Assignment 1: Understanding Digital Graphics within Computer Games

Summer Bates

BTEC Level 3 Games Design

Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games

Assessment 1: Understanding Digital Graphics used within Computer Games

I have researched the artistic style of games, graphics, image capture and a variety of other elements that are prior when planning a video game. I am choosing a 2D game and a 3D game to compare and contrast the digital graphics.

The 2D game I have chosen is called Chrono Trigger.

The 3D game I have chosen is called Tales from the Borderlands (Tftb).

You have to choose an artistic style for your game when in the process of planning. The artistic style of Chrono Trigger is Exaggerated. It is Exaggerated because of the way the characters look, they are presented as anime characters who have heavily exaggerated features. The scenes that the characters are put in have a heavily exaggerated background and the same goes for the objects that can be found in the game. A game that is more familiar which has the same art style as Chrono Trigger is Pokemon.        

 Tftb has an artistic style of Cel-shaded, it has been made to look like a comic book. The artistic style of a 2D game is very different to the artistic style of a 3D game, each game has a clear artistic style

that can vary between either, Exaggerated, Cel-shaded, Photorealistic or Abstract. A more familiar game with the same art style as Tftb is The Walking Dead.

 

The same artistic style for both a 2D and 3D game will look completely different because of the way a 2D game is pixelated.

Both of these games haven’t used any image capturing, these two games have been completely designed on a computer without any help of real locations.

Both of these games have to be optimised for the correct platform. Chrono Trigger was made for PlayStation consoles, DS consoles and a variety of other platforms, so each of these versions would have had to been personally optimised in order to work on each of these platforms. The game would have had to be compressed more for the DS than the PlayStation because of the size of the storage capacity. Tftb was made for Xbox 360/One, PS3/4 and PC, and again, this would have also had to be personally optimised for it to work on specific platforms.

Chrono Trigger uses Raster images and Tftb uses Vector images. You can clearly see the pixels in Chrono Trigger compared to Tftb where you can barely see them at all. However, Tftb has more pixels than Chrono Trigger because it has more detail, this makes the game have a higher resolution.

Tftb has a higher storage of image assets because of the Vector images, it has more bytes than Chrono Trigger. The images are clearer in Tftb than they are in Chrono Trigger so more space is needed for the game. Tftb would have been compressed more for low end computers and it would have been compressed less for high end computers. Chrono Trigger’s storage of image assets is a lot smaller than Tftb because of the Raster images, the game has a lower quality than Tftb. Tftb has a higher resolution than Chrono Trigger so this affects the file size. The higher the resolution the bigger the file size.

Chrono Trigger’s concept art is very different to Tftb’s concept art. Chrono Trigger is more anime than Tftb. Tftb and Chrono Trigger have detailed concept art.