graphics specification

Graphics Specification:

Visual Styles:

Cell Shading is giving an object or character to look like a comic book or hand drawing book. This can be used to give flat colour to have an impression on character or an object. The cell shading can use lighting to have effect on dynamic atmosphere of the mood. Also shading to give it drawing theme to it. For example ‘Naruto Ninja Storm 4’, and new ‘Dragonball Xenoverse’.

Abstraction is the opposite of photorealism, as it does not look realistic. Abstraction can be used to stand out. Some of the object may have resembles to other objects. It usually using game that colourful. This can be used in PG 6 games like ‘SUBRAY’. As it can look friendly. The abstraction use a colourful colours to set feeling calm and exploration. Or on other times it can be used to make game grim and brutal, like ‘Super Meat Boy’. It uses a sharp and hard objects, as it gives a brutal mood to the player.

Exaggeration is mostly used in RPG (Role Playing Game). This can give a fantasy mood in the game. The exaggeration is used by games that is influenced by Comics, Cartoons and Animes. For example ‘Batman Arkham Knight’, the main character has over exaggerated muscles. Also ‘Final Fantasy 7 Remake’, and again the main character has a ridiculously large sword.

Photorealism is term used to make game to make realistic as much. This can be used to make game look as much as the real world. This used in ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Ghost Recon: Wildlands’. Most Photorealism games are mostly seen in action, horror, survival, and shooter game.

Pixel styled games use chuck, 8 bit graphics. It uses a similar style from 1980s games. Creating a Pixel art is user to create, rather than doing 3D, 64 bit games. Which will take less time to develop. This is used in ’The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth’. They use it as a brutal game as main character has to survive through the dungeons. Using the 8 Bit to give it a brutal atmosphere. Or it can be used to give friendlier feel to it – like ‘Terraria’.

Typography:

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point size, line length, line-spacing (leading), letter-spacing (tracking), and adjusting the space within letters pairs (kerning).

Technical Stuff:

They are to go type of formats good for different uses in computer game graphics. Such as JPEG and PNG.

JPEG compresses the best for photographs and images with no sharp borders. However, your images will have degraded quality because JPEG uses lossy compression (you can fine tune the compression level/degradation when exporting images as JPEG. Refer to your imaging software's documentation for more information on this).

However, as good as JPEG may be, it doesn't support transparency. This is crucial if you want to have images that show through others, or if you want images with irregular shapes. GIF is a good choice, but it has been largely superseded by PNG (there's only a few things GIF supports that PNG doesn't, but they're largely irrelevant in game programming).

PNG supports transparency (and semitransparency), compresses data without degradation in quality (i.e. it uses lossless compression), and compresses fairly well, but not as much as JPG.

Composition:

Composition is all about placement across all forms of art (Media, Film, Video games). The rule of the third is a useful tool to learn about composition, you draw a three by three grid and where the lines of this grid meet shows you where to place things to make them visually appealing to the eye.

Stimulus  

Client brief?:

The client brief is a set of rules set by an employer.

Own brief?:

Your own brief are guidelines that you set yourself based on what your employer has told you to do.

Market research?:

market research is when you see what genres of games are popular and what’s selling well.

 ideas generation

Brainstorming?: 

Is coming up with ideas in groups.

Moodboards?:   

Moodboards are used to generate ideas for the mood of your game.

Thumbnail sketching?:

This is when you come up with ideas for items that might go into your project and then drawing some ideas on paper. 

Concept drawings?:

These are ideas for characters, weapons, vehicles and backgrounds that you can sketch out on paper.

Legal and ethical considerations

What is copyright law?: copyright means that if you create something and it’s protected by copyright law no one else can use it to make money from it without your permission.

What is libel?: 

libel is a form of defamation, expressed by print, writing, pictures, signs, effigies, or any communication embodied in physical form that is injurious to a person's reputation, exposes a person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or injures a person in his/her business or profession.

How are female characters represented in games?:

generally in gaming women are over sexualized and are commonly created to have many unrealistic features. however in recent years this has changed a lot thanks to games like tomb raider and Fifa.

What is intellectual property?:

Intangible property that is the result of creativity, such as patents, copyrights, etc.    

Pre-Production and Planning for a Computer Game

Pre-Production and Planning for a Computer Game

Types of production:

Types of production is when you decide what type of product you are making, for example you might be making a video game, a movie or a music video.

Finance: 

There are a few different types of financing, there is self-financing, indie funding and crowd funding are a few methods for funding a game. Self-financing is when you completely fund a game project by yourself, usually when some self-funds a game they work a normal job and make the game in their spare time. Most indie games are zero budget/self-funded. That means the developer works on the game in their spare time, while working a normal job. If the first game makes them money they can then use that to go full time and fund their next game. Crowd funding is when you use a site like kick starter to get normal people to give you money to develop your game. There are two types of crowd funding, donation based and reward based. Donation based it when people give you money because they like your product and want to help you fund it. When I make my game I won’t be needing any kind of funding because the software I’ll be using is free to use.

Time constraints:  

Time constraints are when you are working to a deadline and making sure a project doesn’t take too long so people stay interested in whatever product you are producing.

Personnel:  

There are a number of people needed in order to create a game, you’ll need a producer, a publisher, a designer, an artist and programmer generally the main people you’ll need to develop a game. Producers are in charge of managing the development team, schedules, reports progress, hires and assigns staff and so on. The publisher is responsible for publishing the game. Video game publishers are also responsible for their product's manufacturing and marketing, including market research and all parts of advertising. Publishers normally finance the development process. When I make my game I won’t need anyone else to help me because my game isn’t that complex so I can make it by myself.

Facilities:

To create something you’ll need the facilities to do it, for example if you plan on making a triple a game you’ll need a whole office for people in your development team. For my game ill need to use the computers in the games development room in college.

Materials:

In order to create anything you need the materials to do so, for example if you’re making a video game you’ll need game development software, for example I am currently making a platform game using game maker.

Contributors and codes of practice:  

Contributors are people you might need to create your game, for example voice actors, artists, if you’re making a game about World War 2 you might need an expert about it to make it look more professional and realistic. Codes of practice is the legal side of developing something, for example copyright, health and safety laws, Insurance such as public liability and completion insurance.