Video game graphics
Encyclopedia
A variety of computer graphic
techniques have been used to display video game content throughout the history of video games. The predominance of individual techniques have evolved over time, primarily due to hardware
advances and restrictions such as the processing power of central
or graphics processing unit
s.
ped or vector graphics. Examples include MUD
s (Multi-User Dungeons), where players could read or view depictions of rooms, objects, other players, and actions performed in the virtual world; and roguelike
s, a sub-genre of role-playing video game
s featuring many monsters, items, and environmental effects, as well as an emphasis on randomization
, replayability and permanent death
. Some of the earliest text games were developed for computer systems which had no video display at all.
Text games are typically easier to write and require less processing power than graphical games, and thus were more common from 1970 to 1990. However, terminal emulator
s are still in use today, and people continue to play MUDs and explore interactive fiction
. Many beginning programmers still create these types of games to familiarize themselves with a programming language
, and contests are held even today on who can finish programming a roguelike within a short time period, such as seven days.
Vector graphics refers to the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines
, and curve
s (i.e. shapes based on mathematical equations) instead of resolution-dependent bitmap graphics to represent image
s in computer graphics
. In video games this type of projection is somewhat rare, but has become more common in recent years in browser-based gaming with the advent of Flash
, since Flash supports vector graphics natively. Earlier examples for the personal computer are Starglider
(1986) and Another World
(1991).
Vector game can also refer to a video game that uses a vector graphics display
capable of projecting images using an electron beam to draw images instead of with pixel
s, much like a laser show
. Many early arcade games used such displays, as they were capable of displaying more detailed images than raster displays
on the hardware available at that time. Many vector-based arcade games used full-color overlays to complement the otherwise monochrome vector images. Other uses of these overlays were very detailed drawings of the static gaming environment, while the moving objects were drawn by the vector beam. Games of this type were produced mainly by Atari
, Cinematronics
, and Sega
. Examples of vector games include Armor Attack
, Eliminator, Lunar Lander
, Space Fury
, Space Wars
, Star Trek
, Tac/Scan
, Tempest and Zektor
. The Vectrex
home console
also used a vector display. After 1985, vector graphics were substantially declining due to improvements to sprite technology, rasterized 3D Filled Polygon Graphics were returning to the arcades and were so popular in the late 80s that vector graphics can no longer compete.
- or movie
-quality recordings and animation
s rather than sprites, vectors
or 3D models to display action in the game. FMV-based games were popular during the early 1990s as CD-ROM
s and Laserdisc
s made their way into the living rooms, providing an alternative to the low-capacity cartridges of most consoles
at the time. Although FMV-based games did manage to look better than many contemporary sprite-based games, they occupied a niche market; and a vast majority of FMV games were panned at the time of their release, with many gamers citing their dislike for the lack of interaction inherent in these games. As a result, the format became a well-known failure in video gaming, and the popularity of FMV games declined substantially after 1995 as more advanced consoles started to become widely available.
A number of different types of games utilized this format. Some resembled modern music/dance games
, where the player timely presses buttons according to a screen instruction. Others included early rail shooters such as Tomcat Alley
, Surgical Strike
and Sewer Shark
. Full motion video was also used in several interactive movie
adventure game
s, such as The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery
and Phantasmagoria.
, allowing developers to create large, complex gameworlds efficiently and with relatively few art assets by dividing the art into sprites or tiles
and reusing them repeatedly (though some games use a mix of different techniques).
role playing
video games, wargames
and construction and management simulation games such as SimCity
, Pokémon
, and Railroad Tycoon
, as well as in action
and action-adventure game
s such as the early The Legend of Zelda
and Grand Theft Auto games.
computer display technology, and sometimes parallax scrolling
to suggest added depth.
In many games the screen follows the player character such that the player character is always positioned near the center of the screen. In other games the position of the screen will change according to the player character's movement, such that the player character is off-center and more space is shown in front of the character than behind. Sometimes, the screen will scroll not only forward in the speed and direction of the player character's movement, but also backwards to previously visited parts of a stage. In other games or stages, the screen will only scroll forwards, not backwards, so that once a stage has been passed it can no longer be visited. In games such as shoot 'em up
s like R-type, the screen scrolls forward by itself at a steady rate, and the player must keep up with the screen, attempting to avoid obstacles and collect things before they pass off screen.
Examples of side-scrolling games include platform game
s such as Sonic the Hedgehog, beat 'em up
s such as the popular Double Dragon
and Battletoads
, and shooters
such as R-type
and (more recently) Jets'n'Guns
. The Super Mario Bros.
series has used all three types of side-scrolling at some time in its history.
/axonometric projection
, oblique projection
, orthographic projection
, billboarding, parallax scrolling
, scaling, skyboxes
, and skydomes. In addition, 3D graphical techniques such as bump mapping
and parallax mapping
are often used to extend the illusion of three-dimensionality without substantially increasing the resulting computational overhead introduced by increasing the polygon count.
