NES
the nes controllers ergonomic features are terrible the controller has absolutely no curves except the rounding of the buttons  this can and has had a major effect on the use of the users hand as having corner shaped dents in them  because the controller was griped too hard.

second off the buttons themselves. these buttons felt cheap and nasty as they were only little bits of bad plastic on top of a box made form the same material.

the functions of this controller were limited to 8 functions which is still a lot  compared to the Atari 2600 which had 5 however in relation to the wiiu's 20 which include two stick 1 dpad  and 9 buttons and a amiibo pad




speaking of the wii u the ergonomics of this controller is half decent in the way that  there are at least curves and dips to allow your hand to rest on the sides to hold the device in secure position making in much more acurate however that controller itself is too thin for a good grip and is extremely light and can  be dropped easily making its have damage done to it.

speaking of  damge the controller itself is very weak and has a tendancy toshatter the screen and the casing. this is a problem as if the controller goes then you are required to get a new console alongside the controller.

unit 20

HCI
Definition: A HCI is the term for using an input device to enable a video game to work.
THe typical HCI that everyone in gaming knows is the controller.wiether you are a pc gamer, mobile gamer, or any other type you have used a HCI.




Mouse

the mouse is one of  the most common HCI's as it is one of the simplists  uses in gaming.the reason behind this is  its multiple uses both in and out of gaming . the uses include pure useage for googleing and photo editing to hardcore gamings.



keyboard

the keyboard is also a very popular HCI.one that allows the user tyo do many things including binding keys to do specific functions to just typeing leters and number which use the base functions of searching,coding writing essays and much much more.




controller

the controller is the 3rd of three most common  HCI's and is the most complex an the way that it is a mix of both the keyboard and mouse on a much smaller scale.in this way the joysticks and dpad's work as a simple mouse moving the cursor or reticle round the screen .while this is going on the controllers buttons simultaneously are pressed to use some of the same functions as a keyboard specifically in terms of gaming as you cant fit a full keyboard onto a small controller.




touch

touch screen devices including most modern handhelds have the simple but effective use of your finger as the control system  this includes using a pop up keyboard for the purpose of typing numbers and letters.the touch screen also allows for some interesting ways of control  such as swiping and pinching these do the effects of the scroll wheel  and  the resize tool in certain programs.

other controllers



these three types of other HCI's  are a long list of odd and wonderful  controllers as they decided to change the way a game is played either the way its viewed or the way the controller works the way that certain controllers allow the user to controller the character however all of them have buttons even if it is a HCI that is used in tangent with  a controller of some kind





user centred design is where  the design of  a HCI is created for the use of functions and needs of consoles and other hardware.this means that they will choose where to place buttons very carefully so that nobody has a problem reaching them.after this they will send the speciphications of to be deigned

Timeline of Video Game Consoles + Gaming Systems

Consoles history - http://timeglider.com/t/fd5add7ef2fe24678583



Mobile
A mobile phone is a wireless handheld device that allows users to make calls and send text messages, among other features. The earliest generation of mobile phones could only make and receive calls. Today’s mobile phones, however, are packed with many additional features, such as Web browsers and games
PRO's:Portability, Fun, Quick
Cons: low battery life, Low power, low storage

top games:Angry birds,other mobile games.







Arcade
An arcade game or coin-op is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers.
pros: Fun, Started some of the best games ever made
cons:Heavy and bluky, very expensive, power dependent,not very powerful, very low storage.

top games: pacman,donkey kong and space invaders





Console
A video game console provides a bridge between arcades and PCs dedicated to video gameplay and home use. A PC is a general purpose computer that is also capable of running games and may be built with arcade-style controls. An arcade is similar to a console and limited to public use but distinguished by its controls
pros:High power(modern ones), high storage,fun, Slightly portable, pickup and play, great games
cons: power dependent, fairly heavy, gets quite hot reasonably loud

top games: COD,Battlefield








PC
A personal computer (PC) can be a small, relatively inexpensive computer designed for an individual user. In price, personal computers range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars.
pros:highly powerful, multiple uses other than just gaming, fun , great games
cons:Power dependent, very heavy,gets quite hot, reasonably loud.

top games:Half life 2,CSGO

Comparing two games

Trove

Since trove is a modern game its size is obviously going to be quite large however it isn’t close to more modern games like call of duty. There are many reasons behind this and they are

·   

    Texture quality

The texture quality of trove can vary due to optimizations as certain textures may change based upon your pc’s specs. This is both a problem and a blessing for the reason that most games automatically adjust settings based on  you hardware and that is good as it means you don’t have to play around with settings to get the best look and fps. However on the other hand this is a curse as you may not have the exact settings to play on any level of graphics quality. Now as seen below in the two images below the graphics quality of the game changes dramatically as the top image shows what a higher end pc will get out of the game and the bottom image shows what a lower end game will get out of the game. Now as gaming goes you don’t need good graphics you just need performance but some people like to have a good looking game but they may need to sacrifice some fps to have this. Now since there is optimization changes built in game you have to have the whole set of textures instead of just one this impacts the size of a game and the performance of it.

