment of a game has to be
the first thing to think about when it comes to creating or even playing a game as the
environment has to fit around the game and the genre of the game. The environment is
something which needs to match to the genre of the game and how to game should look in
general for example if the game is bright and colourful then the environment must be
something which is similar.

Texture art
The texture art of the game isnt the style of the game but is more of how it can change the
look of some certain graphics mine craft is a good example of this, as the texture within
Minecraft the player is able to place down different pixelated blocks for example grass, wooden
planks and stone; each of these blocks have a different texture to them, this is to ensure that
they look like the chosen things which they are meant to be.

Graphics Research
Pixels:
Pixel is actually short for picture element. The small little dots on an image is what makes ups
the image which goes on computer displays. The image on the screen is divided up into a matrix
of thousands or possibly even millions of pixels, when the image is its normal size youre not
able to see the individual pixels as theyre so small. Most people would like to look at a smooth
and clear image rather than a pixelated one. Each pixel can only be one colour at a time but
since theyre so small pixels often blend together to form lots of different shades and blends
of different colours for example in an 8-bit colour mode the colour monitor uses 8 bits of the
colour for each pixel, on colour monitors each pixel is composed of three different coloured
dots red, blue and green. The physical size of a pixel depends on how you have set the
resolution for the display screen if you have set the display screen to its maximum resolution
then the physical size of each pixel will equal the physical size of each dot but if you have set
the resolution to something less than the maximum resolution than a pixel will be larger than
the size of the screens dot. A bitmap is a file which indicates a colour for each individual pixel
along the horizontal axis or row and a colour for each pixel which is along the vertical axis. A
pixel is also the single point in a graphic image. The pixels are so close together that they may
appear connect.

Image resolution:
Image resolution can be identified by the width and the height of an image as well as the total
numbers of each pixel in the image. Image resolution is basically the quality of the image. As
the resolution goes higher the image becomes much clearer, it becomes more shaper, more
defined and it also becomes more detailed this is because there is more information in a small
space. The image resolution changes the image when you stretch it, for example if you got an
image off the internet and if it was small and you stretched it bigger the pixels would become
bigger and clearer to see. Depending on what format the image is saved in the image when
made bigger may actually stay pixelated and if this happens then you are mostly likely to need
to find a new image.

Intensity:
Intensity has high levels in the three different colour channel- red, blue and green this creates
bright and light toned pixel and it may also show a bright level of illuminations a colour of a
pixel and each picture is made up with various of colours. If you wanted a sharper image you
would need to have a more intense colour, the image will be made up by the amount of variety
of colours which have been used to create up an image. Each of the pixels has its very own
colour. The pixel will only have other pixels around them with similar shades there is never one
pixel with two colours inside one pixel. The brightness is the same in a pixel and the gradient
wont change in an image.
 Types of digital graphics
Raster image (bmp, gif, tiff, jpg)
Most pictures you find on your computer screen are raster graphics. Pictures which are found
on the web and photo you import from your digital camera are raster graphics. Raster graphics
are made up of grid of pixels this is referred to as a bitmap. The larger the image, the more
memory the image file will take up, an example of this would be a 640 x 480 image requires
information to be stored for 307,200 pixels. Raster graphics need to store as much information
as possible, large bitmaps require large file sizes. JPEG and GIF are the most common
compressed image formats on the web. Most raster graphics can be scale down with no loss
of quality, but by enlarging a bitmap image it will cause it to look blocky and pixelated for this
reason vector graphics are often used to create certain images like some company logos
these would need to be scaled down to different sizes. A raster file is much larger than a vector
graphics image. A raster file is difficult to modify without loss of information, although there
are other software tools which can convert a raster file into a vector file. Some examples of
raster image files are BMP, TIFF, GIF and JPEG. Raster images file is sometimes referred to as a
bitmap graphics as it contains information that is directly mapped to the grid display.

Vector images (psd, wmf, fla, ai)