The terms sometimes possess a second meaning, wherein the gameplay in an otherwise 3D game is forcibly restricted to a two-dimensional plane.
Examples of games that make use of pseudo-3D techniques include Zaxxon
, The Sims
and Diablo
(isometric/axonometric projection); Ultima VII
and Paperboy
(oblique projection); Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter II
(parallax scrolling); Fonz
and Space Harrier
(scaling); and Half-Life 2
(skyboxes). In addition to axonometric projection, games such as The Sims
and Final Fantasy Tactics
also make use of a combination of pre-drawn 2D sprites and real-time polygonal graphics instead of relying entirely on 2D sprites as is the norm.
, video games could expand beyond the typically sprite-based 2D graphics of older graphics technologies to describe a view frequently more true to reality and lifelike than their predecessors. Perspective projection has also been used in some earlier titles to present a 3D view from a fixed (and thus somewhat less hardware-intensive) perspective with a limited ability to move.
ed in real time
against a static background. The principal advantage of this technique is its ability to display a high level of detail on minimal hardware. The main disadvantage is that the player's frame of reference remains fixed at all times, preventing players from examining or moving about the environment from multiple viewpoints.
Backgrounds in fixed 3D games tend to be pre-rendered
two-dimensional images, but are sometimes rendered in real time (e.g. Blade Runner). The developers of SimCity 4
took advantage of fixed perspective by not texturing the reverse sides of objects (and thereby speeding up rendering) which players could not see anyway. Fixed 3D is also sometimes used to "fake" areas which are inaccessible to players. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
, for instance, is nearly completely 3D, but uses fixed 3D to represent many of the building interiors as well as one entire town. (This technique was later dropped in favor of full-3D in the game's successor, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
.) A similar technique, the skybox
, is used in many 3D games to represent distant background objects that are not worth rendering in real time.
Used heavily in the survival horror genre, fixed 3D was first seen in Infogrames
' Alone in the Dark
series in the early 1990s. It was later revived and brought up-to-date by Capcom
in the Resident Evil
series. Gameplay-wise there is little difference between fixed 3D games and their 2D precursors. Players' ability to navigate within a scene still tends to be limited, and interaction with the gameworld remains mostly "point-and-click".
Further examples include the PlayStation
-era titles in the Final Fantasy
series (Square
); the role-playing games Parasite Eve
and Parasite Eve II
(Square
); the action-adventure games Ecstatica
and Ecstatica 2 (Andrew Spencer/Psygnosis), as well as Little Big Adventure
(Adeline Software International
); the graphic adventure Grim Fandango
(LucasArts
); and 3D Movie Maker
(Microsoft Kids).
Pre-rendered backgrounds are also found in some isometric video games, such as the role-playing game The Temple of Elemental Evil (Troika Games
) and the Baldur's Gate
series (BioWare
); though in these cases the form of graphical projection used is not different.
rendered from the viewpoint of the player character. In many cases, this may be the viewpoint from the cockpit of a vehicle. Many different genres have made use of first-person perspectives, ranging from adventure game
s to flight simulator
s. Perhaps the most notable genre to make use of this device is the first-person shooter
genre, where the graphical perspective has an immense impact on game play.
Games with a first-person perspective are usually avatar
-based, wherein the game displays what the player's avatar would see with the avatar's own eyes. Thus, players typically cannot see the avatar's body, though they may be able to see the avatar's weapons or hands. This viewpoint is also frequently used to represent the perspective of a driver within a vehicle, as in flight and racing simulators; and it is common to make use of positional audio, where the volume of ambient sounds varies depending on their position with respect to the player's avatar.
Games with a first-person perspective do not require sophisticated animations for the player's avatar, and do not need to implement a manual or automated camera-control scheme as in third-person perspective. A first person perspective allows for easier aiming, since there is no representation of the avatar to block the player's view. However, the absence of an avatar can make it difficult to master the timing and distances required to jump between platforms, and may cause motion sickness
in some players.
Players have come to expect first-person games to accurately scale objects to appropriate sizes. However, key objects such as dropped items or levers may be exaggerated in order to improve their visibility.
rendered from a view that is some distance away (usually behind and slightly above) from the players character. This viewpoint allows players to see a more strongly characterized avatar, and is most common in action
and action-adventure game
s. This viewpoint poses some difficulties, however, in that when the player turns or stands with his back to a wall, the camera may jerk or end up in awkward positions. Developers have tried to alleviate this issue by implementing intelligent camera systems, or by giving the player control over the camera. There are three primary types of third-person camera systems: "fixed camera systems" in which the camera positions are set during the game creation; "tracking camera systems" in which the camera simply follows the player's character; and "interactive camera systems" that are under the player's control.
