Digital Graphics File Formats

Josh Highton

Raster Graphics

• Raster graphics are made up of bitmaps.

• Bitmaps are a graphic made up of pixels. Each pixel records the colour information of that section.

• Bitmaps have a fixed resolution, meaning that if we resized the picture, it would result in distortion.

Vector Graphics

• Vector graphics are made up of Vectors (paths/strokes)

• Vectors are defined by a start and an end point, with curves, points and angles between them.

• Vectors can be scaled big and small as they have no loss in definition, meaning no distortion.

Raster Graphics

JPEGStands For Joint photograph experts group

Used For/Example Photographs and web formats

Advantage JPEG images are easy to upload to social network sites, such as Facebook, instagram and twitter.

Disadvantage You lose quality every time the image is recompressed.Resizing equals distortion.

TIFFStands For Tagged image file format

Used For/Example Desktop publishing.

Advantage TIFFs allow multi-page documents to be saved as a single file.TIFFs also don’t lose any compression.

Disadvantage TIFFs require a high-end PC in order to view the images.

GIFStands For Graphics interchange format

Used For/Example Short digital animations

Advantage GIFs have small memory size, meaning they are easy to upload/load on the internet.

Disadvantage GIFs only have a colour palette of 256 colours, therefore they can sometimes look blocky or of a poor quality.

BMPStands For Bitmap

Used For/Example Bitmaps are used to create realistic graphics and images.

Advantage Does not degrade when saved multiple times.It’s also supported by every device.

Disadvantage Bitmaps can have a very large image size.They distort when rescaled.

Vector Graphics

PSDStands For Photoshop document

Used For/Example Default image file for Adobe Photoshop

Advantage Allows individual layers to be saved well.PSD files can also support simple vector layers, making them more suitable for importing and exporting data from programs such as Adobe Illustrator.

Disadvantage PSD files tend to be very large as they don’t use compression. Meaning transportation of the file challenging.

AIStands For Adobe illustrator art

Used For/Example Logo creation

Advantage Can be scaled big and small as vectors have no loss in definition.

Disadvantage Newer versions of the AI file format may have compatibility issues.

FLAStands For Flash file

Used For/Example Used to create animations and flash games.

Advantage High quality file with a small size.The file works consistently on all platforms and work on all devices.

Disadvantage FLA files can be uploaded straight to the internet, however it can take a while. So usually FLA files are converted to other formats because they take less time to upload, and the FLA format is not that popular.

WMFStands For Windows metafile

Used For/Example Logos

Advantage Can be scaled to any size as vectors have no loss in definition.

Disadvantage WMF files are only compatible with Windows platforms. So if you use a Mac or something else, no WMFs for you.

File Format Capture and Optimising

CompressionDefinition Packaging a file or files to use

less disk space.

Advantage Less disk space, faster editing, faster upload/download speed.

Disadvantage Added complication, effect of errors in transmission.

Image CaptureMethod Scanner

How is it used for image capture of graphics

The scan head is moved slowly across by a belt. The image is reflected by an angled mirror to another mirror, which reflects the image onto a lens.

Method Camera

How is it used for image capture of graphics

Light from the thing you are photographing zooms into the camera lens. This incoming “picture” hits the CCD (charge-coupled device), which breaks it up into millions of pixels. Each pixel stores the colour and brightness as a number.

Method Graphics Tablet

How is it used for image capture of graphics

Touching a point on the surface of a tablet with a stylus moves the cursor on the screen directly to that point. Making it possible to draw on a computer.

OptimisingWhy would you optimise? To speed up the process of

loading a website/image.

How can you optimise? Use the JPEG format.

Advantage to optimising Sites load quicker.

Disadvantage to optimising Not all parts of the web pages can be viewed.

Storage

File SizeWhat could affect a Working Scale (Photoshop) document file size?

The file size will increase in size depending on how much you work on it. The size will increase as their are more aspects on the document.

How could you reduce the file size of a Working Scale document without

affecting quality?

One way of doing this would be to load your image on photoshop, go to settings and change the bicubic setting from automatic to sharper.

What is an advantage of scaling up images before exporting?

An advantage is that scaling up allows you to make your images bigger, this allows you to place them on t-shirts or posters.

What is a disadvantage of scaling up images before exporting?

A disadvantage of scaling up is that it would take a long time to export the images due to the image size being larger.

File Naming ConventionsWhat naming conventions could you use when creating your video game assets?

Make sure that the name is unique in order to make your product original.Make sure that the user knows what kind of items are used in the game. Make sure objects have self-descriptive names. If not, make sure somewhere there is a description of that object.

Why is it a good idea to accurately name your assets?

So you don't lose your assets in mess of folders and stupidly-named files.

Asset ManagementWhy would you use folders when storing

your assets?Using folders allows you to store specific assets in a separate place, so it doesn't get mixed with others.

What folders would you create and what would you save within them

I would create folders for objects, characters, landscapes, backgrounds, npc's etc...And what I would store in them is pretty self explanatory.