Monday 12 October 2015

computer game graphics (josh)

From Charlie's Blog
Pixel Art
Pixel Art is normally seen in 2D games, comprised of 2D sprites to create a character or object. An example of a game that consists of pixels would be super Mario, back when it was 2D.

As you can see in this GIF the two versions of 2D Mario both contain pixels, as you can see by the square shapes on the image. Pixels aren't just squares, however it is one of the most common ways of identifying a pixel.

As you can see Pixels do restrict a game to being 2D as they are flat and do not allow for 3D graphics, also looking unrealistic it is not so ideal for a game that is aiming to be photo realistic.
On the left of this GIF you can see the very first version of Mario, which is restricted to few colours that do not look detailed at all, however the right version is a remake which has added colours which allow to define a character much more, as you can notice in the female character who looks very basic in the left and much more detailed in the right.

Concept Art

Concept Art refers to a character, weapon or the general environment in which a game takes place.

Digital Graphics

Raster images: These are in the form of BMP, GIF, TIFF, JPEG.
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/imagetypes.htm
JPEG - JPEG is a form of lossy compression, and is a file type that is used primarily for images with colour. With a JPEG the file size is normally smaller at the price of some image quality loss.

TIFF - TIFF files are larger than JPEG files, however they do not lose any quality as the files are not compressed like JPEG files, and TIFF files normally have a much better quality than other file types.

GIF - A GIF is usually an animated moving image, as you can see in this image below. GIF's do support static images as well, and are a form of lossless compression as they do not lose any image quality.


Vector Images
Vector images uses lines, curves or polygons in their images. This type of image is saved primarily in PSD, WMF, FIA, AI.
PSD - A PSD file is a layered image file format that consists of layers. Normally this file type is from a Photoshop file, so that the layers can individually be edited even if the file has been saved. http://whatis.techtarget.com/fileformat/PSD-Adobe-Photoshop-default


WMF - Stands for windows metafile, this is a file extension for files saved in windows. Orginally this file type was made for windows 1990, however it has since been adapted to support current file types.

Pixel
A pixel is what makes up some images, for some images there could be thousands of pixels or they could have few. These are sometimes seen on a pixelated image, which is when it has been distorted or re sized so much that you can see the individual pixels clearly, making the image quality worse. Even though most pixels are square shaped, it is not a good explanation to say that pixels are square, as mentioned in this article.
http://alvyray.com/Memos/CG/Microsoft/6_pixel.pdf

Picture Resolution
Picture resolution refers to how many pixels are in an image, normally given in the form of H x W. For example an image that is 1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080 is considered HD, as this is High definition and images with this resolution are of top quality. When images are altered drastically the image resolution changes, and this is when images can become pixelated as they are changed into a resolution which does not work or is of low quality.

Compression

Compression is taking a file and turning it into a smaller file size, this being done through either lossy or lossless methods.

Lossy - makes the file size smaller, however it will cause a loss of quality, this may not be too much however in some cases quality is drastically reduced.

Lossless - lossless compression does not result in quality loss, however it will only reduce the file size to a fraction of what lossy compression will do. The benefits of this are that you will have a smaller file without the loss of quality.

Image Capture

Image capture refers to how you are taking your image, this can be done through a physical camera, a scan of a photo or a mobile device.
Camera - depending on the quality of the camera, the quality of the image may vary in quality. For example a cheap camera will result in a photo that is not good quality, and therefore is not ideal for use.

Scanner - A scanner can be used to take an image you already have on paper, and upload it onto your computer, this being helpful if you possess an old image that does not have an internet presence.

Mobile/tablet - A photo either stored on these devices can be uploaded to your computer through Bluetooth, the good thing about this is that no quality is lost through the transfer, however depending on the quality in camera that you have on your phone or tablet will determine the quality of the image if it was taken by you on that device.

Optimizing

Optimizing is to make your file or resource as effective, or useful as possible. With optimizing it is all about improving the efficiency of the file you are working with, whether this be a large file that needs to be compressed in order to conserve space or an image that has areas that are in need of improvement,

Storage of image assets

Storage of image assets means a files size, what type of file it is and its name. Usually a file will have a corresponding name to it that will somehow have meaning to its context, this making it easier for the user to identify the file that they are looking for. The file size varies on the content of the file, and what type of file it is saved as. The type of file that it is usually depends on what the file is also, JPEG being the standard form of a photo, and a GIF being the standard file of an animated image.

Graphic Specification
graphic specification

compression
this is a term that is used when you get a file and squash it into a file of a smaller size for example the file format jpg compresses a image into one that's the same but less quality this is a good way to save memory for other data.

file extentions
this is a specified as a suffix to the name by syntax by either a dot or space that idicates the format for the computer file here are a few examples (.png , .jpeg , .exe , .dmg , and .txt)

image capture
to capture an image you can use one of the following scanner tablet/phone or a digital camera you can find the best by looking how many mega pixels it has also.


optomising
this is a term that can mean improving you creation and but to do that you need to know what these following are:

target image output-the way you want it to be
bit depth-this is so your image can be a small size to take up less memory a good one would be 8 or 16 bit.
resolution - this can also help save memory with the file but you can loose picture quality of your image it is also important if you want to capture a image of high qulity you  will need a good enough device to do so.
dimentions- the dimensions is good to no when your saving as if its 2d you can save to psd/jpeg but 3d would have to be pla.

storage of image assets

this is things that you can store on but you will need to know what to save it as and know what to call the file. for example i wold save this picture as
a jpeg because is an image and it being compressed will save memory.

No comments:

Post a Comment