Examples of games utilizing third-person perspective include Super Mario 64
, the Tomb Raider
series, and Crash Bandicoot.
Computer graphics
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....
techniques have been used to display video game content throughout the history of video games. The predominance of individual techniques have evolved over time, primarily due to hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
advances and restrictions such as the processing power of central
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
or graphics processing unit
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
s.
Text-based
Some of the earliest video games were text games or text-based games that used text characters instead of bitmapBitmap
In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to...
ped or vector graphics. Examples include MUD
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
s (Multi-User Dungeons), where players could read or view depictions of rooms, objects, other players, and actions performed in the virtual world; and roguelike
Roguelike
The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many...
s, a sub-genre of role-playing video game
Role-playing game (video games)
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
s featuring many monsters, items, and environmental effects, as well as an emphasis on randomization
Procedural generation
Procedural generation is a widely used term in the production of media; it refers to content generated algorithmically rather than manually. Often, this means creating content on the fly rather than prior to distribution...
, replayability and permanent death
Permanent death
In role-playing video games , permanent death is a situation in which player characters die permanently and are removed from the game...
. Some of the earliest text games were developed for computer systems which had no video display at all.
Text games are typically easier to write and require less processing power than graphical games, and thus were more common from 1970 to 1990. However, terminal emulator
Terminal emulator
A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....
s are still in use today, and people continue to play MUDs and explore interactive fiction
Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
. Many beginning programmers still create these types of games to familiarize themselves with a programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
, and contests are held even today on who can finish programming a roguelike within a short time period, such as seven days.
Vector graphics
Line (mathematics)
The notion of line or straight line was introduced by the ancient mathematicians to represent straight objects with negligible width and depth. Lines are an idealization of such objects...
, and curve
Curve
In mathematics, a curve is, generally speaking, an object similar to a line but which is not required to be straight...
s (i.e. shapes based on mathematical equations) instead of resolution-dependent bitmap graphics to represent image
Image
An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...
s in computer graphics
Computer graphics
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....
. In video games this type of projection is somewhat rare, but has become more common in recent years in browser-based gaming with the advent of Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
, since Flash supports vector graphics natively. Earlier examples for the personal computer are Starglider
Starglider
Starglider is a 3D video game released in 1986 by Rainbird. It was developed by Argonaut Software, led by programmer Jez San. The game was inspired by Jez San's love of the 1983 Atari coin-op Star Wars, It was a fast-moving, first-person combat flight simulator, rendered with colourful wireframe...
(1986) and Another World
Another World (video game)
Another World, also known as Out of This World in North America and Outer World in Japan, is a 1991 cinematic platformer designed and developed by Eric Chahi...
(1991).
Vector game can also refer to a video game that uses a vector graphics display
Vector monitor
A vector monitor or vector display is a display device used for early computers. It is a type of CRT, similar to the oscilloscope, but typically uses magnetic, rather than electrostatic, deflection...
capable of projecting images using an electron beam to draw images instead of with pixel
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
s, much like a laser show
Laser lighting display
A laser lighting display or laser light show involves the use of laser light to entertain an audience. A laser light show may consist only of projected laser beams set to music, or may accompany another form of entertainment, typically a dance concert or other musical performance.Laser light is...
. Many early arcade games used such displays, as they were capable of displaying more detailed images than raster displays
Raster graphics
In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
on the hardware available at that time. Many vector-based arcade games used full-color overlays to complement the otherwise monochrome vector images. Other uses of these overlays were very detailed drawings of the static gaming environment, while the moving objects were drawn by the vector beam. Games of this type were produced mainly by Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
, Cinematronics
Cinematronics
Cinematronics Incorporated was a pioneering arcade game developer that had its heyday in the era of vector display games. While other companies released games based on raster displays, early in their history, Cinematronics and Atari released vector-display games, which offered a distinctive look...
, and Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
. Examples of vector games include Armor Attack
Armor Attack
Armor Attack is a top-down vector shoot 'em up arcade game released by Cinematronics in 1980, licensed to Sega in Japan. The game was originally released as a coin-operated arcade cabinet. It was also licensed for conversion to the Vectrex video game console....
, Eliminator, Lunar Lander
Lunar Lander (arcade game)
Lunar Lander is an arcade game released by Atari, Inc. in 1979, which uses a vector monitor to display vector graphics. Although not particularly successful, a vector-graphics generator was the impetus of Atari's most successful coin-operated game: Asteroids. The object of the game is to pilot a...
, Space Fury
Space Fury
Space Fury a multi-directional shooter arcade game created by Sega released on June 17, 1981. The game was an early example of color vector graphics and it also featured speech synthesis.-Gameplay:...
, Space Wars
Space Wars
Space Wars was the first vector graphics arcade game. It is based on Spacewar!, a PDP-1 program. It was ported to the Vectrex in 1982...
