Optimising and Storage of Image Assets

Optimising Images is really important in an industry like the Games Industry where images need to be optimised for different purposes 4 examples of this are:

Having your image professionally printed by a printing firm, quality is important so you need to maintain the maximum image quality. The file size isn't important in this instance so you can have huge file sizes (Photo shop), PSD files are too big to upload or send in e-mails so you may have to either burn file to a DVD or put the file on a 8GB memory stick and post it to your manager or you could deliver the file to the printers yourself. For best print quality set the image to 300dpi and send send PSD file so all the information such as layers are kept.

If your company asks for a version that can be uploaded onto the company's intranet for managers in different continent to see, the quality of the image is important however, file size is also important. The image cannot be a PSD file as it can't be viewed online and also managers may not have Photo Shop installed on their machine. It is recommended that you should save the file in a lossless file like PNG. It has to be set at 72dpi to reduce file size so that it would load onto the web quicker. PNG files are smaller than PSD, but it loses features on PSD like layers. This doesn't matter as managers don't need to see this information.

If the company requires an image that can be uploaded on their main website you may need to save this in a lossy format like JPG so the file size is reduced and therefore the quality drops a little, but not too much. Reducing the size of the image means it will be quicker to download on the website and also alter the resolution to approximately 72dpi.

If the company requires a version which can be downloaded on a smart phone, file sizes are most important as the download capability is limited therefore small file sizes are crucial. Reducing the size of the image even further by saving it in a lossy JPG format and reduce the quality a bit more by reducing the colours to 256. Also you could change the dpi to approximately 60.

The things to change/optimise are:
- Size of image
- Quality of image
- DPI of image
- File type of image
- Number of colours in the image
Make sure that you save an original copy of your image and never overwrite a file, just save a copy in another format.

Storage of Image Assets

Organisation of files is important when you are working with over 50 different files so creating folder is efficient and essential. For example if you are working on an Autumn Advertising Campaign for a project create a folder and label it "Autumn Advertising Campaign" and you were doing bird images, to organise your work you need sub folders, label them "FINAL version" and "MOCKUPS" and the files you want to deliver for your manager to see go in the "FINAL version", also the file name varies according to file type. So for example if you want the original copy to be distinctive, name it "bird_ORIGINAL_300.psd", this is clearly high quality because it is the original version and it has 300 DPI. Make sure you name your files sensibly as it can be difficult if you have 50 images to organise. For example "bird_copy_72" is a PNG file and "bird_copy_web_72" is a JPG file and the difference is noticable as a JPG is a lossy format and the quality will suffer, but a PNG file can be uploaded and keep it's quality.

Textures and Printed Media

Textures are created using Photoshop and is wrapped around 3-D model to make the model come to life. Textures are usually designed and drawn by concept artists. An example of a texture is one been done in Photoshop and looks like part of the ground which could be used in a game.

Printed media is anything in the games industry that is printed, these include: Box art, Posters, Manuals, Poster and promotional materials. The purpose of box art is to promote the game and hopefully it will boost the sales of the game. The purpose of a poster is to promote the game and gives an approximate release date. The purpose of a manual is to guide the consumer which instructions and also tells the story of the game if there is one. The purpose of promotional materials is to give the gamer an inside look at the game for example: PlayStation Official Magazine.      

Digital Camera, Scanner and Graphics Tablet

Digital Cameras are useful for taking photos to go in portpholios or projects, cameras appear anywhere nowadays they are on phones, Digital and Optical cameras are around for best quality consider a Canon or a Nikon camera with optical zoom this means it uses the glass to bring it closer to you, the cheapest would be around £300.

Scanners are very useful for scanning work for projects and coursework purposes. There are different scanners each which optimum quality. First we have a Flatbed, it scans to dpi and comes in different sizes according to paper size an A4 Flatbed costs between £30-£300 and is suited for home use. It is connected via USB. The poorest quality is the Hand Scanner because you need a steady hand to get best results from this scanner this one costs around £20.

Graphics Tablets are really helpful and useful for concept artists who have to draw to the best of his or her ability and the good thing is it will draw on a particular program and is connected via USB, the best one is an Intiq 21UX which allows you to write straight on the screen, but the best affordable one is a Wacom and they are easy to use.

File Types

JPEG (JPG)

This file type is most common and it uses compression to reduce the size of the file so you can store it without losing memory. In Paint.Net you can choose the amount of compression for JPEG files for quality reasons. The more a JPEG file is compressed, the smaller the file size, but the picture quality will be poor. JPEGs use a compression technique called lossy. This file is a raster file.

GIF

GIF stands for Graphic Interface Format and it is good for drawings and line art, but not so good for photos as they only store a maximum of 256 colours. It's a lossless format and it has pretty good image sizes. GIF files are raster.

PNG

PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics and is a lossless compression format so images keep their quality and this means larger file sizes. It is good for photos and it doesn't store any additional information. This is a raster file.

PSD (PhotoShop)

PhotoShop files are lossless and keeps images at peak quality therefore have really big file sizes also it stores loads of imformation in conjunction with the image itself; these include:Layers, Masks and Transparency. You use these for Industry standard work. This is a raster file.

TIF

TIF stands for Tagged Image File and these have large file sizes because they're high quality and can store information along with the image, TIF files usually uses a lossless compression format. This is a raster file.