Vector graphics are the geometrical primitives like points, lines and curves and polygons.
Vector graphics are not made up of a grid of pixels. Instead vector graphics are comprised of
paths, which are defined by a start and end to a point, along with other points, curves and
angles along the way. A path may be a line, a square, a triangle or a curvy shape. These paths
may be used to create simple drawings or complex drawings. Paths are used to define the
characters of a specific typefaces. As vector images are not made up of a specific number of
dots, they may be scaled into a larger size and they would not lose any image quality. If you
were to blow up a raster graphic, then the image would look pixelated but when you blow up
a vector graphic the edges of each object on the graphic will stay smooth and clear. This is what
makes vector graphics ideal to create logos as they can be small enough to appear on business
cards but can also be scaled to fit a billboard. Many Flash animations also use vector graphics
as they scale better and take up less space than bitmap images.
 File extensions
A JPG file allows up to 16.8 million colours and is a lossy compression file, the more this file is
compressed the more quality is lost. This file is better for photographs and other photorealistic
graphics which require more colours. A JPG format is also best suited for images which require
smooth transitions between different colours like gradients and drop shadows. A GIF allows up
to 256 colours and is a lossless compression file. GIF files are much better for line drawings and
limited palette images. The GIF type file is pronouncing as JIFF. This type of file is not the
format you would chose for most photographs. GIF are best for images that are flat with limited
colours and crisp details. Images which are best suited for storing in the GIF format are line art,
charts, graphic text and images with areas of a solid colour. A PSD is a Photoshop image file
and this is used on Photoshop which is a graphic editing program. The file formats are made
up from layers which are joined together. A TIFF is a tagged image format. This format is for
storing grey-scale data. It is a standard format for scanned images and for exporting grey-scale
and coloured images to other programs.

Compression
Lossy/Lossless
A lossy compression is where the programs simply eliminate the unnecessary parts of
information, tailoring the file so it will make it smaller. This type of compressions is used a lot
for reducing the size of a bitmap graphic whereas lossless compressions are totally different to
lossy as lossless, a lossless compression allows you to recreate the original file. All lossless
compressions are based on the idea of breaking into a smaller form to transmission or storage
and then putting it back together when finished transferring so it will be able to use again. A
lossless compression program wont be able to do much with this type of file as large parts of
an image may look the same but for an example an image of the sky is all blue, most of these
individual pixels are a little different shade of blue, to make this picture smaller without
compromising the resolution you would have to change the colour value for certain pixels.
 Image capture
Scanner
A scanner is a device which captures images from photographic prints, posters, magazine pages
and similar sources for computer editing and display. Some scanners come in hand-held feed-
ins and flatbed types and for scanning black and white only or colour. Very high resolution
scanners are mainly used for scanning high-resolution printing but can lower resolution
scanners are adequate for capturing images for computer display. Scanners come with
software like Adobes Photoshop product, which lets you resize and
otherwise modify a captured image.

Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera which stores images digitally rather than recording them on film.
Once a picture has been taken on a camera it will be downloaded to a computer system and it
will then manipulate with a graphics program and printed. Digital photos have limited by the
amount of memory within the camera, the optical resolutions of the digitizing mechanism and
by the resolution of the final output device. Digital cameras make photos in both inexpensive
and fast as there is no film processing. A digital camera also records and stored
photographic images in a digital form.

Tablet
A tablet is a small portable computer, which will accept input directly on to its screen
rather than through a keyboard or through a mouse, also a tablet is something which is
interactive and requires the user to use its touch screen interface. A tablet is also a wireless
personal computer which has a touch screen interface. A tablet is usually smaller than a
notebook but bigger than a smartphone. An advantage of having a tablet is that the battery
life is better than using a computer, the display resolution Is much better etc. on most tablets
you are able to create and design things on it such as characters, sketches and even able to
create word documents and pie charts etc.
 Optimising
Target image output
Target image output is what an image is going to be used for, for example the internet or to be
printed out. Depending in the target output, the image may need to be altered. If the image is
to be put on a website and it is a high resolution image that has a large file size, the image will
need to be resized or compresses if it is going to be a small icon and in order for that image to
not slow down the loading speed on the page. One thing which can be done is resizing; When
made small in dimensions, the image becomes a smaller file size as there is less of each colour
pixels within the image. It is important that when you are preparing an image for the web that
you get the right balance between good quality and fast loading time.

Image bit depth

Bit depth is either the number of bits which is used to indicate the colour of single pixels in a
bitmapped image or a video frame buffer or the number of bits which is used for each of the
colour component of a single pixel. This is also the same as colour depth. Bit depth quantifies
how many unique colours are available within an images colour palette in terms of the number
of 0s and 1s or bits, these are usually used to specify each colour this doesnt mean that
the image actually uses all of these colours, but that it can instead pick out specific colours with
that level of precision for example a grey-scale image which the bit depth quantifies how many
individual shades are available. Images which have higher bit depth will be able to encode more
shades or colours as there is a bigger combination of 0s and 1s. image bit depth, is the volume
of bits per pixels, by reducing the bit depth it will also reduce the image file size although the
quality is more than likely to suffer because of this. The creator will need to make a choice
between having a good quality graphic which has a slower load time, or a moor poorer quality
graphic which enables the website to perform much faster.
Image resolution
Resolution is the number of pixels within a digital graphic which is known as the image
resolution. This is measured by dots per inch which is sometimes called pixels per inch. The
greater the resolution in the image the more detail the image is, but also the file for this
document will become much bigger size. When youre preparing your images to print them,
you should aim to use the highest resolution there is especially if you print is large otherwise
the image you have printed will turn out pixelated. Digital cameras are available with different
qualities. Cameras which have a much higher image resolution are mainly more expensive,
whilst some cheap cameras may not take good quality photos. The main thing which
determines how a good digital camera is along with the amount of zoom available, is this
megapixel the digital camera has, this represents how many pixels are in each image. The more
megapixels the camera has the better quality image which is taken. The more megapixels, the
better resolution of the image.

