Unit 78 – Digital Graphics for Computer Games

Within this unit, I’m going to describe these four different artistic styles that are used in the games:

1. PHOTOREALISM

2. CELL SHADING

3. ABSTRACTION

4. EXAGGERATION – Anime and Manga

Photorealism

Photorealism is the style of art in a game or any other kind of art, where the artist's are attempting to make the scene so realistic and defined, it could be mistaken for a real photo. Rather than just the creation of the artist. Photorealism looks exactly how it sounds from its name, the graphics are designed to look as realistic as possible. For example in crysis 2 a level was based in new york city: a scene where it could be compared next to a photograph they would both look similar if not the same. Some photorealism in games are that effective the game experience can feel somewhat like an interactive movie such as Heavy rain. Photorealism is one of the most used art styles in current generation of video game platforms it pretty much is what it sounds. This being that things within a game world look realistic for example characters models would be based of real people. Mass effect is a great example of this. With many of the characters some being Commander Shepard (The protagonist) is structured looking like male model Mark Vanderllo and Miranda Lawson (Companion) is based around actress Yvonne Strahovski. This does not just apply for player models it can also apply for everything in the environment of a game. Some games don’t have textures drawn but they can also be high resolution(preferably) photographs taken of objects in the real world great example of this would be for walls in video games if you look at some walls you can notice this sometimes it’s not for the best because they just look they have been thrown onto the object resulting in a poor texture quality. Photorealism really helps add that feeling of immersion in a game because of how realistic the style can be.

Commander Shepard – Mass EffectMiranda

Lawson – Mass Effect

Photorealism

Cell ShadingCell shading is an increasingly popular style of game graphics, it was originally used in animation before it was recreated to be a digital graphic game style. Cell shading in games can look very effective, the colours look bright and stand out. The styling mostly resembles that of a comic book, and a lot of gamers enjoy this art styling. Some games that use this digital graphic are Wind Walker, XIII and Ultimate Spiderman. This artistic style is very effective in Spiderman, as it resembles its comic book stories.

http://youtu.be/NlTCRnksLYwhttp://youtu.be/KR5Yyavt6ZYhttp://youtu.be/Phq6HdO9zeg

Video Examples

Pictorial Examples

AbstractionAbstract art styling in games could be defined as the opposite to photo realism, the style doesn't strive to resemble realism in anyway and often has features that are very unrealistic and may look different in the different perspectives of different people seeing them. The style usually makes use of a lot of shapes and lines that don't really resemble any actually objects in real life, such as Child of Eden and EDGE. Abstract is not just another name for cartoony or cel-shading it is just like other abstract art forms which is it does not resemble any sought reality but gives of an image using random shapes and colours to get the desired effect. Many video games aesthetics are made up of random shapes and colours one being geometry wars that heavily focuses on geometric lines and colours to specify objects. One game that uses an abstract art style very well is The Unfinished Swan which is nothing but a white canvas and you must throw black paint which then makes object visible allowing you to continue to where you must go. The Unfinished Swan would not be able to work with any other art style because this gives the game its main mechanic which is the key element to this game which is exploration.

Exaggeration

Exaggeration is a very sought of playful art style that is used in various games. The art style concentrates on using very over the top graphics that can really make the game seem like it its not meant to be taken very serious. There you are most likely to see the use of exaggerated graphics is on the Nintendo Wii, which contains a huge library of games that contains a lot of party based games that are really exaggerated in terms of graphics and gameplay just seeming obscure and meant to be not taken very seriously at all. Wario Ware is probably the best example of this using an exaggerated art style that really compliments its exaggerated gameplay. Anime is also a widely used art style that is considered exaggerated because of the proportions of things can be much exaggerated. The exaggeration art style might have started at attempting to look photo realistic, but as the art style has developed, character's features have become more over dramatic or exaggerated when some audiences favoured the style. The exaggeration art style to an extent looks almost cartoon, the colours and edges are very defined and look very similar to the art in animes. Some famous games in the art style are Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Devil May Cry, Xenoblade.

This is the game Catherine which is focused around using an anime style, as you can see the proportions are somewhat exaggerated.