File organisation

Keeping your files and documents organised may not seem too important, but it is. It’s essential for anyone working within digital graphics or the games industry to keep their files organised, when you’re spending hours at a time working on Photoshop or Maya, it’s an understatement to say that that its annoying to loose them, especially if it’s because your simply not organised enough. It’s not just the chance of loosing them however, efficiency is key when you’re working to tight deadlines, you don’t want to be spending hours tracking down lost documents that you can’t remember where they were saved. As well as organisation, different files need to be saved in different file formats; this can be to save space, or so files are compatible with all programs possible. Size and format can be important when transferring them in emails to other work colleagues or to your supervisor for example, a file is useless if its saved in the wrong file format and is too big to be transferred or can’t be opened in specific programs.

Concept art

Concept art is a collection of ideas in the form of basic sketches and images related to the games theme, usually these are then enhanced using digital graphics programs such as Photoshop. These images are created by a team of artists which are given certain requirements and themes to follow. Concept art is made as a foundation for the games models and general graphics style. Concept art plays a massive role within game design; it’s created to help the model designers, and other game developers involved with the game, and gives them ideas and a starting point for their models.

Hardware in digital graphics

There are many hardware tools digital graphic artists use to mention a few there are, graphics tablets, digital cameras, and scanners that I will cover in this post. Graphics tablets are used for image editing programs such as Photoshop; they are used to draw in more detail and are preferred by artists to drawing with the mouse. They can cost anywhere between £50 for a small, basic one, up to £3000 for a large, professional one, which can include features such as pressure sensitivity. They can be sized anywhere between A6 to A3. The main brand and industry standard for graphics tablets is Wacom. Digital cameras are also an important tool for digital graphics artists. There are 3 major types of digital camera’s; camera phones, which are used for quick photo’s they are convenient quick and easy however the quality is usually not very good, they usually cost between £20 - £600 depending on the phone their attached to. The lens is purely digital and these types of cameras have about 5 mega pixels. Another type of camera is compact cameras, these are priced between 350 - £300, they have fairly similar uses however take better quality pictures than camera phones but still aren’t as good as DSLR cameras. Often these cameras have around 10 mega pixels and have a mixed optical and digital zoom. The final type of camera I will cover is the DSLR these cost between £300 - £5000 and are used by professionals such as paparazzi and other job titles involving photography. They are very high quality cameras however also very expensive. The typical number of mega pixels is 20 onwards and they only have optical zooms.

Image File Types

There are many different file types when it comes to saving images, each of these suitable for different images, there are 6 main file types that I will cover, PNG, PSD, TIF,BMP,JPEG, and vector. PNG, PSD, and TIF are all fairly similar in the way that they are all very high quality file types, because of this however they are also very large files, they are often used for programs such as Photoshop, especially PSD files as they are specifically designed by adobe for Photoshop. BMP files are also fairly similar however they don’t use any compression at all and because of this are even larger in size meaning that often they aren’t used in programs such as Photoshop. Below is an example of a high quality PNG image.

JPEG images are considered the most common file type for images they are usually fairly small in size due to using a lossy compression technique which reduces the file size every time it is saved however this also reduces image quality and so is not used in Photoshop, because images are saved regularly which means too much image quality is lost. Finally there are Vector images these are very small files used only in programs like Adobe illustrator, they are small because vector files don’t store pixel information, only co-ordinates or ‘instructions’ on how to recreate the image. Below shows an example of lossy compression within a JPEG image, you can see the image loose quality on the right side to show an example of a JPEG saved multiple times.

Image resolution

Image resolution refers to how much detail and clarity an image has. Resolution is measured in dpi and ppi meaning dots per inch and pixels per inch. The higher the dpi to ppi the clearer and more detail the image will have. Screen resolution is usually around 72-100 dpi and a modern monitor around 1920x1080 ppi. However for printing 300 dpi is recommended for maximum quality.

Image types

There are two major types of image files on computers, bitmap and vector. Both have pro’s and con’s to them and each have more suitable uses for different images. Bitmap images are generally more used than vectors. They are usually quite large files; this is because information such as colour and position from every pixel is recorded. Bitmaps are used mostly for photos because they reproduce colour more accurately.

Instead of recording pixels vector images are made up from mathematical co-ordinates. For example it saves the exact co-ordinates of a line rather than dividing it into pixels. This stops vector images from “pix-elating” when the image is enlarged. Vector files are also smaller because only co-ordinates and numbers are stored. Instead of photos vector images are used mostly for typography or strong shapes such as logos.

