Assignment 1b - Compare Different Computer Games Graphics

Artistic Styles
 Photo-Realism - Some people want very realistic art styles in their games that almost look like real life, this is called photo-realism and is used in most AAA games these days. The newly released Unreal Engine 4 will have the possibility to create videogames to look almost like real life as the engine is so powerful and capable of so much however it will require a high end system to run some games smoothly.

Exaggeration - Some artistic styles found in videogames are exaggerated which is a very cartoony and looking like a moving drawing. They usually require a lot of art and not as much coding or sound. Gamemaker is a program which is mainly for making 2D games with that kind of style and a lot of different games have that 2D style such as Mario or Papers, Please.

Cel-Shading/non-photorealistic - There are a few games out there that have cel-shading which is sort of a cartoon style 3D game, usually all the textures and models look like drawings and has it's own feel. These type of games are usually not very powerful so you don't need a really good computer to play them however they are usually very fun as the story usually goes with the art style.

Abstraction - This is an art style which usually has lots of different shapes and geometrical lines in a strange 3D world to make it look very strange yet look very good in it's own way. Games that use abstraction aren't that powerful however, the freeware game Light Cycle 3D uses lots of shapes and geometric lines in a 3D engine that gives it a very abstract and futuristic look.

Pixel - Pixels are known as little squares that make up a picture, however a pixel is not a little square, a pixel is a point sample. A pixel can sometimes have three samples, one for each primary colour of the picture. However people cannot think that a pixel is anything other than a square so they just leave it as that and don't really research it or go into it any more than that. A pixel can be modelled by a square but but the pixel itself isn't a square. A picture is made of nothing more than point samples (pixels) but are never refereed as that by most people. The amount of pixels depends on the resolution of the picture, usually old videogames have very low resolution so you can usually see each individual picture, however pictures taken on high resolution cameras have so many individual pixels that you cannot see them until you zoom in a whole lot. The picture resolution and image resolution are two different things. picture resolution is how big the picture is, you can get a picture with a small resolution and stretch it to be a larger resolution but it won't look good as the pixels are stretched out so you can see them a lot more. Image resolution is how many pixels there are so if there are a lot of pixels in a big resolution then you won't be able to see them unless you stretch out the picture to a much bigger resolution, making the picture smaller if it has so many pixels won't really make a difference to the picture as there are so many pixels that you can't really tell. Another thing you must know about pixels is the intensity. Each of the pixels that make images which are inside your computer have a 'pixel value' which means how bright the pixels are, and/or what colour they are. It all depends on what colours are in the picture and how they are used and mixed with red, green and blue (RGB).

Types of Digital Graphics
There are many different types of digital graphics, some examples would be those that are used in videogames such as: pixel art which can be used in either 2D or 3D as sprites like in old games such as Doom or Duke Nukem. Other types of digital graphics in videogames are used for textures on weapons, vehicles, characters, environments, walls, forests and clouds, most games these days use realistic graphics so the pixels are very small and others use cartoon style or old fashion graphics which are not as detailed and easier to see the pixels or just are in a style that looks drawn with a pen. Graphics are used in many different ways in games and almost every game has things like a heads up display (HUD) which are usually put together the same way as every other graphic in the game however it is on the screen at all times showing your health and ammo among other things. There are other in-game systems you might see in things like Borderlands with inventories and skill trees which are also created the same way however not constantly on the screen but you'll need to use them often. Graphics are used not just in videogames but on the front covers and trailers of the videogames themselves, usually the box art for games are showing the logo of the game and a picture of the main character in a very realistic sort of setting which shows you what the game may be like and gives you some idea of what kind of game it is. Moving away from videogame graphics, there are different types of digital graphics that are used in many different aspects of media. There are two different types of digital graphics, the first is Raster Images which are things like JPG, BMP or GIF files which are used online all the time. JPG is a very compressed picture not the files are usually not that big. BMP files are not really compressed at all and come from pictures saved right out of things like photoshop or fireworks as they can be very big images and very detailed. GIF files are usually very low quality and are essentially moving pictures that loop over and over. These aren't used that much but when they are it's mainly for certain little thing in games or used by random people to show funny things on the internet without just using still pictures, GIF files are like video clips but low resolution with small file sizes. The other type of digital graphics is Vector Images. These are very high resolution pictures that even look good when zoomed in a lot. They come in file names such as WMF, AI or PSD. These kind of images can also have no backgrounds so you are able to use them to mix with other pictures without having to cut them out of another picture or have them having bad resolution. They can also be used in any sort of media as they are very easy to mix around with other pictures and blend in very well so they look realistic.

File Extensions
There are many different types of file extensions and they are used for different things. There can be some for pictures, video, audio and many others. Depending on the type of file you may need certain programs for them to work but most basic ones should work beforehand.

Compression
There are two types of compression. The first is Lossy which is where a program takes away useless information in a file to make it a bit smaller. An example of this would be getting a BMP file that is around 6mb and saving it as a JPG file which would be about 300kb. Lossless is where a picture is taken and which ever colour is the most on the picture then it will be re-written so all of that same colour will be the same colour of pixel, it doesn't make the picture any different but it reduces the file size a bit.

Image Capture
There are many ways of capturing images. The easiest way is to take a picture on your phone or camera however there are some others like the print screen key on your keyboard will screenshot your desktop. You can also print screen your phone's screen if you have an iphone or similar device. Another way of capturing images is through a scanner, you can use scanners to take pages out of books or other physical pictures and transfer them into your computer which is very helpful.