, Star Trek
Star Trek (arcade game)
Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator is a space combat simulation arcade game based on the original Star Trek television program, and released by Sega in 1982. It is a vector game, with both a two-dimensional display and a three-dimensional first-person perspective...
, Tac/Scan
Tac/Scan
Tac/Scan is a 1982 space combat shooter video game originally released as an arcade game, and later ported to the Atari 2600. It was also included as an unlockable game in the PlayStation 2 version of Sega Genesis Collection...
, Tempest and Zektor
Zektor
Zektor is a multi-directional shooter arcade game created by Sega in 1982, which challenges the player to pilot a space ship in a quest to recapture eight cities that have been...
. The Vectrex
Vectrex
The Vectrex is a vector display-based video game console that was developed by Western Technologies/Smith Engineering. It was licensed and distributed first by General Consumer Electric , and then by Milton Bradley Company after their purchase of GCE...
home console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
also used a vector display. After 1985, vector graphics were substantially declining due to improvements to sprite technology, rasterized 3D Filled Polygon Graphics were returning to the arcades and were so popular in the late 80s that vector graphics can no longer compete.
Full motion video
Full motion video (FMV) games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
- or movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
-quality recordings and animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
s rather than sprites, vectors
Vector graphics
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics...
or 3D models to display action in the game. FMV-based games were popular during the early 1990s as CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
s and Laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
s made their way into the living rooms, providing an alternative to the low-capacity cartridges of most consoles
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
at the time. Although FMV-based games did manage to look better than many contemporary sprite-based games, they occupied a niche market; and a vast majority of FMV games were panned at the time of their release, with many gamers citing their dislike for the lack of interaction inherent in these games. As a result, the format became a well-known failure in video gaming, and the popularity of FMV games declined substantially after 1995 as more advanced consoles started to become widely available.
A number of different types of games utilized this format. Some resembled modern music/dance games
Music video game
A music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's interactions with a musical score or individual songs...
, where the player timely presses buttons according to a screen instruction. Others included early rail shooters such as Tomcat Alley
Tomcat Alley
Tomcat Alley is an interactive movie FMV video game developed by The Code Monkeys for Mega-CD. It was the first, and only, Mega-CD game to feature extensive full screen, full motion video...
, Surgical Strike
Surgical Strike (video game)
Surgical Strike is a full motion video based video game developed by The Code Monkeys and published by Sega of America. It was released on November 16, 1993, although some sources suggest that it was first sold in 1994 or 1995. It is best known as Joe Flanigan's filmographic debut.A 32X CD version...
and Sewer Shark
Sewer Shark
Sewer Shark is a first-person rail shooter game, the first video game for a game console to use full-motion video for its primary gameplay. It was originally slated to be the flagship product in Hasbro's NEMO video game system, which would use VHS tapes as its medium. However, Hasbro cancelled the...
. Full motion video was also used in several interactive movie
Interactive movie
An interactive movie is a video game that features highly cinematic presentation and heavy use of scripting, often through the use of full-motion video of either animated or live-action footage.-Philosophy:...
adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
s, such as The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery
The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery
The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery is a computer adventure game released by Sierra On-Line in 1995. Unlike the first Gabriel Knight game, released in 1993, The Beast Within was produced entirely in full motion video...
and Phantasmagoria.
Parallel projection
Games utilizing parallel projection typically make use of two-dimensional bitmap graphics as opposed to 3D-rendered triangle-based geometryPolygon mesh
A polygon mesh or unstructured grid is a collection of vertices, edges and faces that defines the shape of a polyhedral object in 3D computer graphics and solid modeling...
, allowing developers to create large, complex gameworlds efficiently and with relatively few art assets by dividing the art into sprites or tiles
Tile-based game
A tile-based game is a game that uses tiles as one of the fundamental elements of play. Traditional tile-based games use small tiles as playing pieces for gambling or entertainment games...
and reusing them repeatedly (though some games use a mix of different techniques).
Top-down perspective
Top-down perspective, also sometimes referred to as bird's-eye view, overhead view or helicopter view, when used in video games refers to a camera angle that shows the player and the area around them from above. While not exclusive to video games that utilize parallel projection, it was at one time common in 2D2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
role playing
Role-playing game (video games)
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
video games, wargames
Wargame (video games)
Wargames are a subgenre of strategy video games that emphasize strategic or tactical warfare on a map, as well as historical accuracy.-History:The genre of wargame video games is derived from earlier forms of wargames...
and construction and management simulation games such as SimCity
SimCity
SimCity is a critically acclaimed city-building simulation video game, first released in 1989, and designed by Will Wright. SimCity was Maxis' first product, which has since been ported into various personal computers and game consoles, and spawned several sequels including SimCity 2000 in 1994,...
