1. Unit XIII 2D Digital Art Computer Games By Lewis Richards 28th November

2. Technology Development Part I The development of consoles has improved drastically over the years making it so much better than it was 39 years ago making it one of the biggest and most successful industry to date, similar to photography the console and gaming industry has made a huge leap in the last couple of decades. There is a lot of things that have been improved through consoles that have led to advancements in animation. Although some animations are still done the old fashioned way like cartoon animation still requires them to be hand drawn or computer drawn and the given movement has to been done in steps similar to what you do when on macromedia flash.

3. Technology Development Part II Another big development to animation is computer chips, processor chips, micro chips. Computer chips, micro chips and processor chips all have a lot of use at without them animation wouldn’t have been so far developed as the give computers and consoles the power to process at a higher rate allowing for more FPS (frames per second) which means longer running animation as well as more storage space.

4. Technology Development Part III Blu ray players are fairly new and have only really been more supplied as of lately, they are mainly used by Sony’s PS3 games or for Blu Ray players and Blu Ray DVDs. The Blu Ray is a disc that has a larger memory capacity than a normal CD does allowing for more information to be put on a single disc as well as larger files so in animation and games it allows longer running movies to be placed on one disk instead of two, and for games that are becoming bigger and more graphically advanced they are able to be stored on a single Blu Ray disk instead of a standard game disk and you end up with three or four disks.

5. Technology Development Part IV High definition is used to show the graphics on a video or game and effects the graphical content on how it is viewed and what resolution, so the higher the resolution the more graphically advanced it is. CGI (computer generated images) are usually in a very high definition now a days as the technology for animation has become more advanced making it look more realistic, like James Camerons Avatar and Transformers movie. The different resolutions are 240p this is the lowest resolution, the next is 360p this is standard resolution for most videos you can find on the web, then there is 480p this is slightly better than the standard 360p but there isn’t much difference. After that is 720p this is the start of HD resolution then lastly there is 1080p this is the highest resolution available at the moment and if you compared 240p to 1080p you would see a massive difference in graphical content.

6. Technology Development Part V CGI means computer generated image or images this is made using 3D modeling software to create images and animation on the computer, this is how a lot of movies that use CGI animation in them like James Cameron’s Avatar, and is also used in games for cutscene and game trailers. Along with CGI came holograms, this is still in the process of being perfected to the same degree as other animation but Japan seems to be trying to develope it massively as they have made holograms called vocaloids which are holograms using a voice from a real person and making it sing and dance.

7. Character Themes/Genres Part I The different genres of games and animation are what make games and animation have there own individual storyline and how they are played, the different genres of games are action/adventure this consists of third person or first person shooters or any form of game that involves a form of combat or exploring in the game, it can also include leveling up which means RPG can also be classed as action/adventure. Horror is another major genres this consists of extreme violence and brutality like blowing zombies limbs off most horror’s are rated a 18 if not all of them. Strategy/puzzle/turn based is used for less violent games and mainly used for things like chess but are included in more action/adventure games like solving a puzzle before the water drowns your character or something like that.

8. Character Themes/Genres Part II From the large choice of genres makes the gaming industry huge and consist of a many different groups many games on different console platforms and genres and themes, the list of them is action, adventure, shooter, role playing, simulation, strategy and many more. Each one of these genres are then set and made from a certain theme whether it be a sci- fi them or a medieval theme and each one then builds its scenery and characters of those themes, genres and storyline from those cruticial parts. To create a amazing game that makes sense that has been set in the right era its based on.

9. Character Themes/Genres Part III The animation from a long time ago compared to now has improved drastically and is a large growing industry. From Gertie the dinosaur to the 3D animation of Final Fantasy Spirits Within the graphics for animation has changed drastically to a degree in which Gertie was nothing more than a pencil drawing that played for no more than 10 minutes consisting of a load of frames, But Final Fantasy is a 1-2 hour long movie consisting of 3D animation and amazing graphics on the characters.

10. Character Themes/Genres Part IV When character designers use character interpretation to make a character for a game or animation they design them based on the game storyline and the environment the character is put in, so a player wouldn’t have a character wearing a thick warm jacket in a hot location like the desert. So in the term of a game a player who was in a boat equipping a wetsuit would think that they were going to be doing a underwater based mission of some kind.

11. Character Themes/Genres Part V Character development in games has improved drastically, it started as a simply cartoon and now characters in games and animation have cell shading, muscle toning and also you are able to see facial hair and veins of the character, this a huge advancement to character designing. But due to the high growth in the gaming industry has caused the massive improvement to the graphics as consumers what a enjoyable game with better graphics than the last game they played.

12. Character Design Part I When it comes to character design the most important of this is the character itself this effects everything like the storyline the scenery, usually before a character is chosen as a final one design the artists draw about 10 drawings on paper and then they are presented to the lead developer who decides which character is to be used that would fit best with the gameplay and storyline of the game, this is done for the main characters and all the sub characters which is a long process and requires a large amount of paper designs before the final ones are chosen. One of the Initial designs Final chosen design

13. Character Design Part II A major thing that effects the game itself is the colour this is an essential part since if a game is set in a colourful environment then it will need to use a more colourful choice of colours like green and blue, where as if it was set in somewhere like the underworld or hell in certain it would need a more gloomy choice of colours like blacks and dark reds to show the gloominess of the environment. Another thing is shading aswell this is used a lot now as game try to introduce a more real life environment into games making them seem more life like so if a character stands near a light source there will be shadowing from the direction of the light source.

14. Character Design Part III An important aspect of character designing is the style in which the character is designed making it a key point when characters are designed. Here is an example of how it is used the lead character developer asks 10 members to come up with a character design for the game Halo he tells the designers that the game is a first person shooter and is sci-fi based so he wants the main character to be drawn from those key points to create a initial design from. So naturally a design would be used using those key points, and the main character drawings wouldn’t be made from a knight with a steel sword as the style for the game wouldn’t fit with the games genre and theme. So when design a character it is essential to know what the genre, style and theme of the game is before you would make a initial or final design for a game.

15. Character Design Part IV Animation plays an important role in character design, as without it a character would be unable to maneuver the scenery that has been created, this is usually created now a days using people in special suits. This process is called motion capturing and is widely used to capture more human like movement for character designs whether it be balancing on a beam and making the character try to keep balance and wobble from using the motion capture of the real life person to make it seem more life like.

16. Character Design Part V A major part now that the graphics for games have improved is personalities and facial expressions of characters, through this a player is able to understand the storyline more. In the images on this slide I chose to use Kratos from the game God of War, during the entire game Kratos doesn’t show a single smile of happiness and the designers worked with that design to make it so he was always angry or violent and you could see it in his facial expression, where as Halo Master Chief wears a helmet so his personalities are more concealed.