Kori chamberlain

Unit 78 Computer games

Research Exercise

Artistic Styles in video games

There are arrange of different types of artistic styles in video games to cel shading to abstraction.

Cel Shading
An example of games that have Cel shading in them are:

Walking dead Seasons, Borderlands/Borderlands 2, Dragon Ball Z Budokai and onwards.

This image is a good example of a cel shading image that looks like a comic. The thick lines and the flat colours give use the idea that the game wants the comic style to be shown in the game.

Cel shading is a style that uses flat colours to make its art look like comics or hand drawn images.

Borderlands main style is cel shading which has chosen the root of the comic look. In some cases the game can seem as if it was drawn and its being animated. 

Abstraction

The abstraction style of art normally employs a lot of lines and geometric shapes that don’t really resemble any real-life objects. For example geometry wars, a game which uses nothing but lines and geometric shapes.

Some other games that use the style of abstract are:

Tetris, Beautiful katamari, Geometry wars

This is an image taken from Geometry Wars and it clearly shows the bright unrealistic images. The shapes are lines and are geomentic shapes which suit the description of an abstract style.

This art style is mainly used for arcadey game titles but can be found elsewhere.

Photo-realism

There’s a big amount of games that work with photo-realism to a cartoon look. Sometimes different types of computer game graphics can be merged together.

Games like Call of duty or Untill Dawn are photo-realism which are trying to increase the intensity and the idea that it’s real.

In this game they are trying to get the style of photo-realism with maybe some other art styles put in the game as well.

Until Dawn is a great example of a game that uses photo-realism. This is a horror game which you can link with characters and the style brings out the atmosphere. 

Exaggerated

Exaggerated art styles are found in anime. These are when the art style is over exaggerated from real life for example: The weapon (props) can be huge for the character to actually hold it, or the graphics of the character aren’t realistic: The eyes, the hair etc…

For Example games that are exaggerated are: Batman, Tomb Raider etc.

Batman is a great example of an over exaggerated art style, the muscles of the character are not realistic and the shapes of the muscles are over the top. Most characters from this game have the same art style which makes the gamer start to use their imagination. The joker for example has an exaggerated mouth and figure.

In this image of the joker the jaw is abnormal and the skin of the character is trying to look evil so it try’s the exaggerated style to give it that feeling.

Pixel

Pixel games are usually found in games that are platform but can be found in some RPJ games.

An example of games that use pixel art are:

Sonic/Sonic 2 etc, Terraria

In sonic 3 it’s a typical platform game that has pixel as its main style of art. With very low pixels to 16 which will increase the lag for the game.

The latest games use up to 24 to 25 pixels as its better for the human eye. Which will make the game seem to flow much better.

Pixels help games seem more or less realistic depending on the amount that are in use. (The higher the amount of pixels the higher the quality)(The lower the amount of pixels give the opposite effect.