, Pokémon
Pokémon (video games)
Pokémon is a series of video games developed by Game Freak and Creatures Inc. and published by Nintendo as part of the Pokémon media franchise. First released in 1996 in Japan for the Game Boy, the main series of role-playing video games has continued on each generation of Nintendo's handhelds...
, and Railroad Tycoon
Railroad Tycoon
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon is a business simulation game. There are five versions; the original Railroad Tycoon , Railroad Tycoon Deluxe , Railroad Tycoon II , Railroad Tycoon 3 , and Sid Meier's Railroads! .Railroad Tycoon was written by game designer Sid Meier and published by MicroProse and...
, as well as in action
Action game
Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...
and action-adventure game
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
s such as the early The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda, originally released as in Japan, is a video game developed and published by Nintendo, and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on a boy named Link, the playable protagonist, who aims to collect the eight fragments...
and Grand Theft Auto games.
Side-scrolling game
A side-scrolling game or side-scroller is a video game in which the viewpoint is taken from the side, and the onscreen characters generally move from the left side of the screen to the right. Games of this type make use of scrollingScrolling
In computer graphics, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display. "Scrolling", as such, does not change the layout of the text or pictures, or but incrementally moves the user's view across what is...
computer display technology, and sometimes parallax scrolling
Parallax scrolling
Parallax scrolling is a special scrolling technique in computer graphics, popularized in the 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol. In this pseudo-3D technique, background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D video game and adding to the immersion...
to suggest added depth.
In many games the screen follows the player character such that the player character is always positioned near the center of the screen. In other games the position of the screen will change according to the player character's movement, such that the player character is off-center and more space is shown in front of the character than behind. Sometimes, the screen will scroll not only forward in the speed and direction of the player character's movement, but also backwards to previously visited parts of a stage. In other games or stages, the screen will only scroll forwards, not backwards, so that once a stage has been passed it can no longer be visited. In games such as shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...
s like R-type, the screen scrolls forward by itself at a steady rate, and the player must keep up with the screen, attempting to avoid obstacles and collect things before they pass off screen.
Examples of side-scrolling games include platform game
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
s such as Sonic the Hedgehog, beat 'em up
Beat 'em up
Beat 'em up is a video game genre featuring melee combat between the protagonist and a large number of underpowered antagonists. These games typically take place in urban settings and feature crime-fighting and revenge-based plots, though some games may employ historical or fantasy themes...
s such as the popular Double Dragon
Double Dragon
is a classic beat 'em up video game series initially developed by Technos Japan Corporation, who also developed the Kunio-kun series ....
and Battletoads
Battletoads
Battletoads is a platformer video game created by Tim and Chris Stamper and developed by Rare. Starring three anthropomorphic toads named after skin conditions , the game was created to rival the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games....
, and shooters
Shooter game
Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...
such as R-type
R-Type
is a side scrolling shoot-em-up arcade game produced by Irem in 1987. The player controls a space fighter named R-9a "Arrowhead" to defend humanity against a mysterious but powerful alien life-form known as "Bydo", which was later discovered to be not entirely alien in origin...
and (more recently) Jets'n'Guns
Jets'n'Guns
Jets'n'Guns is a 2D, side-scrolling shoot 'em up computer game released in late 2004 for Microsoft Windows by RakeInGrass software. In April 2006, a version for Mac OS X was released. In December 2006 an expansion, Jets'n'Guns Gold, was released...
. The Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros.
is a 1985 platform video game developed by Nintendo, published for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist...
series has used all three types of side-scrolling at some time in its history.
2.5D, 3/4 perspective, and pseudo-3D
2.5D ("two-and-a-half-dimensional"), 3/4 perspective and pseudo-3D are informal terms used to describe graphical projections and techniques that try to "fake" three-dimensionality, typically by using some form of parallel projection, wherein the point of view is from a fixed perspective, but also reveals multiple facets of an object. Examples of pseudo-3D techniques include isometricIsometric projection
Isometric projection is a method for visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions in technical and engineering drawings...
/axonometric projection
Axonometric projection
Axonometric projection is a type of parallel projection, more specifically a type of orthographic projection, used to create a pictorial drawing of an object, where the object is rotated along one or more of its axes relative to the plane of projection....
, oblique projection
Oblique projection
Oblique projection is a simple type of graphical projection used for producing pictorial, two-dimensional images of three-dimensional objects.- Overview :Oblique projection is a type of parallel projection:...
, orthographic projection
Orthographic projection
Orthographic projection is a means of representing a three-dimensional object in two dimensions. It is a form of parallel projection, where all the projection lines are orthogonal to the projection plane, resulting in every plane of the scene appearing in affine transformation on the viewing surface...
, billboarding, parallax scrolling
Parallax scrolling
Parallax scrolling is a special scrolling technique in computer graphics, popularized in the 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol. In this pseudo-3D technique, background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D video game and adding to the immersion...
