Unit 73: Sound for Computer Games

Unit 73: Sound for Computer Games

P1 Understand the use of Sound and Music in Games.

Steven Hatcher

Psychology of sound

In Mortal Kombat they use speech to make the game and the fight more dramatic, for example they say "Fatality" during the end of the fight when someone manages to use a fatality move on an opponent. In Sonic they use a sort of dinging sound whenever you collect a ring that has become iconic as when somebody hears that sound they automatically associate it with the sonic rings because they are so famous. In many games they use a dinging sound from a triangle during a eureka moment that indicates they have just come up with an idea.

Timbre Definition

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Timbre includes the pitch of a sound either by an instrument or a voice, which means how high or how deep the sound is, and the intensity of the sound, meaning is the sound loud or is is soft and quiet and something people can relax to.

P1

A) In Skyrim they use the title music to create a bit of suspense as well as get the players pumped up before they play the game, the music worked in getting me pumped up because the music starts off slow and then gets faster as it goes on. I would not use different music for this because I think that it fits very well.

     My second game is the battle theme music in Pokemon Pearl, they use this music to create a little bit of suspense when you are battling because it although it is quite upbeat it can also be quite slow to try and make you panic and lose the battle, this music work in creating a bit of suspense because it can slightly distract you. I would change the music a little bit by making them slower and a little deeper to create even more suspense.

     My third game is in Life is Strange at the end when they use slow and soft music, they use this music to try and create a sad mood as you have just made a hard choice that both you and the character could regret, this music works because it will make you feel emotional and get you more involved in the game because you have already connected to the characters and then this has happened. I would not have changed the music because it fits so well for the mood and in being able to really make you realise what is happening to the characters that you have spent all game connecting to.

B) Music and SFX are extremely important because without them the games would be extremely boring as you would just have the gameplay and have nothing else to immerse yourself and try to connect with the game and characters, however with music people are able to get more involved in the game by being able to recognise music of the game and also have music to help immerse themselves.

What is Waveform? (Wavelength, amplitude, frequency)
Waveform is graphic image which represent a shape or form of a sound. There are different type of waveform: Sine, Square, Triangle and Sawtooth wave These waveform are different from each other depending on the type of sound, also depending on the pitch, amplitude and decibel level.
Wavelength of a wave is the distance between a point on one wave to the next wave
Amplitude is the amount of energy/power in a sound. Amplitude is feature which makes a sound louder or quicker.
Frequency is the amount of waves passed every second and determines the level of the sound.


What is Pitch?The highness or lowness of a tone. A high tone has a high pitch and a low tone has a low pitch.
What is Hertz?Is the unit of frequency. The lowest, people can hear is 20 hertz, also depends on the individual age, for example, the lowest hertz older people can hear is 30 Hertz. However, young people/teenager can hear 20 hertz sound.
What is Decibel level (dB)? It is used to measure sound level. It is a way of describing a ratio, this may be power, sound pressure, intensity, voltage etc. The louder the sound the higher the decibel measurement.
What is Sound Generator?Sound Generator are device which creates sound such as speakers or headset.
What is Foley?

Music, FX and legal Considerations

1. A few sources where you can find music/SFX include: Soundation, Royalty Free Websites, Original Composition and Commissioning someone to do the music for you.

2. In Skyrim they use a little piece of music every time you level up. Note: Mood, action and suspense is chosen piece while everything else is where in the game it is.

Client Brief

Unit 78: Digital Graphics

Aim: To be able to plan and produce concept art.

Client Brief

Brief:

I would like you to create a 2D Science Fiction game that will have elements of either a platform game, side scrolling game or a maze game that includes maths or puzzle elements in the game.

My Brief:

Although my client hasn't given me any specifications for other elements of the game I will be taking back my ideas to the client and working together with them to come up with what ideas would work best.

This is Rogue Legacy which my game and Artistic style is inspired from.

For this I am making a 2D science fiction game which is a side scrolling platform game that is also a maze as you have to work out the way to the exit, because of this there will be puzzle elements and a little amount of maths elements added in to the game. The artistic style I will hopefully be using after discussing it with the client is pixel art as not only is it appropriate for a 2D game it will also look really good for my type of game.

For this game I will create concept art that I will show to client to see if they like the ideas that I am coming up with. For the background of my game I am going to have a few different backgrounds that all show either a wall of a spaceship or outer space through a window on the spaceship. The only In-Game Interface I will have in this game is your characters health and a small map to help you navigate the spaceships.

The plot for my game is that you are an alien hunter that goes around space in your ship looking for other ships so you can explore them to look for better equipment but also look for rogue aliens that need to be eliminated and eventually find the boss alien who is the hardest to kill and beat the game. My game would be a PEGI 12 according to their outlines because my game does have a bit of violence towards fantasy characters and a little violence to human looking characters because if you get shot and die.