BMP

BMP is short for Bitmap and they're high quality and they don't use any compression techniques so huge files, but only really used by Microsoft or Microsoft Paint. This is a raster file.

Vector formats

There are two known vector formats these are .ai and eps.

.ai is Adobe Illustrator and eps is Encapsulated Postscript they both have small file sizes and both are just files with instructions inside on how to recreate the file.

Graphic files and settings

Graphics is the most important aspect of a game, photo or even a cartoon it's everywhere you look in terms of media, but computers use file types to save every image to the computers' hard disk.

The two files which are more common are Bitmap (or raster) and Vector.

What is Bitmap?
Bitmap is a file type which uses the computer to code each individual pixel to its' original colour so doesn't have loss of colour quality. Unfortunately these files can't be expanded as the pixels will also expand which means that the image will pixelate and will look rubbish.

What is a pixel?

Pixels or dots builds the images that you see on a computer monitor or TV, this is why you can see stuff on the PCs or on your TV screen.

What is Vector?

Vector is another file type, but works completely different to Bitmap. Vector uses Mathematical co-ordinates and this gets rid of the problem of pixelation as the co-ordinates don't cause the image to pixelate, these files are usually found in word under clip art.

What is resolution?
Resolution is changeable, but the setting when you first buy a computer is at it's optimum setting (when it's at the best setting), this is true for laptops, but PCs you have to configure it yourself. On modern day laptops there are 5 different resolutions these are 800 X 600, 1024 X 768, 1280 X 720, 1280 X 768 and 1366 X 768. For the more powerful games you'll be aiming for the top resolution because the graphics will withstand the power, but for business only 1024 X 768 would be best. The resolution of a image can be changed for print quality in PPI, the highest quality is 300 PPI, moniter quality is 72 PPI.

Game Interfaces

Many PC games use very complicated, but really unique interfaces. These have many functions and the buttons function as sub-menus.

Interfaces fit the specific genres like the Final Fantasy series, WOW and Runescape. The interfaces can show a combat screen, menus and use items to complete quests. The interfaces are designed and planned by artists, so the quality of the interfaces are quite good.

Concept art

Within the games development team there are concept artists. Concept artists create the characters in form of sketching simple and detailed pictures to help developers create characters and environments. They also provide blueprints for all the other artists and to inspire them to develop the concept further. They may have the developers to put it in different environments to see if the concept of size and to see if it is suitable. Here are a few examples of concept art from great titles like Halo 3 for Xbox 360 and Bioshock 2 for the same console and also PS3.

Types of Games

Photorealism or photorealistic: games are games which are visually realistic. The powerful graphics engine makes graphics which have a life like feel, they look like real life. The games that use this are usually Xbox 360 games and PS3 games which gives a HD picture. Some examples of Photorealism games are: Gran Turismo 5 and Call of Duty on Xbox 360.

Cel-Shading games are more arty and cartoon like in which they are presented usually they are on consoles like the Wii and the XBOX. Examples of this are: XIII for the Xbox and Super Paper Mario for the Wii.

Abstraction is giving the games an unrealistic feel and therefore feel different when you play them, usually these games come out on the handheld consoles and some home consoles. Examples of thiese are: Patapon and Lemmings for PSP.

Exaggeration is like Photorealism, but the people's facial features are exaggerated and the game play is more adventure type and quest like games like the Final Fantasy 13 for Xbox 360. They're also featured in beat 'em ups like BlazBlue for the Xbox 360 and handheld consoles Scribblenauts on the Nintendo DS where your character has a square head with eyes very far apart.

2-D or 3-D games - What Are They and Examples

2-D games is short for 2-Dimensional usually these kind of games are more retro and older however some do make it to the Seventh Generation consoles, (Xbox 360, PS3). 2-D games are defined as 2-D games as it has no depth meaning that you can't look around the objects. As shown in Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Megadrive and Super Mario Bros for the NES. The 2-D games are still around for Flash games on the PC, examples include: Sonic the Hedgehog (Unofficial) and Flash Pacman.

However, there are 3-D games; 3-D stands for 3-Dimensional. 3-D games are more realistic and gives the game a more life like atmosphere, the N64 given the start to 3-D games; this is true to today with the Seventh Generation Consoles, there are great games for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii. An example of this is COD 4 for the Xbox 360.

 This game has 3-D graphics using the 3 dimensions, (height, width and depth). The consoles are really powerful and can withstand the graphics engine. Also beat 'em ups use this as well, some examples of these are Soul Calibur 4 and Tekken 6, both games share between Xbox 360 and PS3.

These games use 3-D modelling to make the environment realistic and life like and the floor also breaks.

Super Smash Bros Brawl Box Art

I like the artwork to this game because I think the blue background matches the beat em up genre. Also the characters on the artwork suggest that there are a wide range of characters. The box art relates to the game by having Mario having his hands clenched and is ready for a fight. This helps the game to sell because the range of characters and the fact it has Wi Fi connection gets gamers to buy the game. The target market of this title is 7 years and over because it has cartoon violence. I reckon that it hits the target market by having customisable characters and a huge range as well. If I could change anything about the artwork I would take Pikachu and Ash out and put R.O.B the robot and Sonic the Hedgehog because there will be an ongoing rivalry between SEGA and Nintendo.