unit 78 Digital graphics for computer games

How will you be creating your digital graphics?

• Consider technical limitations and the screen resolution
• Consider software (Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks, GameMaker) – also the interface too (work area, tool box, status bar, file information, window control, floating palettes, palette docking, tabs etc…)
• File extensions and compression for the files
• Consider technology (Computers, laptops, peripherals etc…)
• Graphic specification
•  The plan
• Time management – deadlines (production schedule, deliverables and quality assurance)
• Asset management – export file path, file format, compression, file naming conventions and file backup 
• Workflow – optimising, bit depth, resolution
• Menu – open, save, new, import, export, edit
• Image settings – size, resolutions, width, height, colour mode, transparency, aspect ratio, file name
• Drawing tools – the tools I have used to create my sprites are(tool options, brush, pencil, duplicate, clone, fill, text, line, shape, zoom, guides and rulers, grid, palettes eg, colour, gradients, layers, object, brushes, history, actions, size, layers, eg copying, saving, arranging; flattening; colour selection, eg foreground, background, colour swatch and eye dropper. 
• Editing tools: lasso, copy, paste,magic wand, scale, rotate, erase, fill
• Advanced tools: brightness, contrast, transparency, brushes
• In-Game Graphics: heads up display, gif, animation, image textures, concept art, Weapons, character, vehicles, environment backgrounds
• Print media graphics: game packaging, box cover, manual. label, poster, concept artwork
• Production stages: original development files, final flattened, optimised image
• Aesthetic qualities: composition, colour palettes, typography, creation of meaning
• Industry practice: reflect on finished product (compared with original intentions, fitness for purpose, technical qualities, aesthetic qualities), productions skills (ideas generation, graphics specifications, workflow and time management, technical competence),

My brief

Some title for work

Name : Thomas berry

Date :09/11/2015

Concept ideas

Wayne's brief

Waynes brief is to create a game that has 5 levels, One main character and some form of obstacles.

My brief
my game is is called tiddles and the main object of the game is to reach the 5th level of the game without dying. and to collect secrets and to defeat evil robot versions of yourself and finally get to the Master control system that keeps creating more versions of yourself. the only way you can defeat him is by collecting secret items that has a use in taking down his health. but they are not easy to find some will be in plain sight but others will be super hard to find and others you'll have to solve puzzles and riddles to find the rest.

Finance Cost

The Finance Cost.

Funding:

Funding is extremely important as it is how you pay for everything. You can be funded in a variety of ways. These include self-financing, crowd funding like kick-starter, indie funding, grants or publisher funding like Bethesda, activation, cap-com, bungie, valve, blizzard entertainment, farrthorn, EA, EA sports, ubisoft, obsidian, YOYO Games, Big fist.

Hardware:

Minimum hardware for UDK is 2.0+ GHZ processer with an 2GB system ram SMS 3-compatable video card also must have 3GB free space.

The recommended specs for content developers is windows 7 64bit 2.0+ GHZ multicore processer 8GB system ram NVidia 8000 graphics or higher graphics card you also need plenty of HDD space.

You can get an Intel E2180 2.0GHz for only £35.00

You can get a an Intel E8400 care 2 Duo processor 3 GHz 6MB cache socket LGA775 for on £47.49

The NVidia graphics graphics card will cost you up too £136.76

Software:

UDK is free but if a successful game is made in it, royalty fees must be paid

Unity can cost anywhere from $75 per month to a one off payment of $1500

Maya 2016 commercial new SLM annual desktop description with basic support £1,105.00

Maya 2016 commercial new SLM quarterly desktop subscription with basic support £350.00

Maya 2016 commercial new SLM £2,225.00

Maya commercial maintenance subscription (3 years) £1,345.00

Maya commercial maintenance subscription (2 years) £945.00

Maya commercial maintenance subscription (1 year) £475.00

Publishing:

For green light you’ll need a valid and a non-valid steam account (yes that means you’ll need to own a game on steam). Then you’ll need to fill out the submission form, including some information about you and your game that you want to publish. There is also a one-time £100 submission fee per steam account. The submission will require:

A square branding image (similar to a box cover) to represent your game in the list and search bar.

