Visual Styles in Games

There are four main visual styles seen in games and a couple of unique ones. In this blog I will be covering what they are and how you can tell if a game is using one.

Cel-Shaded

This is a visual style that mimics the look found in comic books and is mainly used by Japanese developed games such as Killer is Dead and Jet Set Radio. It is designed to make 3D images appear flat like 2D by taking out the gradient effect in shading and replacing it with simple coloured shading. It also involves realistic elements, but characters made in this style look very different to real people. For example, in the image below the character has around sixteen arms instead of two.

Photo-Realism

This is a visual style that tries to look nearly identical to real life and is found in games such as Grand Theft Auto V and L.A Noire, and is designed to make images look as realistic as possible, down to the blackheads. Video games in this style are usually made using motion capture technology as shown in the images below.

Exaggerated

This is a visual style that is loosely based on real-life. This is because although the characters may look real, they are made to look exaggerated. Games like “Dragon Ball Z” and “Gears of War” use this style. In “Gears of war”, the main human characters look realistic but their body size is much larger than normal. Using exaggerated graphics can allow you to create crazy elements like hairstyles and eyes without worrying about it being realistic or physically possible.

Abstract

This is a visual style that doesn’t resemble other styles in any way and is often made to be unrealistic. The style usually involves shapes and lines and uses random shapes and colours to create images unique to gaming. A game known as “Geometry Wars” is made up of only geometric shapes and colour but is still a very fun and creative game.

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