In-game interface

In game interfaces are used to navigate and control your character and the game. They are dominantly used in MMORPG games often they will consist of small map in the corner and various hot key slots for skills and abilities, also they may include health or mana stats. Below is a picture of in-game interface of “Archlord”

Printed media

Printed media is graphic work such as, posters, box art, and various other promotional materials. It’s used to advertise the game and display to people what the game is about also it is used to attract certain target audiences. Generally speaking it is artwork related to the game rather actual game graphics, and characters and scenes aren’t drawn in a photo realistic way. Pictured below are some examples of printed media.

Textures

Textures are 2D graphics created to be applied to models. Often textures are described as almost a “skin” for models. Textures are applied to almost everything in a game and can differ from brickwork on a building to the hair on a characters head.  They are usually created on a program such as Photoshop or more advanced textures may be created on programs such as Zbrush. Usually individual job roles are created when developing a game to just create textures; however in some smaller game development company’s the 3D modeler may share the role of the texture artist as well. Below are some examples of textures both flat and applied to a 3D model.

Sprites

2D Sprites are images created with pixels in a two dimensional form. Often these are in game characters however they can also be lettering or any other moving objects within a game. Graphically they are flat looking and very basic in appearance. Below is an example of a 2D character sprite.

 

Before true 3D graphics were invented in games 3D sprites were invented. These are similar to 2D sprites however they are made to look 3D by creating them in an isometric way rather than just flat. Instead of being used to create only characters and moving objects within the game 3D sprites were often used to create the scenery within a game as well. Graphically 3D sprites look more realistic than 2D sprites however they are also created in the same way so still create a fairly basic appearance. Below is a picture of Sims City 3000 which used 3D sprites to create the graphics within the game.

Game Art Styles

Photo Realism

Photo realism is a game art style where a games graphics are designed to look as real and photo like as possible. They are often very sharp and high detail and take a more powerful gaming system to run these types of games, for example a high spec gaming computer, an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. There are many modern games where the graphics are designed in a photo realism style; for example Crysis, Call of Duty Modern Warefare 2 and as pictured the soon to be released Gran Turismo 5.

Cel Shading

Another type of game art style is cel shading. This is where the graphics in games are designed in an almost cartoon like way. They are much lower quality then Photo Realism, every edge is outlined in black and often the graphics appear to be very blocky and chunky. These graphics can be found in various Xbox and Playstation 2 games, for example XIII and Auto Modelista which is pictured below.

Abstraction

Abstraction is another style of game art. Abstraction is a art style which is quite unique a hint comes from the title. Often the graphics in an abstraction style of game are very abstract. Usually abstraction games are quite simple graphically although this isn’t true for all abstraction style games, these style of games can be found on many different types of consoles. An example of this art style would be the Lego games series, or Little Big Planet, for the Playstation 3 as pictured below.

Exaggeration

Another type of game art style is Exaggeration. This is where the graphics in games have been designed in a very exaggerated way for example like Manga art. The graphic quality is lower than Photo Realism style art however the quality generally isn’t bad. This style of game art can be found in a variety of games and consoles for example, the Zelda series, as shown below.

2D and 3D games

2D means 2 dimensions. 2D games have height and width dimensions but no depth; this effectively means that the graphics within the game are flat when you look at them and only one side of objects can be seen. The majority of 2D games have either a birds eye view or side view of the character or landscape. Many early games where created in 2D because the hardware and technology where not power full enough to run the games in 3D. A games platform particularly famous for 2D games is the Sega Megadrive. Also a famous 2D game would be the original Grand Theft Auto, pictured below.

3D means 3 dimensions, the essential difference between 2D and 3D is that 3D also has depth a dimension as well as height and width. This means that instead of a flat appearance 3D games will look more realistic. Also instead of being restricted to certain 2D views many modern 3D games are viewed from a first person perspective. One of the first gaming platforms to introduce 3D games was the N64. An example of a modern day 3D game would be the Halo and Call of Duty game series, pictured below.

Box Art

I personally like the ‘All Points Bulletin’ game box art because I think it is quite unique and also the design is very edgy.


The art work is also fairly chaotic which relates to the actual game play. Also the artwork is split in to two different sides with the use of two colours which reflects the good vs bad style of the game.

I feel that the artwork does a good job of selling the game because it suggests that there is a lot of action with images of guns and sports car which relates to a huge gaming market.

As I just discussed the general target market for the game is people interested in action games also it appeals to people interested in MMO games and social games. I think that the artwork definitely hits the target market with many images of guns and sports cars as I mentioned earlier and also a chaotic looking design suggests lots of action.