The target audience for this game will mainly be teenagers who enjoy puzzle and exploration games with a little bit of action mixed in as well, this is because there is a bit of violence included in the game with the fact that you have to kill enemy aliens to advance through the game and eventually beat it.

The visual style of my game includes lots of bright colours but also mixed with a lot of dull colours like black and grey, as I am using the pixel art style I am really going to focus on how they look and how to make it so you can easily see them even if they blend in with the background. For the characters of this game there is going to be sprites for multiple aliens for different areas and levels along with the main character who is a human with armour and a gun, there will also be a space background and different guns for the character to use.

Unit 78: P2 Generating Concept art Ideas for Computer Games

Level 3 Games Design

Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games

Computer Game Graphics

For this please click on this link as it goes to my computer game graphics exercise that is already completed: Click Here

Client Needs

The client needs are when a client has given you some specifications that they would like you to complete for them and try to stick as close to that as they can.

Audience
The audience is either the people that end up playing the game that has been created or they are the target audience which is where the game designers design a game to be played by that audience however it is not always specifically for that audience and no one else.

Thumbnail Sketching
This is where you have little concept drawings around the size of a thumb that help with just trying to get some quick ideas down and you can then go over it and change anything you don't like when you eventually make it bigger to allow you to go into more detail.

Visual Style
This is where you decide what sort of colours and styles you will use for your concept art and also your final designs and what art style will work best with those colours and styles so you can make it look as good as you possibly can.

Typography
This is where you choose the font style, colour and size that you think will best match the style/theme you are going for as you don't want something that doesn't fit the theme as it will look completely ridiculous.

Technical Considerations
This is where you have to look and consider if the game and art you are working on will be able to work correctly on the hardware and software. For this you have to take into consideration the file format everything is saved as, how big those files are, how best to optimise your work for the platform and what to name each individual asset so it doesn't get lost.

Composition
This is where you have to place elements at the correct scale to everything else so that it all looks like it is in the correct places and be where they should be so that it is both logical and looks aesthetically pleasing to the people looking at it. One technique to help is the rule of thirds which is where the screen is split into nine equal pieces and where the lines cross near the centre is where our eyes are drawn to and what looks the most pleasing to us even if we don't know why. There is also where we place the HUD on the screen as it is only logical that we place it on the outer edges of the screen and not in the middle where our eyes are drawn to the character or the background. Finally there is line leading which is a technique where artists use a line that draws our attention and then leads us to the main subject in that screen.

Short Story for Pacman

The beginning of this game starts with Pacman finally destroying the ghost king that has plagued his country for so long. He starts off as a ghost exterminator so that he can earn enough money to go on the adventure and as he builds a reputation the levels in the area gets harder and the ghosts get quicker. Eventually he has enough money and quits his job but with a promise to come back as quick as possible. However before he can leave Ms. Pacman, a childhood friend, decides to join him and help by making sure he eats healthy and giving him fruit.

Along his journey Pacman meets up with new allies that all help him in their own special ways by giving him different power ups that help him exterminate the ghosts so he can find clues as to where his father and the ghost king is so that he can finally have a family and free Pacnation from the ghosts. On his travels he is constantly going to different biomes in Pacnation where the clues have lead him.

Finally he finds the ghost king and defeats all of his disciples weakening him and making him smaller until Pacman can eat him whole, however as they are celebrating Pacman gets a flashback of what has happened to his dad and finding out that he is the Ghost King however he decides no to tell anyone and keep it to himself. Finally there is a scene that shows Pacman and Ms. Pacman older and with children.

Unit 78, Exercise 3 Pixel's and Types of Digital Graphics

Level 3 Games Design

Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games

What is a Pixel?

A pixel is often represented as a square on many software's as it is such a simple shape and makes it easy to see each individual pixel when drawing on a computer. However as shown in this article by a former Microsoft employee "A pixel is a point sample. It exists only at a point. For a colour picture, a pixel might actually contain three samples, one for each primary colour contributing to the picture at the sampling point. We can still think of this as a point sample of a colour. But we cannot think of a pixel as a square—or anything other than a point. There are cases where the contributions to a pixel can be modelled, in a low-order way, by a little square, but not ever the pixel itself. An image is a rectilinear array of point samples". I like this quote as it goes into detail about exactly what a pixel is and is explained in such a way that it is easy to understand. You can find further information about the article here: Click Here for Article. This is an example of pixel art which uses pixels to create an image:

Types of Digital Graphics

There are two types of digital graphics, these are Raster and Vector images. A vector image is an image that is made up of polygons which allow you to have a much more detailed image, especially when you zoom in as it still keeps it's quality and stays sharp, you would use these images in a game when you want to use an image in different areas/levels however in one of them it is blown up/zoomed in so it still keeps it's quality.