, scaling, skyboxes
Skybox (video games)
A skybox is a method of creating backgrounds to make a computer and video games level look bigger than it really is. When a skybox is used, the level is enclosed in a cuboid; and the sky, distant mountains, distant buildings, and other unreachable objects are projected onto the cube's faces , thus...
, and skydomes. In addition, 3D graphical techniques such as bump mapping
Bump mapping
Bump mapping is a technique in computer graphics for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object. This is achieved by perturbing the surface normals of the object and using the perturbed normal during lighting calculations. The result is an apparently bumpy surface rather than a...
and parallax mapping
Parallax mapping
Parallax mapping is an enhancement of the bump mapping or normal mapping techniques applied to textures in 3D rendering applications such as video games...
are often used to extend the illusion of three-dimensionality without substantially increasing the resulting computational overhead introduced by increasing the polygon count.
The terms sometimes possess a second meaning, wherein the gameplay in an otherwise 3D game is forcibly restricted to a two-dimensional plane.
Examples of games that make use of pseudo-3D techniques include Zaxxon
Zaxxon
Zaxxon is a 1982 arcade game developed and released by Sega. Some sources claim that Japanese electronics company Ikegami Tsushinki also worked on the development of Zaxxon...
, The Sims
The Sims
The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity...
and Diablo
Diablo (video game)
Diablo is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game developed by Blizzard North and released by Blizzard Entertainment on December 31, 1996....
(isometric/axonometric projection); Ultima VII
Ultima VII
Ultima VII: The Black Gate is the seventh installment of the Ultima series of computer role-playing games. It was released in 1992.The Black Gate was critically and commercially successful, being widely lauded as a high point in the series and as one of the best isometric RPGs ever created...
and Paperboy
Paperboy (video game)
Paperboy is a 1984 arcade game by Atari Games. The players take the role of a paperboy who delivers newspapers along a suburban street on his bicycle. This game was innovative for its theme and novel controls.-Gameplay:...
(oblique projection); Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II
is a competitive fighting game originally released for the arcades in . It is the arcade sequel to the original Street Fighter released in and was Capcom's fourteenth title that ran on the CP System arcade hardware...
(parallax scrolling); Fonz
Fonz (arcade)
Fonz is a 1976 arcade racing video game developed by Sega and published by Sega-Gremlin. The game was based on the hit TV show Happy Days and the slogan was "TV's hottest name, Your hottest game." The game itself was simply a rebranded variant of Sega's earlier 1976 game Moto-Cross in a customized...
and Space Harrier
Space Harrier
is a third-person rail shooter game, released by Sega in 1985. It was produced by Yu Suzuki, responsible for many popular Sega games. It spawned several sequels: Space Harrier 3-D , Space Harrier II , and the spin-off Planet Harriers ....
(scaling); and Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 , the sequel to Half-Life, is a first-person shooter video game and a signature title in the Half-Life series. It is singleplayer, story-driven, science fiction, and linear...
(skyboxes). In addition to axonometric projection, games such as The Sims
The Sims
The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity...
and Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy Tactics
is a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square for the Sony PlayStation video game console. It is the first game of the Final Fantasy Tactics series and was released in Japan in June 1997 and in the United States in January 1998...
also make use of a combination of pre-drawn 2D sprites and real-time polygonal graphics instead of relying entirely on 2D sprites as is the norm.
3D
With the advent of 3D accelerated graphicsGraphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
, video games could expand beyond the typically sprite-based 2D graphics of older graphics technologies to describe a view frequently more true to reality and lifelike than their predecessors. Perspective projection has also been used in some earlier titles to present a 3D view from a fixed (and thus somewhat less hardware-intensive) perspective with a limited ability to move.
Fixed 3D
Fixed 3D refers to a three-dimensional representation of the game world where foreground objects (i.e. game characters) are typically renderRendering (computer graphics)
Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
ed in real time
Real-time computing
In computer science, real-time computing , or reactive computing, is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"— e.g. operational deadlines from event to system response. Real-time programs must guarantee response within strict time constraints...
against a static background. The principal advantage of this technique is its ability to display a high level of detail on minimal hardware. The main disadvantage is that the player's frame of reference remains fixed at all times, preventing players from examining or moving about the environment from multiple viewpoints.
Backgrounds in fixed 3D games tend to be pre-rendered
Pre-rendered
Pre-rendering is the process in which video footage is not rendered in real-time by the hardware that is outputing or playing back the video. Instead, the video is a recording of a footage that was previously rendered on a different equipment...
two-dimensional images, but are sometimes rendered in real time (e.g. Blade Runner). The developers of SimCity 4
SimCity 4
SimCity 4 is a city-building/urban planning simulation computer game developed by Maxis, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts. It was released on January 14, 2003. It is the fourth installment in the SimCity series. SimCity 4 has a single expansion pack called Rush Hour which adds features to the game...
took advantage of fixed perspective by not texturing the reverse sides of objects (and thereby speeding up rendering) which players could not see anyway. Fixed 3D is also sometimes used to "fake" areas which are inaccessible to players. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
is an action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It was released in Japan on November 21, 1998; in North America on November 23, 1998; and in Europe on December 11, 1998...
