Hi everyone, I'm Pere Nolla, professor in the video games creation Master at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and I'm going to explain module 6: the art in video games, set in the course "Video games: what are we talking on?" I hope you like it. First we will see the contents on this module. In this module we will see basically the different kinds of art existing in video games. First we will get a general view on art direction, and then we will focus on each art type: first the conceptual art, then the 2D art, 3D art, animation, lighting, effects, interfaces and finally we will talk on the sound elements, sound effects, and OST. Well, let's start. Art direction: since the beginning of the game design process, we need to find a concrete art style, a setting according to what we want the player to experience. It is highly recommended that we base it on other games, films or comics in aim to have a group of important referents on which we can base our art's direction. The ideal is the aesthetics and the setting are more or less coherent during all the video game. without forgetting the artistic finishing touch one of the main elements, if not the main one, that will seduce our players. It is quite possible that a player decides to buy or play a game only because of its looks, because of the visual and aesthetic style. We can pick an art style depending on many criteria. There is a criteria such as 2D/3D which is both technological and artistic, another one is if we prefer a mangaish or cartoonish aesthetic, or even more realistic, another one is a little bit more socio demographic, depending on the age of our public. In this image belonging to the character Link from the video game series The legend of Zelda, we can see many designs of this character. It is true that those designs belong to Artwork, conceptual art, not in-game art, but they are marking how the same design of the same character can change depending on different art directions. In many games we have found a realistic arts, much more adult, much more serious, and in some others we have found a much simpler art, more cartoonish, even a bit childish. So let's talk about conceptual art. Conceptual art is generated to help and guide the creation of definitive art. This is a tool generated so that later in can be given to the artists which will generate the definitive models, the definitive animations, the definitive textures. There are usually many versions to have a variety of options that can be picked. Mainly the conceptual art format is the sketch, the drawing or the illustration. Conceptual art is very useful because it helps the artists to generate their definitive art, as well as it gives the team members a big hint to understand the art they are going to use. Don't forget the art is usually decided during design phase, based on verbal information, and it is very important to quickly capture this verbal information in a visual format, as it avoids misunderstandings and helps to cohesion and agree with the art direction artistic finish. Here we can see an example of conceptual art. The first sketches usually are easier and they are mostly used to define the characters' face. Usually they have some details such as in this case, where we have the detail of the definitive color. Now let's talk on some 2D art elements. 2D games use an specific technology and a concrete and adapted art. It is true that some game use 3D technology but they keep the 2D aesthetics. In 2D games the graphics information uses images adapted to this format called sprites. Usually this kind of art is associated to an arcade playability and to mobile devices, but we can also find 2D games currently in video games consoles, computers, etc. In this technology we can remark the use of a cartoonish style. Here we have an example of the game Angry Birds, at the left we can see an image of the game with frontal 2D plain graphics, and at the right we have the different characters' sprites. Let's keep talking on 3D art. 3D games combine triangle-based models with textures or image files. Geometric models are created using specific programs. Setting out from this conceptual art, 3D artists and modelers generate models' volumetry, as it can be an object or an item. We must take into account that the number of polygons or triangles used condition the detail level and affect the game's performance. If we use many triangles and polygons, it will look nicer as it will be more detailed, but the engine will have more information to process, so it might affect the game's performance. Here we have an example of a model of the character we have seen in the conceptual art before. Those signals you can see mark the polygons and triangles used. As you can see we start generating the geometry and after that we add the information of color details. This information is generated through the textures, which are simply image files overlapped with the geometrical models. As we were saying, we are basically giving color information. In aim to get the texture correctly overlapped, we need to make a mapping process in the geometry which consists basically on adjusting it to decide what part of the texture or image file will be overlapped in each one of the polygons or triangles. We will illustrate this with an example in the next slide. There are many methods and techniques to generate the textures, usually we use tools such as Photoshop. Similarly to what happened before, textures resolution condition the detail and affect the performance. The highest the resolution, the better the textures will look, but it will be harder for the engine to process them, and so it might affect the game's performance. In this video we will see how one of those textures is applied. As you can see we have a model, the left image shows the mapping instructions, and at the right image you can see the texture itself. This texture is an image file made in a program such as Photoshop, and it will be overlapped with the character we have at the background. As you can see, in the image at the left we use these visual guidelines in aim to fit the geometry with the texture we are going to use. Once we have created the texture and we have made sure it fits the model, we can visualize it together. AS you can see, the color information gives a lot of realism to our character. As you just saw, the 3D art creation process is divided on stages: first comes volumetry, then the texture or color information and after that there will be added many other kinds of information details.