3D

3D in video games is the use of a game engine to display models in an environment that is third dimensional, This gives game a better aesthetic look than 2D as each character/object is created in 3D modelling software which means they can freely move around and aren't restricted to 2 axis like in most 2D games, it also makes animation a lot easier as they don't have to be redrawn by the artist each time.

Here are some 3D renders I have created in 3D software Blender:

This is the model for a table I created, it has a high number of polygons.

This is the same table but with some textures now applied to it.

This is a staff I created. It is the third version of it as I went through some improvements before finishing it.

This is a Gladius sword I created for a weapons project.

This is a prototype war-hammer I also created for the weapons project

Concept

Here is some concept art I created for the game we are making called The Adventures of Tyrone. I started sketching out some of the assets that would go together to create a full paralaxing background that would fit in with the 2D pixel art style.

Once I had finished that I headed over to Photoshop and messed around a bit with different variations of the mountains and trees.

This is the look of the hills I went for that I created in Photoshop, it will be a tile-able asset so that the background doesn't clip when transitioning. In the final image, the hills will have a feint tree line added to them.

This is the final concept of the trees that are going to be used in the foreground for the game, they will be stackable so that the jungle looks dense and can be tiled on top of each other if needed.

What is a pixel?

A pixel is a physical point in an image where data is stored in the form of a colour, they are used to occupy screen space and when the colours are aligned specifically, an image is visually created. This is where pixel art comes from, it is where people manipulate pixels to create their own images. Other images types that manipulate pixel's are PNG's and JPEG's, A picture taken from the real world using a digital camera is made up of pixels, the quality of the image depends on the resolution of the image, an image with the resolution of 128x128 is going to have a significantly less amount of pixels in it whilst an image taken in high definition 1280 x 1080 is going to have far more pixels and thus the quality will be much better. The file size of a pixel is 1 bit or 1/8 of a byte.

An example of image quality using pixels.

What is pixel art?

Pixel art is a form of digital art, it is where images are created using the pixels that make it up, it was mostly used in old games where the processing power was extremely low. 

An example of pixel art 

from the game Super Mario (1985) - Nintendo

It is based off of much older forms of art such as mosaic, cross-stitch and bead work and when combined will resemble an image of varying quality. There are generally two categories of pixel art, Isometric and non-isometric. Isometric is where an image created with pixels can be perceived as 3D while non-isometric is a flat 2D image like the one above.

An example of Isometric pixel art 

Some people use pixel art to create a nostalgic/retro feel to their game while others use it because it is simply an easy form of art and some use it because they believe it looks visually pleasing.

Game Ideas

For our game ideas we used a spider diagram to narrow down the general idea we were going to use, We knew we were going for a 2D pixel game so that is where our spider diagram started out.

We then narrowed our idea down to the shooter genre and made ideas up from there that we wanted to use in the game, from the art style to the game mechanics and this is what we came up with.

Brief

The brief we have been given is to create a simple 2D pixel art game, The pixel art style is simple to design and will be great for our first project.