At least 1 video showing game-play, environment, graphics and enemies.

 At least 4 screenshots or images of in game content.

And finally a written description of the game along with then tentative system requirements.

Also to do this you’ll need to follow these simple steps to publish your game:

·       You’ll need to register (submit your application and receive regular news and updates from ID@Xbox.)

·       You’ll then need to submit (ready to begin? Reach out and we’ll sign and NDA and discuss your game, whether you’d like to ship it as a universal windows app, an Xbox one game, or maybe both.)

·       You can then build your own games (Get access to the right SDKs, our dev forums, free middle ware, and tons of helpful documentations. Need a dev kit? Approved Xbox one developers will get two kits free of charge.)

·       And then finally you can publish your game (publish, certify, and update your own game without cost and get access to our go-to-market playbook.)

Time scale:

The timescale depends on a variety of things such as deadlines, equipment availability, how many people that are making it, the time it takes to go through the legal requirements such as a PEGI rating, also delays in publishing.

At the beginning of a project you set a time frame, and while this is not for definite you should try to stick to it as much as possible.

You should set deadlines for each task or segment required to make it, such as the animating should be completed in a set amount of time and then the voice acting and so on.

When deciding start and finish times it is important to take into account working hours, sick days, holidays and other things that may delay the project and then set the timescale according to that.

Personal:

Team: In your team you must always know the size of your team and you must set yourself a maximum number of people and you must always give every person separate jobs so you can always get the work done quicker.

Skills and Experiences: In your team you must always know about everyone’s skills and experience it is key to put the person in the right job to get the most out of your party’s efficacy, it is also key to get along with the members of the party so that they might get the job don’t faster and with greater detail and more insight.

Resourcing: you also have to have resources to get somewhere in life but you can never have too many, but the bad thing is you run out of resources too quickly and you’ll need to think about getting more and more each time and having to worry about costs but if you think ahead and keep track of what your using and keeps taps on how much you’ll need in the future you’ll be up to date with what you need and be ahead on what’s happening.

Availability: people aren’t always free to give you a helping hand so you have to make some sort of time keeping manual to see when everyone is free so that you can see who is free or not and so that you can always have someone to help you out when everyone else is busy so it is always best to keep a time scale of when everyone is free with you at all time so that it is easy to see who can give you a hand in your time of need.

Costs: in all the work that we do there is always a cost to be delt with it could be any type of cost up the most type of cost that always pops up is funding, funding your own stuff is hard and its mostly because you need money to get anywhere nowadays you need more for people to work, resources, equipment, working facility’s, uniforms and safety gear and much more, you always need money to keep things going, but if things don’t go well you’ll lose your money and everything will stop work and you’ll lose everything but if things work out you’ll start to get even more money and you’ll be able to get better things and more people to work for you which is good the more people you have working for you the better the things you’re making will be made even quicker.

Team or crew CV’S: if you want the best out of your party you’re going to have to check everyone’s CV which is easy enough right? Wrong! It’s not as easy as you think you’ll be looking through roughly 80 per day so you have to keep an eye out for the ones the best suit the job description and the person with the best ability to keep his job and keep up with the job so you’ll have to look and read every bit so that you can understand how much of it is good for him then you’ll need to bring him in for an interview so that you can see if he can do what he said on his CV.

Facilities and equipment:

Production equipment, Post-production equipment, facility houses: you will need production equipment to start making a game but what type of equipment will you need? You’ll need a microphone for voice recordings, a computer for making the game, or Maya or game-maker depends if you’re making a 2D or 3D game, a fast and reliable game engine, a large memory card and or USB, you will also need somewhere to work on your game suck as your room or at work or maybe even with friends but you will always need somewhere to work.

Costs: the cost of all of this depends on how the quality of the equipment that you’ve bought, it could be cheap or it could be expensive it all depends, expensive equipment could also be really bad but it could also be useful, that’s exactly the same as the cheap equipment some is good and some is bad it all depends on what you buy, some could be highly rated but bad in the comments but it could also be the other way around badly rated but highly liked in the comments.

Availability: before you make the game you have to make sure that everyone is free before you can do anything, you have to make sure everyone has a specific time to be clear to everyone.

