HA1 Task 1 – Technical Glossary

This is my technical glossary covering the subject and terminology of the key terms commonly used in the game design practice. I will be explaining individually what each of the main key technical terms entail and what they are used for within the game design world.

I will be covering the following terminology:

• Pixels
• Resolution 
• Colour Models (RGB and CMYK) 
• Raster images (file formats and uses - psd, bmp, gif, tiff, jpg, png) VS vector images (file formats and uses - eps, wmf, fla, svg, ai
• Compression (lossy and lossless) 
• Cross-Platform images (format and uses - pdf) 
• Image capture devices (scanner, digital camera, tablet/smartphone)
• Optimising 
• Storage and asset management 

Pixels
The term pixel is a term commonly used in the game design field, which is short for "Picture Element". These tiny, minute picture elements are seen as dots or squares and make up the images you see on display screens such as televisions, computer screens and mobile device screens like MP3 players and touch screen mobile phones.

When you look really closely at a screen on any of the mentioned devices, you can actually start to make out the tiny pixels that make up the whole image that you see on your screen. The amount of the pixels you will see depends on the overall resolution of an image and the age of the screen of your devices display, as older devices typically have more visible pixels as they have low quality screens, though with the latest range of devices the screens are of a far higher quality, allowing for less visibility of individual pixels, leading to an overall clearer display.

Below is an image I have taken of my computer screen up close. As you can see the pixels are barely visible even up close, though still slightly visible, this is due to the fact that the computer screen I use is a relatively new model with HD (High Definition) output, allowing a much clearer display.

Below is an up close image of an older computer screen, as you can see the pixels are extremely visible, making the image barely recognisable from such a close distance. The pixels are also quite large, meaning that less pixels are used to create the overall size of the display, leading to a less clear display and an overall more undesirable experience when using this display for web surfing and playing or creating games.


http://www.dansdata.com/images/dcrip7/screenmacro.jpg




Resolution
Resolution is a term that you will commonly come across in the game design field and various media related fields. Resolution is a term that is used to describe the overall size and quality of an image. The resolution set to your devices display device, such as your television or computer screen, often varies in size. The overall size of your resolution is very important, as the higher it is, the clearer the image will become, because more pixels overall are needed to create the entire image, meaning the higher the resolution, the clearer the image is from a distance and up close.

When you are buying a new television from a website such as currys.co.uk, when you read the description for the specific TV you have chosen, you will see details describing the resolution of your chosen product. As you can see below, the resolution is stated as 1366 x 768, which is a very high resolution, meaning that the display will be clear and of a good size. This particular TV is a 32" TV, meaning that it is of a reasonable size, though the resolution is appropriate for this size of TV, if the same resolution was used on a larger TV, then the display would not be as clear, as more pixels would be used to create the overall display, which is part of the reason why larger TV's are more expensive.

As you can see below, for a 50" TV, the resolution is far higher that the 32" TV, which is necessary for creating a high quality display on such a large screen as more pixels are needed to create an overall clearer image.

Colour Models (RGB and CMYK)
When designing in colour, you will come across the two most common colour models, which are RGB and CMYK. RGB colour is used for digital media like televisions and websites and CMYK is typically used for printing things like leaflets and posters.

RGB is short for red, green and blue, these are the primary colours recognized in design fields. The RGB model is an additive model, in which colours are added together to make up the whole image we see on our screens. When magnified, pixels that make up an image are seen as red green and blue, though when light is projected through them, our eyes interpret them as various other colours.

CMYK is short for colours, cyan, magenta, yellow and black and is a subtractive model. With subtractive models like CMYK, colours from the spectrum are subtracted from natural light into pigments, these pigments are printed onto paper in minuscule dots in cyan, magenta, yellow and black. When magnified, the printed image can be clearly seen to be made up of tiny dots made up of the mentioned colours, creating the appearance of other colours, creating to overall image.

Both RGB and CMYK models can not replicate every colour imaginable, though can create enough colours to entertain and satisfy the human eye.