Some different types of Vector images include: PSD (Photoshop) is where the image is saved from Photoshop and still has the layers that you made the image with you would use this in a game over anything else if you want to create a very detailed game where you can edit the tiniest detail and add shading to make it look better whilst sometimes actually making a layered effect for the background, WMF (Windows Metafile) was designed by windows to be used between applications however it uses both vector and bitmap, FLA (Adobe Flash) is content that can be affected by user interaction and AI (Adobe Illustrator) is the save file for a vector image created with the use of adobe illustrator, these vector images are best used for logos because it allows them to adjust the size of the image to fit different surfaces and still retain their quality.

You would only use these images for a system that uses a large storage as they take up a lot of space and therefore would not work on a phone or tablet. This is also a video explaining the differences: Click Here for Video.

This picture shows what a logo looks like in a vector image and a raster image and you can clearly see the difference in quality.

A Raster image is an image that is usually a rectangular grid of pixels, because of this when you blow up/zoom in to the image the quality of the image goes down as you start to see the pixels that make up the image that you are looking at therefore making it pixelated and at a lesser quality. You would use this in a game when you are using an image at the same size all throughout so it stays at the same quality.

Some different types of raster images include: BMP(Bitmap) is used to store images that contain one or more bits of information, GIF(Graphics Interface Format) a lossless format for image files that supports both static images and animations you would use this for when you want to insert a small animation or movie as it doesn't take a lot of storage but still retains the quality you want for a small animation, TIFF(Tagged Image File Format) is a common format for exchanging raster graphics images between application programs, it is also better than JPEG because it allows a better depth but is still compressed allowing them to be much better for phone games than JPEG images as it takes up the same space but has more quality and JPEG(Joint Photographic Export Groups) is an image format that is supported by the group, these raster images are best used for web graphics because they only need to be used at one size so it doesn't matter about the quality if you zoom in because that is not what they are used for.

You would use these images in a phone or tablet game because these files are compressed and take up less space but reduce the quality and phones and tablets don't have enough storage to use. This is a video explaining raster images: Click Here for Video. In real life raster images are often used for digital publication because it would not be a good quality if you were to print it out, however they can be used to reproduce photographs that can then be used for printing. For this information I used this website: Click Here for Website.

Games Design Principles - Task 3

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a fantasy, RPG game in which you create a character and use magic or handheld weapons to fight your way through a war to decide the fate off Nirn. In this game you do what you want by exploring and making choices that affect your future in Skyrim.

What I really liked about Skyrim was being able to freely explore the map and doing whatever I want with no consequences, I also really enjoy the levelling up system in the game as it is extremely different from any other game I have played. I disliked the glitches in this game as although some can be very fun a lot of them break the game and either make you lose your save or crashes meaning you were not able to save your progress. One such glitch is getting stuck in a random wall: Stuck in Wall Glitch.

The graphics in the game are 3D and are good for when they were made but they still look slightly off which to me makes it look even better as the game is set in a medieval time where everything was dark and unrefined so I think it fits the game. The music in the game is very fitting as it is very much a medieval theme with the grunts and weapons in the background of the music. There are no cinematics in the game because everything is around you and what you do. The game is all about story and the different choices you make and how that effects the story as you progress. There is a lot of content in the game including the main story and three DLC's that can give you 100's of hours of fun. The controls can be a little complicated when you start the game but as you play you get used to them very quickly and they are easy to remember and smooth. The gameplay is fun because you can do what you want and make different choices for that character and then make a new one and make different choices allowing you to have endless fun. Personally this is my favourite game of all time and always will be because I can play for days and never get bored with all the different opportunities there are in the game.

Overall this is a fantasy game that you can play for hours and never get bored with the massive story and DLC's, however watch out for the glitches that you will undoubtedly encounter at random time. Overall I give it a 8.5/10.

Unit 78, Exercise 2 Computer Game Graphics

Level 3 Games Design

Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games

Computer Game Graphics


Pixel Art
Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of software, where images are edited on the pixel level. The majority of graphics for 8-bit and 16-bit computers and video game consoles, as well as other limited systems like graphing calculators, is pixel art. There are 2D sprites which are just sprites where you can only see on side(face) of the sprite. A 2D isometric sprite is where you still only see one side  however because of the way it is drawn/looks it looks 3D and not 2D as the angles off the starting point are always 30 degrees.

Concept Art
The main goal of concept art is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in films, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. In other words, it aims to convey the overall design vision rather than specify everything in exact terms right at the start.

Texture Art
Texture is how something feels and in a game it is how something looks with different colours and shades to create textures allowing others to be able to get a feel of what the material is.

Background Graphics
Background graphics is the graphics that are used in the background of a game to create different effects and environments.

In-Game Interface
An In-Game Interface is the vital information that is shown on the screen at all times including the health and other information.

Print Media
Means of mass communication in the form of printed publications, such as newspapers and magazines that are used to advertise the product in the forms of game posters and the game packaging that uses art from in the game to help show people what to expect when they buy and play the game.