Assignment 1

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.