, for instance, is nearly completely 3D, but uses fixed 3D to represent many of the building interiors as well as one entire town. (This technique was later dropped in favor of full-3D in the game's successor, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
is an action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan on April 27, 2000, North America on October 26, 2000, and Europe on November 17, 2000. The game sold approximately 314,000 copies during its first...
.) A similar technique, the skybox
Skybox (video games)
A skybox is a method of creating backgrounds to make a computer and video games level look bigger than it really is. When a skybox is used, the level is enclosed in a cuboid; and the sky, distant mountains, distant buildings, and other unreachable objects are projected onto the cube's faces , thus...
, is used in many 3D games to represent distant background objects that are not worth rendering in real time.
Used heavily in the survival horror genre, fixed 3D was first seen in Infogrames
Infogrames
Infogrames Entertainment SA was an international French holding company headquartered in Paris, France. It was the owner of Atari, Inc., headquartered in New York City, U.S. and Atari Europe. It was founded in 1983 by Bruno Bonnell and Christophe Sapet using the proceeds from an introductory...
' Alone in the Dark
Alone in the Dark (series)
Alone in the Dark is a series of survival horror computer games from Infogrames. In most of the series, the gamer plays as private investigator Edward Carnby, who usually goes to investigate a haunted mansion or town that is full of undead creatures. The story is based on the writings of H. P...
series in the early 1990s. It was later revived and brought up-to-date by Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...
in the Resident Evil
Resident Evil (series)
Resident Evil, known as in Japan, is a media franchise owned by the video game company Capcom. It was created by Shinji Mikami as a survival horror game series that was initiated with the eponymous PlayStation title Resident Evil in 1996. Since then, the game series has strayed from its roots to...
series. Gameplay-wise there is little difference between fixed 3D games and their 2D precursors. Players' ability to navigate within a scene still tends to be limited, and interaction with the gameworld remains mostly "point-and-click".
Further examples include the PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
-era titles in the Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy
is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...
series (Square
Square (company)
was a Japanese video game company founded in September 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. It merged with Enix in 2003 and became part of Square Enix...
); the role-playing games Parasite Eve
Parasite Eve (video game)
is a horror action role-playing game developed by SquareSoft . The game is a sequel to the novel Parasite Eve, written by Hideaki Sena. It is the first game in the Parasite Eve series.-Gameplay:...
and Parasite Eve II
Parasite Eve II
is a horror action role-playing game for the PlayStation. The game was developed by SquareSoft and published in Japan in 1999 and in both North America and, unlike the previous game, in PAL regions in 2000...
(Square
Square (company)
was a Japanese video game company founded in September 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. It merged with Enix in 2003 and became part of Square Enix...
); the action-adventure games Ecstatica
Ecstatica
Ecstatica is an action-adventure game for MS-DOS that was released by Psygnosis in 1994 on 3½" floppy disk and CD-ROM.The game is notable for using a unique type of "ellipsoid" graphics to display characters. Each character is made of ellipsoids approximating different types of body. The...
and Ecstatica 2 (Andrew Spencer/Psygnosis), as well as Little Big Adventure
Little Big Adventure
Little Big Adventure is an action-adventure game developed by Adeline Software International and first released at the end of 1994. It was published in Europe by Electronic Arts and in North America, Asia and Oceania under the name Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure by Activision. Over 400,000 copies...
(Adeline Software International
Adeline Software International
Adeline Software International was a video game developer founded in February 1993 as a subsidiary company of Delphine Software International, and based in Lyon, France...
); the graphic adventure Grim Fandango
Grim Fandango
Grim Fandango is a personal computer game in the graphic adventure genre released by LucasArts in 1998 and primarily written by Tim Schafer. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered, static backgrounds...
(LucasArts
LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
); and 3D Movie Maker
3D Movie Maker
3D Movie Maker is a program created by Microsoft's "Microsoft Kids" subsidiary in 1995. Using this program, directors are able to place 3D characters in pre-made or custom-made environments, add actions, sound effects, music, text, and speech, and then show these movies off to friends, family,...
(Microsoft Kids).
Pre-rendered backgrounds are also found in some isometric video games, such as the role-playing game The Temple of Elemental Evil (Troika Games
Troika Games
Troika Games was a video game developer created by the key people behind the first of the critically acclaimed Fallout series of games. The company was focused on role-playing video games between 1998 and 2005, best known for Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Vampire: The Masquerade –...