Optimizing
There are many different ways of optimizing pictures. One of them is target image output, this is how high of the definition and the quality of what the image is viewed on. If you have a TV with HDMI or a 24" monitor then the image you are viewing should be very good quality as long as the picture itself is big enough. Another way of optimizing is Image Bit Depth. The bit depth is the amount of bits that show the correct colour of a pixel in a bitmap file, if there are more bits then the image quality is a lot better. The third way of optimizing is Image Resolution. The image resolution is important as it tells you what the quality of the image is, for example, a 320x200 resolution is going to be very low quality as it is a low resolution however something like 1920x1080 is a very high resolution so the quality will also be as high unless it was originally a lot smaller resolution beforehand. The last way of optimizing is the Image Dimensions which is how big the picture is horizontally and vertically. It is usually measured in pixels however in things like photoshop and fireworks you can measure it in centimeters and inches if you want. You may want to resize your image dimensions if your camera is very high quality and resolution so it will look very very big once it's on your computer however you can use programs to change the size of it, the file type to make it smaller or just to zoom out if you don't want to edit your pictures.

Storage of Image Assets
There are 3 key things you need to know when storing images. The first is the File Size. You can use certain programs to change the sizes of your images, you can do things like change the extension or the resolution of your images to make them significantly smaller. You can see how big your image files are by right clicking on them and clicking on properties, alternatively you can just hover over them with your mouse cursor and see the sizes of them, KB is smaller than MB just to give you an idea of how big your images may be. The next thing you need to know when storing images are the file-naming conventions. These are the different file types that you should use. The most common ones are JPG, BMP, PNG and GIF, however there are others used sometimes such as TIFF, PDF and ICO but they are only used for certain things. The last thing you need to know when storing images is Asset Management. The assets are usually things that are important to you or a company as they hold value and are all about making and optimizing the assets so they are easier to use.


Different Game Graphics Comparisons

Half-Life

Half-Life is a realistic style game although it doesn't look very realistic as it is old but back when it first came out it was a very realistic looking game, the graphics for it's time were very good as there were full 3D models and high quality effects that not many games had back in 1998. The game was made in a heavily modified version of the Quake Engine which was used in the game Quake and it's expansion packs back in 1996 and 1997 which were later ported to a few different consoles. The upgraded version of the engine is called GoldSrc and has been used to many a few other titles with even better graphics than Half-Life itself. The engine is very well put together and has many different features such as bullet decals, high quality visual effects, partial physics support and is able to run in both Direct 3D and Open GL. There have also been upgrades made to the game for high definition models and are now available within the game. Also, the textures are well made and detailed for the time and they really bring out the feel of the world that you are in.

Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 is made to be a very unrealistic sort of game with a lot of cell shading. All of the textures and models in the game are also created to look like 3D drawings which is a very good look and feel. The game was created in the Unreal Engine so it has full physics with the blood and toxic spraying weapons moving about on the floor like jelly. The game has massive wide open areas filled with enemies that are very well designed and coded, there is a lot of variety throughout the game as there are billions of different kinds of weapons that you can come across so you'll never get the same thing. The HUD of the game is very futuristic looking as you have a module on your character which lets you see how well you are doing and what you have on your person, the game also comes with a map screen, inventory, upgrades and challenges screens which are all designed similarly and when you open them up you can see your character and the background of where you are, you can even turn the camera around if you cannot see it well. There are many different effects in the games that come in to play a lot as most of the weapons you get have different perks such as fire damage, toxic damage, explosive damage and even electric damage. 

Carmageddon 2

Carmageddon 2 is a very cartoon style game as a lot of the models and textures aren't that detailed and are very bright. The game does have some good physics as you can smash bits and pieces off of peoples cars and you can run people over and their bodies flop about. the gore is very unrealistic and is just funny which is what the game is meant to be like. It has some good shadows and effects that work well with it and don't seem too over the top. There are a lot of different maps with different textures and models around which are various different colours and styles. The HUD has a lot of different things on it along with what shape your car is in, how much time you have to finish the level, a minimap showing where enemy vehicles are, how many credits you have and even how many upgrades you have picked up for your car. The cars models are very well done and although they don't have much of a colour scheme they do vary in size and shape quite a lot.

BroForce

BroForce is a 2D pixel based shoot em up which has a lot of different effects such as explosions that can blow up any part of the map apart from the scenery, lots of blood and gore effects that are very appealing and fire effects which can burn through the world. The game has lots of different levels and characters with different looks, weapons and special skills, the entire game is 2D however it still manages to look modern as the engine lets you mess around a lot with the pixels and enemies to really make each time you play it very unique. Each of the maps have different things in them to destroy and blast your way through so it never really gets boring. This pixel world is very well made and detailed however still manages to keep the look and feel of old games such as Contra and Terminator games on the NES.

Final Comparison

All of these games have different types of graphics and are very unique. Half-Life is very different to BroForce however they are both action shooters which both do have some pixel graphics in there but is not that noticeable in Half-Life. Borderlands 2 can be in a way similar to Carmageddon 2 as they are both cartoon style but Carmageddon doesn't have the cell shading and the high quality effects yet they both have the same sort of feel as they are both not very realistic looking and have similar physics effects. Half-Life and Borderlands 2 are very different in certain ways however they also have things about them that are the same like 3D action with blood and gore. The type of graphics they are trying to portray are very different as Half-Life is more realistic while Borderlands 2 is made to be unrealistic and wacky looking. BroForce and Carmageddon 2 are very different style games yet they share the same sort of gore system as it is very exaggerated and very pixelly looking. These are all different styles of games but you can compare them to one another and find that some do have similar traits but are taken in a completely different direction to each other.