Image dimensions
An image dimensions is the length and the width of a digital image; this is usually measured
within pixels, although some graphic programs will allow you to be able to view and work with
the image which you are using which will be in the equivalent inches or centimetres of the
image. Depending on what to use of the image is for you may want to change the image size
like if you are using an image which has a high resolutions digital image, you may want to
change the image dimensions to something smaller, this is to ensure that when publishing the
image will be okay to put the web or be able to use where ever it is used so there are no
problems and not going back to edit it.
 Storage of an image asset
File size/File naming conventions
Depending on the resolution of the image, image files mostly take up a lot of space because of
all the information which that is stored within the file. There are various different places to
save files like these. They each hold a set amount of space. An example of this would be using
a memory stick or a USB drive, some memory sticks vary in space
as you can get 1GB of space whereas on others you are able to
get 8GB of memory space.

Asset management
Asset management this is the organisation of files or images
within folders. It is very important to make sure that there is a
lot of files to keep them organised in order to find the file which you may want to use. Also,
giving your files relevant file names when saving them as this makes the file easier to find. By
separating different files and putting them into named folders, managing information and files
is much easier and quicker and will mean that you have easy access to the files you need.

Background graphics
Walls
most walls within games have many different designs this is to help set the scene of the game
which they are in for. For example, the wall of the game could be the main background which
would then make the wall an important part of the game but in some cases the walls within
games are just there for design, to make the game look better and well designed. In a lot of
online multiplayer games such as call of duty, walls are used as obstacles for players to hide
behind or climb over. Walls can also be used to set the size of the map; this means that the
edges of the map will be made partially or entirely of walls which the players cannot get
around.

Forests
To have forest within a video game is going to depend on the type of it game is and if the forest
is going to be involved within the gameplay. To have forests within games must be the type of
game is it, like most games to have a forest in there that will be the environment of the game
which is the main part of the game. Similarly to walls, forests can be used to set the scene of
the game, if its a horror game, forests could be used to add tension for the players, giving
plenty of places such as behind trees for things to be hiding behind.

Clouds
Clouds are not involved within many video games although, games which include somethings
which includes flying in within the game for examples planes where you are able to fly through
the clouds, going through the clouds which will be possible distort the players vision as it would
do if you fly through a cloud in real life.

In game interface
A users inter face is the way a user controls a software program or a hardware device. An
example is a software with an interface may include windows, menus, icons and buttons which
allow the user to be interactive with the program. A games interface is the interface between
the game and something else with is typically the person who is playing the game.

Head up display
The heads up display includes things like the players health bar, the map of the game and
maybe something like a mini inventory this is like how much ammo is left within the weapon
which they are using within the game. Near enough every game includes a health bar or has
some signification on how much health the player has left for the game.

Print media art

Game packaging (console cover/box)
The packaging which is featured within a console box is going to be different for all games
companys as they will have a different theme and style to them which would fit the games
companys logo etc. The sizing of the box for the console will be different for each box
depending on how big or small the console actually is or how much is needed to be inside the
box for example for a Wii the packaging for this console will be a lot smaller than it would for
an Xbox one, this is because the sizing of the consoles is different and there might not be much
information which Is needed to be displayed within the packaging. Some consoles which are
limited edition like for example some console may have a limited edition version and the
packaging for this console may have a totally different colour scheme to what a normal console
packaging may look like.
Box cover (DVD container)
the box cover for a game, will depend on the style and the size of the box, most box covers are
designed to a theme of what the game is actually is, for example the box cover will be
something which is relevant to the game like if the game was Minecraft the box will include
something from Minecraft or if the game was call of duty, the game will have a dark colour
scheme and will include something from the game like a character. The back of the game cover
will include a bit information about the game and what the game will contain but it will not
give any spoilers, other information will include the age limit, copyright details and legal logos.
The design on both the front and back of the game cover must have some relevance to the
game to help sell the game which is inside the cover.

A3 poster
Game posters are collectible items; these are commonly obtained through a limited edition
purchase or by p0re ordering a game. Most game posters can be brought separately for certain
games. The posters will contain graphics typically of characters which are from that game,
background, title/logo of the game and they can sometimes contain information. Most posters
can often include different textures and sizes this is to make the poster different to other
posters. Most posters are collected because the gamer will want to complete a collection for
example a game make release a poster every time is releases a new game.