Stimulus

What is a brief?

A brief is where you gather people who want to know more about your stuff that you’re working on and you have to explain in great detail about everything you have worked on.

You then will begin to make a list on what you are going to tell them about.

You will proceed to give yourself your own brief to make sure that you understand what you’re saying and to make sure that the people you’re talking can understand you clearly and so that you won’t mess up on what you’re saying.

General ideas

I would then get to work on what I have been working start making it better with more designs and more sprits for the character to interact with and more enemies to fight

I would also have a quick think on what I could do to make the game more child friendly and yet still suitable for adults

I would then ask someone to start drawing some concept art for the game so that people can see what we had in mind when we started to design the game.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

What is copyright law? – “Copyright protection exists from the moment a work is created in a fixed, tangible form of expression. The copyright immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author, or those deriving their rights through the author, can rightfully claim copyright. In the case of works made for hire, the employer—not the writer—is considered the author.”

What is libel? – “Libel can be personal libel or trade libel, which is also known as "product disparagement." Product disparagement can include a product, service or entire company.”

How are female characters represented in games?

Games in games now a days are portrayed as either things or objects for the male characters or they are just NPCS not doing anything, however there are a few where the girls are the main protagonist much like the old games some are even the main bad guy in a few games, the women tend to be wearing hardly and “Armour”Female characters often have no religion but in a few games you can see the females as either thief’s or healers, but they are also wizards and berserkers working alongside the male warriors to prove extra support

what is Computer game graphics?

Computer game graphics

by Thomas berry

Pixel Art: A pixel is the smallest building block of what a screen displays. Pixel art is the arrangement of these blocks on a pixel-by-pixel basis to make images and animations intended for screen display. A pixel is a computerized dot of colour. Pixel art is a type of digital art that uses pixels to make up the work. With pixel art, the artist has to place each pixel properly to create a certain effect. One dot out of place could make the piece look strange. Properly done, the artist can create backgrounds, characters, and three dimensional (3-D) effects with a limited colour pallet. These techniques were used in older video games as well as in newer mobile games.

Concept Art: What is concept art? Well that’s easy isn’t it? Its super polished art used to promote forthcoming films and games. Right? Wrong!

The main goal of concept art is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in films, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. In other words, it aims to convey the overall design vision rather than specify everything in exact terms right at the start.

Texture Art: Animation has come a long way since the days of plain white walls and two-dimensional cartoon characters. Today’s animation features deep, rich textures that make walls appear real, faces look lifelike, and even fantasy monsters seem like they could really be waiting under your bed. Much of this textural detail is thanks to the texture artist, also known as a texture painter, whose graphic art is used to define the surface qualities of a 3-D computer model. Most of the textures created by texture artists are used in video games, films, and television shows.

Background Graphics: a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene. Initially including just graphical objects handled separately from the memory bitmap of a video display, this now includes various manners of graphical overlays. Originally, sprites were a method of integrating unrelated bitmaps so that they appeared to be part of the normal bitmap on a screen, such as creating an animated character that can be moved on a screen without altering the data defining the overall screen.

Print media art: Print Media Art Print media art is important to games, this is because, a lot of people are attracted by colourful art designs for games, whilst others think they look cool or awesome, this is the same with posters, packaging etc. Game packaging, game packing, is great but only the better editions of games now come with packaging recently. The box cover for the game has to relate to the game itself, it must be eye catching, it must have the title of the game on the front, box art is never game play of a game, it is usually something like concept art, this is to make the game look more flashy to others and make them want to buy

What is graphic specification?

What is graphic specification?

Cel shading

Games such as the Borderlands series are a great example of cel shaded games.

The art style used stands out significantly and is easily one of the most prominent features in the game.

This picture of Borderlands 2’s main antagonist shows very clearly the cel shaded art style that has contributed to the feeling of the game. As you can see the lines in the hair and clothes are very bold and prominent, this makes the game feel less serious and more like a comic book, adding to its RPG fantasy like theme. It also makes the lighting more dramatic and plays heavily with depth of field, the character is much more focused than the blurry background.

