Level 3 Games Design

Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games

Jack Palmer

Understand theory and application used for (P1) computer game graphics

The games I am going to be using for understanding theory and application used for computer game graphics is The Last of Us and Tetris, there are many differences between Tetris and The Last of Us I am going to go over them.

The Last of Us is an post apocalyptic game based around the characters Joel and Ellie. It is a 64 Bit photo realistic game. Here is the trailer so you can get a better idea of what the game is. 

Tetris is a 2D game that is 8 bit and made using pixel art it is a classic game where you have to match the blocks so they disappear.

Artistic Styles

First of all the difference between the two games artistic styles is massive. Tetris is made using the artistic style of pixel art the reason it is made as pixel art so that the mood and atmosphere is just happy and just unrealistic on purpose so that it works. However, The Last of Us has a completely different purpose Tetris is to destroy the blocks but The Last of Us is a apocalyptic game meaning that the game is made using photo-realism so the mood and atmosphere is there and it feels like an actual zombie apocalypse has occurred. The image above shows that The Last of Us has used photo realism and shows how it makes the mood and atmosphere.

File Extensions  

Every single game has a file extension a file extension is basically the type of file that the game is on for example if you compress a game it is likely to be either TIF or PNG. Tetris was most likely made with the file extension being JPG as JPG is the smallest file extension and it also has the worst quality meaning it is similar to Tetris and its style. The Last of Us however, is a much bigger game meaning that the file extension will be a lot bigger and most likely higher quality. The Last of Us most likely used an camera raw image and file so that it had higher quality and so it would look like it does with high quality graphics.

Optimising/Compression

Optimising is when you increase the graphics or increase a certain item in a game to make it as efficient as possible. The opposite of optimising is compressing the way compressing works is to compress and reduce the resolution or quality of the game but instead it takes up less storage space making it better for games on phones or devices. The difference between the two games is that The Last of Us is optimised and Tetris is compressed, Tetris is compressed because it was made to work for the Gameboy which did not have enough space to optimise or not compress. The picture above is taken in The Last of Us and shows the graphics and game and how it has optimised the graphics.

Picture/Image Resolution 

Picture resolution is the quality of the picture and how much detail it holds in it. The better the quality, the higher the picture resolution and image resolution is the quality of image and how sharp and the depth it has in the image itself. Since Tetris has no photo realism in it the picture resolution can not exist however, the image resolution does exist and is a lot different to The Last of Us as it is not very high but The Last of Us has high image resolution and picture resolution.

Print Media

The print media for Tetris is very different to The Last of Us this is because of the times it was made. As you can see above the Tetris print media is just a picture of a few blocks and it is very different to The Last of Us as you can see in the picture above the print media is a lot more realistic compared to Tetris which is not realistic.

Image Capture

Image capture is taking an image using any software or device you can do this with a camera, screenshotting, screen recording software, scanning and just drawing it yourself. Tetris and The Last of Us have massive differences with image capture. The Last of Us captured its images using a camera as you can see in the picture above they took a picture of Ashley Johnson and then changed a few features. Tetris however, is created using an art software to draw each individual block. There are some similarities between the two image captures though as some parts in The Last of Us were drawn like Tetris.

Storage of Image Assets The storage of image assets is basically what file name the data is stored in so say for example you make a picture of something but someone else is doing the shading of the picture if you save it in a file with no name it will take them a lot longer than if you call the file "picture needing shading". One example of this is below in this picture, i saved the name as "The Last of Us Ellie" so that i know what it is and so do other people.