Asset Management

To make doing things easier, naming of files appropriately can be a boost in the right direction as this will allow you to easily identify what each file is without having to look at the file itself which saves time which is a luxury that some people don’t have, so doing this helps. As well as naming files appropriately, it’s also a good idea to name folders appropriately and make as many as is needed, such as a folder for storing textures, scenes and images when modelling games. This makes it much easier to identify where everything is easily. As well you could manage these files as well by putting more folders in the texture folder, such as having textures in one folder for certain objects/scenes which makes everything much tidier and much easier to manage. To sort out storage, it is best to save this on a cloud server and an external hard drive as well as its original location, this will prevent any unexpected errors from creating a loss of work.

Optimising

 Optimizing is the art of getting a file to be the best it can be without being too large of a file size, an example of this is with a photograph, in its original format it is of high quality and high file size. Optimizing this would mean decreasing the quality to decrease the file size. A picture with the aspect ratio of 2:6:1 will have both high quality and high file size due to a higher resolution. When optimized this may decrease to something such as 23:1 which still has moderately good quality but with a much reduced file size.

Image Capture

There are many ways that an image can be captured digitally, examples of these are:

Using a camera to take a photograph to gain either, inspiration for an object or to photograph a texture to use in modelling
Using a scanner to capture an image of something on a piece of paper to allow editing it on a computer such as using Photoshop to change the image as seen fit.
Using a graphics tablet to draw something that then appears on the screen when drawn, this can be used for such things as concept art, allowing the person drawing to make changes to what they are doing instead of starting again making this much more efficient than using paper and pencil.

File Extensions

Each file extension has a different specialty in which is uses to make the file fit for purpose such as .WMV, this file is used to optimize viewing videos in Windows media player.

 Image file formats.

Files such as .Jpg sacrifice image quality to allow the file size to be smaller and therefore more usable and friendly in terms of storage. .Jpg is a lossless file format.

.Png (Portable Network Graphic) is another lossless file format.

JPEG contains lossy compression


HAM is another lossy compressed file

Exaggeration

This type of graphic style is, as suggested, highly exaggerated. Examples of Exaggerated graphics are Manga games such as dragonball-Z or games that make people look different to how they should, such as gears of war. In these games the people are made to look much bigger than they would in the real world, In alot of cases the muscles that a person has are usually Exaggerated to make the character appear stronger and more leaderlike. In other cases Hair of the characters can be really exaggerated, examples of these are Manga games.

Pixel! What in the wonderful world, is a pixel?

A pixel is essentially a dot of colour, this colour is assigned instructions as to what colour it needs to be, these are essential to digital graphics as they are the basic building blocks of anything that is digital as these give it colour and form depending on the code for the required pixel which varies depending on what colour is needed, this can differ based on what type of pixel it is, raster or vector.
A pixel is made up of a combination of 3 colours; red, blue and green. With this, the colour is determined by a code, and that code will have so much red blue and green in it which is called the RGB scale.
This pictures shows an example of the RGB scale in use, it shows that white is made from 93% of each colour where as the Yellow is made from only red and green. The picture also shows that the image will pixilate the more zoomed in it gets.

Vector graphics re-scale the size of the image by re-sending the instructions for it but to accommodate a larger size when zoomed in, this works in terms of photographic digital graphics. In games these work differently and were primarily used in older generation games due to limitations of this type of graphic. Vector graphics are made up of curves that is based on information which means that they can me scaled infinitly without a loss of quality. Uses of vector graphics can include creating logo's and fonts.
This picture shows how the two types of graphic differ, the bitmap image (raster) will substantially pixilated when zoomed in, this is because the image will remain as it is and will not compensate for the zoom. The vector graphic will be redrawn to compensate for the zoom witch means that it will not pixilate and will be clear.

Raster graphics are created entirely of pixels which consequently means that the quality of the image will drop when enlarged as the pixels will not compensate for the larger zoom. This type of graphic is good for digital photos and game textures that need to be high quality, the only downside is they have a large file size. This type of graphic is widely used on the internet as it is has good quality.

Compression

What is compression?

Compression is the technique used to reduce the size of something  in this case, a file size on a computer to make it more easily usable. In digital graphics this is used for decreasing the file size of an image or object.

Lossy- This is a type of compression that deals with making the file size smaller with the side effect of reducing the quality. This happens due to part of the file being discarded to allow the file to be smaller.

JPEG is an example of a lossy file type as it can become blocky at high compression ratios.

