Graphics; Assignment Concept Art

The graphic style I am using for my game is cell-shaded as I looked at popular games of my genre and they used cel-shaded, therefore this seemed like an obvious choice for my game.

Deadlight and
State of Decay, deadlight is a 2D side scroller with an abstract and cel shaded look to it. I plan to make my game just like these games as they were very successful and are very fun. State of Decay uses some photorealism mixed with cel shaded, however I mainly used the inventory system  and statistics as inspiration for my game.

My concept art; these are some drawings that I made so I could refer back to them if I ever forgot or lost the plans also I need it to show the progress of my game.

I will use cel shaded to create a good looking level and graphics but with low polygon count to make it accessible to all gaming platforms and run perfectly.

Progress through making my 3D environment.

This blog post shows how I created my 3D environment for my game in step by step screenshots.

 

 

 

 

I started off by making a cube and stretching it horizontally to make it look like an office building.

I then extruded the cuboid to create the windows and doors feel to it, I created segments and highlighted the ones I wanted with the ‘live selection’ tool.

I then added planes into the gaps to look like windows and put a glass texture on them that were available with the cinema 4D list of textures. I simply copied and pasted the windows over the gaps to create the look and feel of a normal office building.

I then added metal textures to look like supports on the corners and in between the windows to make the building look more realistic.

I started to work on making a car for the city that I planned to make, I first got a cube and stretched slightly into a cuboid but horizontally, then I highlighted the middle part and dragged it up to create a car-like shape, I then got a plane just like with the office building and put it over the gaps I created with the extrude tool, I textured the windows into glass again to make it realistic.

 

 

 

 

I then ironed out the corners to make the car smoother and added some wheels with discs and added textures of tyres and rims for the wheels, then I added a window at the front and created a steering wheel. To finish I will use car paint textures to make the car more realistic and make it fit in the environment, also it will allow me to make the cars look unique and different by adding paint textures to it.

I then changed my design ideas and decided to make to environments one that shows a zoomed out sort of view and a view from in the city with the objects falling up and causing issues.

To create the zoomed out over view for the trailer I used a cube and added mo-extrude and random effect tools to create a city look to the original cube.

 

I used the settings to tweak how the skyscrapers grow out and what heights I should use to create a cool city effect.I analysed the results and I though it looked alright so I added the camera and spline, when you align the camera to the spline it causes the camera to follow it like a path and using a target tag I managed to get the camera to aim at the city. Then to top it of I added a texture of a city and made a floor with a reflective water texture.

Report.

Are the graphics suitable?

The graphics in the game are suitable as it is a 2D platformer type of game, therefore it must have a simplistic style to the graphics also using cel shaded allows me to show a clear difference between interactive objects and non interactive objects like the background. It also makes it look soft and not as sharp or harsh on the eyes and is easier to see. I used sketch and toon effect in Cinema 4D to recreate a light shaded, drawn look to the

How do the finished graphics compare to the concept art?

I have managed to create the sketches in either 3D or with colour and detail, this shows how I have used my original ideas to influence the final design of the game and it’s assets. As you can see above the buildings that were originally drawn have come to life and are now 3D, I used Cinema 4D and Photoshop to recreate the original concepts in a 3D and coloured way.

What are the technical qualities?

I have used many softwares to help create the final assets from their original form by using the Cinema 4D primitive shapes and by extruding and molding them into certain ways that cause it to look somewhat real and impressive, also thanks to photoshop I was able to make my start screen and HUD using the rectangle tool ad fill tool, along with the crop and edit tools. Cinema 4D allows use of many textures that are royalty free and can be used in anything without a copyright issue.

What are the aesthetic qualities?

The graphics look very good and have a light shaded look to them (cel shaded), it is aesthetically pleasing as sketch and toon is a good software and makes it look like it has actually been drawn by someone, it also makes it look professional and good.

This is what the final render looks like and I think it looks very impressive and the sketch and toon effect makes the buildings and shadows look amazing.

 

 

Graphics Essay.

Photo-realism

 

 

Until Dawn is a great game for photorealism as it is created by modelling the voice actors faces and using motion capture so it’s very lifelike and makes you feel like it’s more important to choose the right choices in the game to keep the characters alive as you get to explore their life and looks. Photorealism appears  to be the only way to keep people immersed in the game because if it was cel-shaded for example it wouldn’t look lifelike and the player wouldn’t care about the characters as much.

Cel-shaded

Telltales The Walking Dead series is an example of cel-shaded style of games as it is a comic book adaptation from the walking dead comics by Robert Kirkman. Another style wouldn’t work as the cel-shaded style gives it a comic book feel so it makes it a lot better for the player to see the link between comic and game. The style is very unique and is great as it makes the characters look just like the comic and makes the choices a lot more difficult for the player as it makes you imagine being in the comic.

Pixelart

The game I chose as an example of pixel art is terraria as its like minecraft in the building and digging way but its more focused on survival and it’s a 2D side scrolling game instead of first person perspective it makes the game good as it allows for a much better shading on the landscape and in dark places. Cel-shaded may work but not as well as pixel art it may work but there would probably need a story line to it to make it better so it wouldn’t work as good. The style makes the game run faster and can make the game look more spooky and scary to appeal to adventurous, horror lovers.

Abstract

The game I chose for abstract is pac-man as it is a simple 2D game that involves very simple shapes, pixelart is the only style that really works as it is a very simple game and doesn’t really have much to it so any other art style would be pointless, the style is good as at the time this game was released it wasn’t laggy or slow because it is so simple and the processing power at the time wasn’t capable of much so this was perfect.

Concept art is a way of showing ideas for things like film, tv and games before it is ready for finalising.

GUI means graphical user interface this is an interface that lets people use the interface by pressing buttons or icons.

Pixel means picture element and is a single point on a graphic image and when lots of them join together it creates the image that has been requested by the user.

Image resolution is the amount of pixels in an image so for example you could have an image that is 100×50 so it has 100 pixels length and 50 pixels height to make up the image.

Bitmap is a representation in which each item corresponds to one or more bits of information.

Vector image is the use of simple primitives and points, lines and shapes.

Compression is when the file size is shrunk down to make downloads easier and quicker but this can make the image seem pixelated when it grows back to size.

There are many ways to capture digital images such as; using a traditional camera which is an effective way of capturing pictures depending on the image that you want for example a picture may not be great quality on a phone that has a 2mp camera against a 10mp camera as the quality would be better, MoCap or motion capture is a way of capturing images too as the name implies because it involves the person who is the target for the image to wear a suit with sensors on it so it is very accurate and can precisely capture every angle and inch of the person for use in video games or animations where photorealism is the theme and the character needs to look like the voice actor.

There are multiple ways of storing digital images such as using a portable hard drive to store items from one computer to another by simply plugging the cables that comes with it into a computer and switching the data over, then you can store images on it and take them wherever you go. Another way of storing digital images is by using a USB quite simply as it is the same as a portable hard drive but contains less memory and is much smaller but works the same as you just plugin in and transfer the files to take with you. The third way of storing digital images is online, you can hold images on skydive or google drive etc this is very good and useful as google drive makes a backup of the file every so often so if the file is corrupt you can just get the backup image and it’s good because you can have it with you (on phones) without the risk of carrying a big physical object that may become corrupt or broken like a portable hard drive or the smaller version (USB.)