In this blog post I'm going to talk about the different visual styles that are often seen in video games. I'll talk about their different levels of complexity and features.
In video games it's vital for the visual style to match the gameplay and mechanics. For example, photo-realism will generally require more slow and realistic movement. Requiring many advanced animations. A photo-realistic game with retro plat-forming controls like Mario would create severe dissonance and the player wouldn't feel right when playing.
Photo realism
The aim of photo-realism is to create games that are as
close to real life as possible. This art form generally has the smallest amount
of artistic freedom. Photo-realism requires powerful processing power, a big
budget, a lot of time and attention to detail. A high contrast ratio is also
needed to recreate the nuances of colour found in real life. The result is
often a lot of shades of grey and brown.
Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes is a good example of this.
Human proportions are realistic, colours are subtly realistic and lighting is
reflecting realistically off many parts of geometry.
Cel shading
Cel shading is a non-realistic rendering design that is
often intended to make a 3D image appear as if drawn. This technique of shading
often carries bright and bold colours with objects and characters being
outlined in a thick black line.
XIII is a good example of this kind of art style. Colours
are basic and bold and the boxes surrounding the picture are laid out in a
comic book style.
Exaggeration
Exaggerated art styles are close to realistic art styles but
with one or numerous elements of the visuals exaggerated. This could be
characters proportions, sizes, colour pallet or lighting.
A good example of this would be Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
In this game, nearly every aspect of the visuals are realistic, but lighting
and colour pallet is exaggerated. The colours of light shafts are nearly always
yellow, while the rest of the colour pallet is mostly black and grey.
Abstract
Abstract visual styles aren’t
related to anything real or concrete. They are remote from reality.
Proportions, lighting, physics and colours aren’t used realistically. They are
used only to enhance the player experience, realistic or not.
A good example of an abstract
game is Fl0w. The world in this game isn’t concrete. It acts a lot like the
ocean or space, with creatures that are somewhat biomechanical. It’s like a
separate reality, creatures are suspended in space and can only move on a 2D
plane until they have eaten a red monster. None of this is realistic and is
there only to enhance the player experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment