assignment 1 Josh level 3 in Games Design

Level 3 in Games Design

Unit 78 Digital Graphics for Computer Games 

Rhys Williams

Understand Theory an Application Used for Computer Game Graphics

For this assignment I will be comparing the theory and application of the computer game graphics for a 2D and a 3D computer game of my choice. The video games that I have chosen are my 2D game is Donkey Kong  and my 3D game will be FIFA 17.

Donkey Kong   

File extensions

Donkey Kong  is an 8 bit game and was made to be played on the giant arcade machines and it really set the tone for arcade machines and donkey Kong so much that later on it would be made and compressed for the Nintendo entertainment system.  The Nintendo Entertainment system  and its file format is a NES file as all games that was made for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) are a NES file.  At that time in history Nintendo did not want other companies to share their files for the games so Nintendo made their own type of file extension to make sure no other company would take the games and make copies of it.



Artistic Style of Donkey Kong 
The artistic  style of the game of Donkey Kong Country is a very well made pixel art game as in the game the artists who made the game have used 2D sprites to make the game. the entire game e.g the main characters Mario and Donkey Kong are simple 2D sprites and the objects e.g the hammer that Mario uses and the barrels that Donkey Kong throws are also in 2D pixel art. there was no vehicles in the game but the environment e.g the metal beams and the ladders that Mario had to climb up was also 2d pixel art.

Concept Art

As you can see in this image (concept art for Donkey Kong ) the artists who made Donkey Kong tried to base it of a drawing that they drew of a gorilla and they have used pixel art to create it into a pixel formed Donkey Kong. They tried to base the main characters movements like a real gorilla like the way he looks and he walks is just like a gorilla only child friendly as it was a family game.

Texture Art

The texture art in the game would probably be more focused on the metal beams and the ladders of the game as the creators have had to give the platforms a realistic look but they have had to keep to the 2D pixels art style. as you can see in the right  picture it shows the level of the classic Donkey Kong game and you can see the texture that they have put in the metal beams like the little triangles in the spacing of them that is to make them look like real beams but keep them in the same artistic style that they planned for. also the ladders they have just kept the texture to the ordinary looking ladders with two straight lines going up and straight lines going across too.

Background Art

To be perfectly honest the background art is just black and that's it. the game does have some occasional background shakes when Donkey Kong jumps in the air but that is it really on background art cause in the time that this game was made. background art in video games hadn't really progressed like it has today.

In Game Interference

In game interference is basically like a head up display ( HUD ) which gives you the information that you need to know in order to play the game. in the Donkey Kong game you have about three thing that was important to you  1 the score that you had was in the top of the screen and when you added to your score it would pop up with a little animation and it would float to the score in the top and add it up for you to give you and update your score. 2 was your lives so as you progressed through the levels you would start with 3 lives and if you git hit by a barrel then you would die and you would lose a life.And 3 was the bonus score. so if you would acquire the hammer then you became invincible to barrels and you would start gaining a score. in order to make the score bigger you had to hit more barrels. when your hammer ran out the score that you got for destroying barrels would light up and it would be called a bonus score and that like the normal score would add to the high score at the top of the screen.

Print Media

Print media is the way to sell the game to make it known to the audience that your looking for and letting them play the game and get more money from it. The Donkey Kong games print media would be the posters that they advertised and the giant arcade machines. this image represents the art that used to be on the arcade machines. this and a occasional advert on TV and posters on windows was the way to advertise this game and since the game is so popular as nearly everyone has played it it obviously worked.





Raster Image

In game graphics raster images is mainly rectangular pixels or points of colour view able by a monitor. this game does use many raster images as the art style are raster images as they are 2D sprites which use rectangular pixels.








Game Graphics for FIFA 17 

Artistic Style of fifa 17 

the artistic style of fifa 17 is definitely photo realism as EA and Frostbite have tried to make the game as real as possible so the player can feel like they are actually playing football. fifa 17 is so realistic that they actually use real footballers faces to make animations of players emotions by using a face scanning process called the star head thread. the star head thread is when EA producers ask real footballers to come into EA company and let them scan their face in all different angles to capture the image of there facial expressions and put them into the game and make it as realistic as possible. in the game EA have optimized to make this game as realistic and to give the user a real feeling of what it is like to be a footballer and to make the sport a lot more fun by letting the player play the game how they want to.
there are 3 types of faces in the fifa 17 game

1. Scanned
this image shows a famous football player ( Paul Pogba ) in the process of the face scanning for the new fifa 17. this will capture all of the facial features including his eye movements and also it will capture his hair patterns on his head. the picture below is in game footage of Paul Pogba as a game character and as you can tell it is as photo realistic as possible.

 2. Star head

Star head is when EA send a team to watch a certain players movements and facial features and take pictures of them and transport and compress them files into the game and optimize for a good attempt of a gaming replica of that certain player. the image below is a picture of the most iconic football player Leoniel Messi and this is the captured image of Messi running in a game and what they have done is they have taken a picture of it and they have transferd it into the game.



3. Generic
when a player has a in game face that is based on the,m but has not gone into to much detail. this is a image of as football player named Naingolan who has a in gamer face that has not really been taken seriously and the picture is a real picture of Naingolan and you can see that there are some simularites in the two but not really as much as other players.













Background Art 
The background of fifa 17 is actually beautiful and they have used some amazing texture art and photo realism and it is mainly the backgrounds is the stadiums and the crowds in the football stadium.as you can see in this image this football stadium is so realistic you would think it is a photo graph of a real football stadium. they have also added very good animations of the crowd moving up and down some are standing some are sitting down and when you score you can see the camera shaking and the fans jumping up and down so it feels like you are actually there in the stadium.


In-Game Interference
The In- Game interference of fifa 17 is not like other games when it shows you lives and score but it actually relates to football so stamina and power meter so how hard your shot/ pass was and of course the score and the time remaining in each half of the match. it also gives you the name and the kit number of the player that you are and the player that the other team is.


Print Media
The difference between games like Donkey Kong in the old days and FIFA 17 in now a days is that there is a lot more ways to use print media in order to sell the game and advertise it. there is now the game case itself as you see below that is print media and there is also more posters that can be put on the internet which everyone uses now a days.