When printing an image you will usually have the choice of printing it as an RGB or a CMYK, Your choice will determine the overall speed of the printing process and the representation of the colours you wish to be apparent in your print.

Below is a comparison of CMYK and RGB colour models. This image demonstrates the difference between how colours will look when on a computer screen as an RGB compared to how they will look and be reproduced in a CMYK printing process.


Raster images (file formats and uses - psd, bmp, gif, tiff, jpg, png) VS vector images (file formats and uses - eps, wmf, fla, svg, ai
Raster images are captured or created as a set of samples of a given space. A raster is a gird of X and Y coordinates on a display space and a grid of X, Y and Z for 3D images. The function of a raster image, is to highlight the necessary and appropriate areas of an image to highlight and illuminate in the appropriate colour values, determining what dimensions it represent such as 2D or 3D. Raster files are often referred to as bitmap files, due tot he fact that they contain information that is directly mapped to a specific display grid.

A raster file is larger that a vector image file, as a raster file is usally a lot more difficult to modify without loss of information. There are some tools that cna actually convert a raster file into a vector file, which ois helpful for when you wnat to modify the cntents of a raster file, withouht corrupting the information and losing the file.

The following file types are raster images, PSD, BMP, GIF, TIFF, JPG and PNG.

Raster images are effective, though are not infinitely scalable, where as Vector images can be infinitely scaled, without loss of detail and mass pixelation. Below is an example of the difference between raster and vector images, you can quite clearly see that when the raster image is scaled upward, the image becomes far more pixelated and unrecognisable, whereas the vector image retains its overall quality and visibility.


http://api.ning.com/files/aCFMTTNs7OP3jH51v8dTDLG2lWqirUn1HWS-DcUDUTHqg3D2wr8QA5J2fAFXsdZdoUW7fbSPAsLB9y4USsXhBw__/raster_vs_vector_surveying.jpg

As you can clearly identify, Vector file types such as eps, wmf, fla, svg, ai, are far more desirable formats for creating images that need to be greatly scaled. Raster file types would make for poor images to be featured on clothing websites, in which a shopper would like to zoom in on an image to see smaller details of a piece of clothing, whereas vector images would not decrease in quality when zoomed in upon, though I have yet to find a clothing website that use vector images. Below are two images of a shirt on the website asos.com, as this image is a raster image, when displayed at its default distance, the shirt appears fairly clear upon the model, though when zoomed in upon, loses its clarity and detail. If the image was a vector image, this would not be the case, and the image would not lose detail and clarity.

Below are examples of uses for the mentioned file types.

File formats and uses
BMP (Bitmap images) - BMP files are raster based file formats used in many different programs.
PNG - (Portable Network Graphics) - Raster based file type similar to jpg, but higher quality and bigger file size.
GIF - (Graphics Interchange Format) A file type that displays animated images.
TIFF - (Tagged Image File Format) - A format popular with graphic artists.
JPEG -(Joint Photographic Expert Group) - A file used to hold images for use on the internet.
PSD - (Photoshop Document) - A document that contains a users work created on Photoshop.
PDF - (Portable Document Format) - PDF's are used to transport documents and make them easy for other to access without being able to edit the content.
EPS - (Encapsulated PostScript) - A file format used mainly used to stored drawings.
AI - (Adobe Illustrator Artwork) - the file format used to save work created in Adobe Illustrator.

Compression
Compression is a term used to describe a method used to compress files, making them smaller and easier to transport and send to others. If you receive an email on Outlook.com, and it contained several attachments, you may be asked if you want to download them all as a Zip file, this file format is a compressed file that contains all of your work, making the work easier to transport and doesn't take up much space compared to all of the standalone files if they were to be uncompressed.

The main reason people compress files into a zip folder, is so they can be easily transported across platforms and devices. For example, if you had created a game with thousands of files and directories within, containing important game assets such as models and UV maps, the overall amount of files would add up to a large amount of space required to store the files. The amount of time it will take to transfer all of this data would be extended depending on the overall size of all of the files, which could lead to hours being taken up waiting for files to be transferred to a new device such as another computer. By compressing the files into one document, you are decreasing the amount of space required to store the files, allowing the transfer of these files as a compressed file type to take up less time.