Lossless - this is when a set of algorithms extracts the exact original data and reconstructs it with a compression.

PNG is an example of a lossless file type as the quality remains the same but with a decreased file size.

Effects of compression

The most obvious effects that can occur when compressing a file are loss of data and decreased quality.




This is an example of compression, as can be seen the image quality is drastically decreased as is the file size of the image. The clearest image is without compression, then a compression is applied and a loss of quality has occurred, this happens again when more compression is applied, with the increase in compression, the file size is decreased.

Cel Shading

This type of graphic gives the picture a cartoon style due to it already being shaded by being drawn on. This is used in games to purposely give the game shading so that shadows don't need to be rendered. This will mean that the hardware that would be rendering the shadows can be focused elsewhere such as on physics. This type of graphic was made popular in 2000 with the game called Jet set radio for the Sega Dreamcast which demonstrated use of this and therefore got its title of popularizing this type. 
This is an example of cell shading, as can be seen on top of the box and on the arm, there is a shadow on there and very limited elsewhere.

Photorealistic

This style is attempting to recreate the world as we see it, to be as realistic as possible, this includes making realistic lighting and textures. This style is used a lot in modern games which use 3D models to create the realism as they attempt to create objects with real form and shadows. This is an example of a photo-realistic game, you can tell this by the intricate details on the gun and the environment which give it a realistic edge.

Abstract Game Art Styles

This is a style that doesn't usually fit under any existing style,  it means that the designers have done their own thing and make something that is unique. This can still coincide with other art styles and make, for example, a photorealisic abstract art style. This is an example of an abstract art style, you can tell this by looking at the picture an noticing that it isn't made of 3D models that make up most games. But rather made of 2D images that are darkened and given some depth which makes this stand out.

Interface graphics

Interface art applies to the various menus and interfaces found through out the game, ranging from options menus to maps, these need to look appealing, clear to purpose and must have a reason for being where it is. An example of a bad interface for combat would be not having a health bar in an easy to see position, an example of a good one would be having it in an obvious place where it can easily be seen while also fighting.

User interfaces can be either 2D or 3D based on the style of the game. This pictures shows the interface for the game Starcraft 2, as it can be seen the user interface is in  3D layout and its colour scheme is chosen to match the area where the game is based as well as the genre of the game.

Print Media Art

These are things such as posters and box art, which can be used for marketing. Print media art is essentially any sort of material that applies to a game in the form of a print. The aim of this type of graphic is to look appealing and draw people it to buy it, this is achieved through use of colours, different techniques of drawing styles and sometimes writing. Such as this box art which clearly shows this, It has a large title that has the effect that it is shooting out at you, which makes it attract the eye. You can also see that when you look at this item of print media, the eye is instantly drawn to the lightsaber blade which is the focal point of this box art.

Pixel Art

Pixel art is mainly seen in older 8 bit or 16 bit games such as Mario in its early years.

This type of art can be used to give the illusion of 3D based on the perspective of the viewer while actively remaining 2D such as in the game theme hospital. Pixel art is also used for sprite art and for pixel-ed characters in slider games.

Concept art

Concept art is used in the planning stages of a game, this can be used as a suggestion to a high ranking designer for opinions on an initial design to help cut down costs of modelling and reduce the chance of  it being rejected. This can also help people such as texture artists prepare textures for the model when it comes to putting the textures on.

These can be added to special edition sets to give the consumer a little extra for their money. Concept art can also be used in posters as a marketing material.
This example is a Terantatek from the game Star Wars: The Old Republic. As you can see this has been drawn to show the motion of walking as well as the overall design of the creature, this will then help the designers and animators to create the creature as imagined.

Texture Art

Texture art is essentially the art of wrapping a 2D image around a 3D object to give it colour.

The textured used for this can be made from scratch or made from a mixture of existing ones edited together.

These need to look appealing as they make up around 99% of the visual experience. This can be seen when playing a game as all things within the game world will be textured to make them look as intended.

A texture method known as bump mapping can be used to give a texture additional definition based on the light and darkness of a texture.
This is an example of a texture, this can be applied to an object and then mapped into position.

Background Art

Background art is the images that can been seen in the background of game, such as, on a skyline, you can see the buildings in the foreground but the background will be composed of an image plane with an image of the rest of the skyline to cut down on unnecessary polygon counts and designing. This can apply to 2d and 3d games and the difference being that in 2d games the the image plane is attached to the foreground and has limitations when it comes to movement.