) and the Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate is a computer role-playing game developed by BioWare and released in 1998 by Interplay Entertainment. The game takes place in the Forgotten Realms, a high fantasy campaign setting, using modified Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition rules...
series (BioWare
BioWare
BioWare is a Canadian video game developer founded in February 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip. BioWare is currently owned by American company Electronic Arts...
); though in these cases the form of graphical projection used is not different.
First-person perspective
First person refers to a graphical perspectivePerspective (visual)
Perspective, in context of vision and visual perception, is the way in which objects appear to the eye based on their spatial attributes; or their dimensions and the position of the eye relative to the objects...
rendered from the viewpoint of the player character. In many cases, this may be the viewpoint from the cockpit of a vehicle. Many different genres have made use of first-person perspectives, ranging from adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
s to flight simulator
Flight simulator
A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and various aspects of the flight environment. This includes the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they react to applications of their controls and other aircraft systems, and how they react to the external...
s. Perhaps the most notable genre to make use of this device is the first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
genre, where the graphical perspective has an immense impact on game play.
Games with a first-person perspective are usually avatar
Avatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
-based, wherein the game displays what the player's avatar would see with the avatar's own eyes. Thus, players typically cannot see the avatar's body, though they may be able to see the avatar's weapons or hands. This viewpoint is also frequently used to represent the perspective of a driver within a vehicle, as in flight and racing simulators; and it is common to make use of positional audio, where the volume of ambient sounds varies depending on their position with respect to the player's avatar.
Games with a first-person perspective do not require sophisticated animations for the player's avatar, and do not need to implement a manual or automated camera-control scheme as in third-person perspective. A first person perspective allows for easier aiming, since there is no representation of the avatar to block the player's view. However, the absence of an avatar can make it difficult to master the timing and distances required to jump between platforms, and may cause motion sickness
Motion sickness
Motion sickness or kinetosis, also known as travel sickness, is a condition in which a disagreement exists between visually perceived movement and the vestibular system's sense of movement...
in some players.
Players have come to expect first-person games to accurately scale objects to appropriate sizes. However, key objects such as dropped items or levers may be exaggerated in order to improve their visibility.
Third-person perspective
Third person refers to a graphical perspectivePerspective (visual)
Perspective, in context of vision and visual perception, is the way in which objects appear to the eye based on their spatial attributes; or their dimensions and the position of the eye relative to the objects...
rendered from a view that is some distance away (usually behind and slightly above) from the players character. This viewpoint allows players to see a more strongly characterized avatar, and is most common in action
Action game
Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...
and action-adventure game
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
s. This viewpoint poses some difficulties, however, in that when the player turns or stands with his back to a wall, the camera may jerk or end up in awkward positions. Developers have tried to alleviate this issue by implementing intelligent camera systems, or by giving the player control over the camera. There are three primary types of third-person camera systems: "fixed camera systems" in which the camera positions are set during the game creation; "tracking camera systems" in which the camera simply follows the player's character; and "interactive camera systems" that are under the player's control.
Examples of games utilizing third-person perspective include Super Mario 64
Super Mario 64
is a platform game, published by Nintendo and developed by its EAD division, for the Nintendo 64. Along with Pilotwings 64, it was one of the launch titles for the console. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, and later in North America, Europe, and Australia. Super Mario 64 has sold over...
, the Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It was originally released in 1996 for the Sega Saturn, with MS-DOS and PlayStation versions following shortly thereafter...
series, and Crash Bandicoot.
Technical aspects
- RenderingRendering (computer graphics)Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
- Image-based modeling and renderingImage-Based Modeling And RenderingIn computer graphics and computer vision, image-based modeling and rendering methods rely on a set of two-dimensional images of a scene to generate a three-dimensional model and then render some novel views of this scene....
- Game art designGame art designGame art design, a subset of game development, is a process of creating 2D and 3D game art for a video game. A game artist is a visual artist who creates video game art, such as concept art, item sprites, character models, etc.- History :...
- Video games
- Computer graphicsComputer graphicsComputer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....
- Graphics engineGraphics engineGraphics engine may refer to:*Game engine: a physics model typically implemented in software for use in computer games*Graphics engine : a specialized computer hardware device, typically integrated with a framebuffer or other video display circuitry, for performing graphics calculations...
- 3D rendering3D rendering3D rendering is the 3D computer graphics process of automatically converting 3D wire frame models into 2D images with 3D photorealistic effects on a computer.-Rendering methods:...
- Game engineGame engineA game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
- SpriteSprite (computer graphics)In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
Game genres and gameplay
- Video game genres
- GameplayGameplayGameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it...
- Graphic adventure gameGraphic adventure gameA graphic adventure game is a form of adventure game. They are distinct from text adventures. Whereas a player must actively observe using commands such as "look" in a text-based adventure, graphic adventures revolutionized gameplay by making use of natural human perception...
s - Text-based games