One example of a program that allows the compression and extraction of files, is WinZip. This software allows you to compress multiple files together using simple tools so they can be easily extracted when transferred between devices as you can see below.

http://imagewz.winzip.com/static/images/winzip_main_window_in_xp.gif

Cross-Platform images (format and uses - pdf) 
Cross-Platform images are images that retain the same layout and compatibility across all platforms, without loss of any data of necessary information and compatibility, enabling for easy access across multiple platforms such as mobile phones and personal computers.

For example, if you create a word document containing various information and images, you can export it as a PDF and use programs such as Adobe Reader which is accessible via all platforms to view this document in a simple form, which you can also download on various platforms to view at a later date or edit yourself. 

Below you can see various PDF files being viewed on a mobile, tablet and a PC. 

Mobile

http://img.bhs4.com/ca/b/cab7b2e013b1fdd89c28a170db2ddb4ba3dde85c_large.jpg

Tablet

http://www.alwaysonpc.com/images/view_pdf.png

PC

http://www.powersolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/pdf-in-adobe-reader-good.png

Image capture devices (scanner, digital camera, tablet/smartphone)
Image capture devises are devices that capture an image and allow you to store it or transfer it to your own computer or any other device capable of storing images. Most devices today have an image capturing feature, such as scanners, which allow the user to scan any created image or document they wish, before being able to store it on your computer. To scan you simply locate your scanner or print/scanner combo in your device within your control panel, before right clicking your chosen device and selecting start scan. The scanning process will then begin before asking you where you would like to save your document, follow this step and then you will be able to do what you wish with the scanned document once it is stored on your computer.

Another example of an image capturing device is as camera, a camera can take many different images and allows you to transfer those images to a device than can store them, such as a computer, when you have the images on your device, you are then free to do whatever you wish with them.

Tablets and smartphones both also have image capturing features in which use the same methods as a camera to capture as many photographs as you like before transferring them to a device such as a computer or even straight to a social networking device straight from your phone, such as Facebook or instagram. Many phones also have the feature to edit photographs captured on your mobile phne or tablet, before uploading them to various other apps for sharing.

Below is the image capturing user interface as seen on my own phone and below that you will see the image editing feature and sharing feature also located on my phone. You can see the image during and after editing.

Before edit                                                                 After edit

Image sharing
As you can see on my phone, as well as other you can select the app you wish to share the image to before finalising the share on your chosen app.

 


Optimising
Optimising is a process of which you would carry out to maximise the quality of a file. You would do this to an image if you wanted to increase the resolution and to get the best size of file, making for an easy transfer between devices. You can optimise many variations of files to perfrom efficiently and take up a lot less space.

One example of optimisation in the games industry, would be the optimisation of a game itself. When the process of creating a game is complete, the game has to be optimised before it can be released to the public, it has to be checked for faults entirely and its overall size has to be optimised by being compressed into fewer files and smaller in size, in order for it to be easily launched on a gaming console or platform, from a compressed disc or installation directory.

One of the most commonly came across versions of optimisation and compression, is the install file you get for any game or program when you download it from the internet. For example, if I Google search download Warface, which is a free to play game, when I go onto the website I will have the option to download the install file, which I can then launch to install the game. This install file is a compressed file containing thousands of files, but because the files ar optimised and compressed, the game can be downloaded quickly, even though the installation of the files takes a lot longer, as the files are being extracted.

Below are the individual steps of the installation of the game Warface.

Download

Installation and Decompression

Storage and asset management
Storage and asset management are key factors to how many files and how much data can be stored on your computer and how well you manage your assets. There are many devices that can assist you in storing information, such as USB drives and external hard drives, which have a set limit of storage space and can be used to easily transfer date across devices with ease.

Asset management can be a fairly simple process. Operating systems such as Windows 8, have bulit in features that allow you to organise files into various folders that you can create, you can even organise them alphabetically or by their last modified date as you can see below.