Art Styles Research

This research document will mainly look into the research to different art styles, what has been used well in previous games before it, what styles suit the platform due to its limitations and the theme of Facebook games and why the art styles are popularly used games and other media such as films and animation.

Art Styles:

4 main types of art I'll be looking at as these seem to be the more consistent in games on all platforms and work better for the audiences its reaching. The art styles to be looked at are:

1. Realism Based
2. Cartoon / CGI
3. Cel-Shaded (Manga etc)
4. Pixel Art

Realism-Based
Realistic style basically means getting all features such as characters, environments and props look as close to how they do in the real-world as possible. Characters look like real humans and can give the player a more immersive experience as they can associate with the style more as it's "close to home". Realism works when the game is meant to look like a real-life experience or a story which needs to be in more depth. Sometimes the art style doesn't work as some of the aspects of a game are obviously fictional and need to be exaggerated so sometimes, choosing this style is not the right road to take and can ruin a game.

Gran Turismo: Photo-Realistic Style used to make  the game look authentic and give the player an experience as if he/she is driving the sports car in a real-life environment.











Cartoon:
Cartoon based art in games is used when there is some irregular component in the game play or graphics that isnt any where near realsitic. Cartoon works well when a game likes to over-exaggerate certain parts of the game such as environments or characters. A game which has used the cartoon style in a successful way is Team Fortress 2. Team Fortress 2 is still played excessively now and had incredible amount of media has been created from the game such as in-game machinima. When there's a message in the game and purposeful story line sometimes its better to steer away from this style as it can ruin the purpose its trying to get across.

Picture of all the characters from Team Fortress 2










Cel-Shaded:
A lot of games use the cel-shaded technique in the games as movement can be portrayed easier then that of realism. Cel Shaded is used a lot in Japan for the manga art style as its simple, quick and does the purpose its meant to. Popular games which have used the technique are the Street Fighter Series. From the sales you can see this is one of the best Beat-em up's going and the latest release has over-exaggerated moves and techniques which can only be shown using the method of style used. With cel-shaded though, it can really limit a game and ruin a game so if done, you have to use it through the whole game and do it a good standard because a player can tell when its not finished.

Representing the Street Fighter Series, some of the characters involved.












Pixel Based:
Pixel Based game were some of the first created as they were simple and had simple rules to follow. Most of the games of the Pixel Generation are popular today and still played. Most currently made games which use the Pixel Art technique in their games are either on PC or handheld console. A well known franchise of game on the handheld console is Pokemon. Pokemon uses pixel art for navigation on the mini-map and because its so simple to understand but also attractive and working, a good use of the technique. You could also say Minecraft is based on the Pixel technique just in the 3D sense (this also shows that it has inspired the future generation of games).

Future Generation Games are still getting inspired by the technique.