Photo realistic

Games that use this style attempt to make their game look as realistic as possible. Games like this contain a lot of detail in the graphics. This example of Sgt Maj Johnson in the cut scenes of halo 2 remastered. It was made by 343 industries in 2014 and the halo series among other things. Other games such as GTA and metal gear solid the phantom pain. Most FPS games use this style such as halo and battlefield, also some RPGs like the Skyrim. As technologies in game engines advance, the depth and realism of the animations become a lot better. But games like this also take a long time to make.

Pixel

This style is used mainly In older games such as pacman and super Mario. It is a very simple style and is mostly to always in 2D. it does take long to create games like this because of the simplicity. It was mainly used because of the limitation of software. It is not a realistic style.

 

Exaggerated

Exaggeration is an art style most commonly found in JRPGs, with the style being used to reflect the popular Medias of manga and anime. As the name would suggest this art style consists of highly exaggerated objects and features with two popular examples being the Devil May Cry and Final Fantasy series with their oversized objects such as swords and their facial features like their eyes being quite sizable when the character is sad. The body types of the characters will follow a similar way with male characters being strong and muscular and female characters often being overly sexualized. This style is often used in japan but quite a lot other games like the darksiders series rely heavily on this style.

What is typography? : typography is the font of you style your writing in and also the size your writing in there are a lot of styles to write in.

What is Composition? : Designers can often make judgments about layout composition by instinct—it’s a by-product of constantly thinking in visual terms. Occasionally though, some projects leave you stumped for a solution; no matter how hard you try to fit the elements onto the page, they just don’t look or feel right. In these situations it can be helpful to return to basics, and see which one produces the best solution to the problem.

What is concept art?

What is concept art?

concept art is the overall work done so far until the game is finished, concept art includes painting, drawings and overall designs of the game when it was being made so that it will show you what has changed throughout the whole game aka they might have changed some of the weapons from the concept art from the game and the background might be much more detailed unlike the game but it shows you how much time and dedication the creators have put into the game. 

Halo Reach: this is the full halo reach team Noble 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 your character is classed as Noble 6, this is the first level of the game of you stepping onto reach with the full team where you first encounter the covenant.

feelings towards the photo: the feeling i get towards the photo is that you get the feeling of action and adventure towards this photo because of the way they are stand with their weapons ready like they are about to fight someone or something, when i look at this picture i get the feeling of adventure and action just by looking and trying to get a feeling of the photo and the surrounding, looking at the floor you can see detailed grass,smoke,trees and moutains as well as the armour which has been hightly detailed so you can see every piece of detail shows how much effort they put into this concept art.

Crisis 3: This is one of the enemy security drones from crisis 3 this shows you detailed drawing on the sentry it is quite hard to kill because of its hard shell and heavy artillery you need at least 3 rockets sent into the back of the sentinel to actually take it down. with this photo you can see quite a detailed and fully design inside of the robot and close ups on the frontal weapons as you look around the outside of the picture you can afew designed before they came up with the origianal design, some of the older designed have different styles to them that make them look unique.

dark souls: one there is a knight named artorias he is very well designed and has many details to his armour, he is a beloved boss in the dark souls community and in dark souls 3 his armour and weapons can be bought and obtained by the hand maiden and in the covenant. this armour has a unique look too it by the way the helmet and cloak are made, by looking at both of those pieces of armour you can clearly see that they are tattered and broken, the helmet has clearly been damaged and burn and the cloak has been ripped in two, by looking at the way the armour is designed you can tell it is a unique armour by the way it has been made and and detailed it also looks like a light weight armour with still enough defence to defend against enemy attackers while being light enough to roll around and dodge attacks. 






metal gear solid: they release a concept art book showing off all the designs of the characters, bosses, companions and more
they are just sketches and they look amazing highly detailed with facial hair, hair length,
bra lines and much more they go some much in depth for the game that they want to show you what they looked like before they were computerised the concept art you are looking at is an elite sniper named quiet one of 4 companions you can get in the game looking at the picture you can see her old design and her new design, in her old design you can see she was a bit more exposed near her legs so they changed that to make sure people wouldn't send e-mails complaining about how she looked