·         Online capability

With most modern game you need some form of internet access as there is most likely multiplayer however there are exceptions like trove. Trove has no single player it is all online play this will actually help with storage size as you will store most of the game items storage on a separate server somewhere else in the world. As much as the storage help is useful the curse of having an internet only game is the internet itself. Now most people have an internet connection of some sort but that is not the issue. The issue is instead of the internet up and down time as if you internet goes down then you can’t play your game which isn’t very fun.

·         Amount of objects,sprites,models Etc

In trove there is a high amount of items in the game over 1000 items including styles for each of the 15 classes. This high amount of items will make your pc run at a higher performance therefore needing a beefy computer to run the game well. Other than the excess of items the world is also procedurally generated meaning that you need a somewhat good internet connection alongside a good pc to run what the game makes. These mass of objects make the game size quite large and it ends up being quite hard to run.

Super Mario

Since Mario bros is tiny in size compared to anything even some other nes games. Having such a low file size is also down to the similar reasons as trove and they are

·   

      Texture quality

Now with Mario obviously the game is not very graphically intensive as there is no optimization and there are very basic colors. Now using the NES to run the game means that it would just about be able to run it however with the use of ROM’s(read only memory) you can play this game on a pc,a phone or a tablet. Now using emulators on this game on a pc means that you can change certain graphics settings to create a slightly better version of the game .now since it would be run using a pc the speed of the game would also be superior to that of the NES version.

·         Online capability

Now the Both the NES and ROM versions of this game have zero multiplayer (unless you count downloading the ROM version) meaning there is only you versus the computer. Now as much as you can’t physically play against other human beings on this game you can do what some people are doing more recently and you can post your score and our time online to certain websites to try and have the highest score

·         Amount of objects,sprites,models Etc

Now with super Mario bros being only 31kb in size it clearly wasn’t going to become the most heavily populated games however for the size that it was it was ground breaking for some highly pixelated mushroom creature to run across your screen and try and kill your character. Now other than the fact that all the enemies are original in design and each do different things and look almost unique to every other thing in the game.

Comparison

·         The Dimension

The main differences between both games are the dimensions of them as one of the games is in 2D and the other is in 3D.these may not seem like much but as shown in the images above it allows the user to be more immersed in the game as in 2D they can only image what the game looks like from the characters perspective whereas with a 3D game you don’t have to imagine it as it is just there in full view.

·         The size

The size differences in both these games in very big. This is because the games are only similar in about 2 or 3 ways other than that they both look and work differently.

·         The style

The style of which the two games play is entirely different in multiple ways as trove isn’t a 2D platformer and Mario isn’t a 3D RPG. However among the differences between the games there are a few similarities like both games have AI controlled enemies and have a goal (sort of) however trove has the style of an MMORPG on a way that you grind dungeon bosses for EXP whilst Mario you have the goal to save the princess and defeat the evil tyrant.

unit 78 digital graphics for computer games research excersise

File Extensions

File extensions  are the way to define what programs are and what programs will open them.
this is basically saying that an image must be in the correct format of an image file be it png or jpg.
just like the image below all the basic file types are here however there are many more that you will come across.






Compression
compression is the way that you shrink an image  to allow lower end hardware to open and edit it.
there are two different methods for compressing a file as shown by the image below
these methods both compress a file however one compresses the file smaller however restores it at a size smaller than the original however the other one restores it to the same size however the compressed file is larger.




Image Capture
there are lots of ways of having an image however the most obvious one is using a camera.This way is the best as you only need to take  and image of real life.



Optimising
optimising  your computer is useful for many ways  like for gaming or for photo editing.
optimising a pc is a useful thing  as it will allow you to use it at full performance that you can like when you set your pc into game mode like the picture below shows.



Storage of Image Assets
the use of storing your files in a set of folders to sort them correctly is helpful as you can then come back and go into say the textures folder and then find the bricks folder and select bricks red rather than bricks black.