Year 1 Level 3 Games Design
Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games
By Sam Webb
Assignment 1
The 2D and 3D game I am going to compare with each other for
this assignment is going to be Fifa 17 and Flappy Bird. For this assignment I
will be explaining the theory and applications of digital graphics used for
computer games.
Artistic style
An artistic
style is the way in which the game looks, for example the Final Fantasy series
are all under the category of an artistic style called exaggeration, which is
where the features of the body of a person are all over dramatic for example a
character having massively unrealistic eyes.
As time has
gone on technology has progressed massively, and because of that progression
some games are becoming more and more realistic in the way they look. These
games are called photo realistic games which means that they are so realistic
that from a glance you wouldn’t be able to tell whether it was real or not.
Fifa 17, the game I have chosen to compare, is a photo realistic game which,
when playing, makes you believe that you are actually in a stadium full of fans
watching a real game, which is the point of photo realistic games, to make the
player feel emotion when playing the game.
Although
technology has progressed exponentially, there are still 2d games coming out.
One these games that have come out recently is Flappy Bird. Flappy Bird is a
mobile phone app that is a simple 2d pixel game. A pixel game Is a 2d game that
doesn’t really have an objective but to get the highest score you can just like
Flappy Bird but however there are exceptions such as Mario Bros.
Digital Graphics
There are two types of digital graphics, Vector images and
Raster images. The difference between the
two is that Raster images are resolution dependent which means that they cannot
scale up to a certain resolution they lose quality meaning that you can see the
pixels. Whereas with a Vector image you will still retain that quality.
Fifa 17 is a vector image which means that the image
quality remains as sharp as it possibly can when zoomed in on which is what you
would expect from a 3D game which was made by such a massive engine such as Frostbite.
However Flappy Bird uses raster images which means that it
does not have good high graphic quality which is to be expected from a game
that is made for a mobile phone device.
Computer Game Graphics
Computer Game Graphics is vital when it comes to making and
producing games. Computer Game Graphics contain pixel art, concept art, texture
art, background graphics, in game interface and print media art.
Concept
Art:
Concept art is massive when it comes to making a game as it depicts
how the game is going to look and how the characters and environment is going
to look.
Fifa 17’s concept art is based on the real life game of
football with real life people so although there might not be much imagination
going into making the game they (EA) still make the characters (players)
realistic, which has impressed a lot of people, including me.
https://youtu.be/p1k37I5v4E4- @ 15:30 on 28/01/2016
Flappy
Birds concept art was based in the world of Super Mario as seen by the pipes
you have to dodge. This was influential in the way the game was going to look
because if it was influenced by the Mario world so the background and
everything in the game was based around the Mario world. Everything down to the
character (the bird itself) is influenced by Mario.
Background
Graphics:
Back ground
graphics in a game are very important as it sets the mood for the rest of the
game, and right from the very start tells you whether it’s going to be, for example,
a horror game, which would probably be very dark or an adventure game which
means that it would probably be very bright and colourful.
Fifa 17, as
said before, is based of real life so the background is very realistic with
little to no exaggeration. An example is in stadiums you can see little things
like the name of the club in the stands. 
However this is completely different in Flappy Bird as the
background is completely made out of imagination which means that just from the
background itself you can tell what type of game it is, which is true as you
can tell that it is a 2D adventure, pixel game. You can see this as it has very
basic bright colours.
Print Media
Art:
Print media art is everything that goes in to everything
outside of the game for example the game packaging, box cover, manual and
poster. These are very important when it comes to selling the game as it can entice
people who haven’t seen the game. So for example if someone hasn’t seen the
game the Print Media art can bring people to the game and get them interested
in it.
Fifa 17’s Cover
Flappy Bird Cover
Texture Art:
Texture Art is important in making and producing games as it
shows and demonstrates how detailed the game is for example in Fifa 17 you can
tell that in the stands they are chairs and people there where as before, in
previous Fifa games they weren’t detailed and they didn’t look like people at
all.
Storage of Assets
Storage of assets is massive when it comes to making and
producing a game on time. Storage of assets is where you and how you store
everything thing that goes into your game, for example if you created a tree
for level one on your game you will make the tree and save it underneath Level
1 Tree for example so that it is easy to find so that it saves time to allow
you to release your game in time for your release date.
Compression
Compression in a game is where the game is compressed down to
its small size without getting rid of part of the game or decreasing the
quality in the game. For example compressing Flappy Bird down to its smallest
form so that it can fit into a certain file for example a JPG.
Image Capture
Image capture is used in games to get a realistic version of
that image in a game. For example in Fifa 17 they scan the players to get realistic
images of their face. Another way of capturing an image is by taking a picture
so for example in GTA V they take a picture of the harbour and then they turn
it into the game.
