作者：Junxue Li

今天，在为冒险游戏/HOPA游戏创造图像时，我们会基于两种方式使用许多照片图像：为了创造背景，我们拼凑了一些建筑，和家具照片，然后进行复绘；事实上所有寻物解谜游戏都使用了照片去创造隐藏的物体。

我相信任何工作室超过90%的照片都是源自谷歌，以及iStock，Dreamstime等照片库存网站。许多人都不想自己拍摄照片。我知道他们在想些什么：

1.为什么要自己去拍照片呢。当我们能在网上找到照片时还自己去外面拍摄，不是浪费时间和汽油吗？

2.雇佣专业摄影师可不便宜；

3.我并不是专业摄影师，并不具有良好的摄影技巧。

如果你仔细观察周围，便会发现许多可拍摄的内容，并且你可以更加轻松地将其应用于游戏中。

我想要邀请你们与我一起走上短期的拍摄之旅，在这个过程中你将看到在许多场合中拍摄照片不仅能够省钱，还能够提高图像质量。

不要担心你的拍照技能。我们并不是为了审美价值而拍摄照片；我们只需要将物体拍摄清楚，并能够将其用于游戏中便可。在这段旅程结束后，我敢保证你将清楚如何为游戏拍摄照片，即使你还只是个摄影新手。关于设备，较低端的DSLR便足够，例如尼康D90，D5200，佳能EOS600D都可以。

在这趟旅程中，我们将拍摄这些类型的照片：

1.关于隐藏物体的通用物体；

2.关于隐藏物体的早前物体；

3.为了创造背景的建筑；

4.为了创造背景的内部场景/家具；

5.等等。

拍摄通用物体：

最常使用的隐藏物体便是：办公室用具，厨房用具，日常生活用品，古玩（游戏邦注：今天许多HOPA游戏都是基于《夺宝奇兵》的故事类型）。

如果你已经玩过或创造了许多寻物解谜游戏，你便能够看到许多重复出现的道具。似乎世界各地的开发者都是从小部分无需版税的照片中挑选这些物体照片。

实际上，你可以在自己的家里/办公室，超市等等场所找到可拍摄的通用物体，这将带给你一些好处：

1.你的物体将是独一无二的，不像那些来自重复照片的物体；

2.你将快速并从多个角度获得许多物体照片。这对场景中的物体设置非常有帮助。

3.你将获得HD图片，你很难在网上找到这类图片，或者你可能需要为此而花钱。

4.你将能够拥有图片的IP并且能够免费使用它们。

让我们从拍摄咖啡壶开始。场景很简单，只要将咖啡壶放在一张白纸上便可以（可以是素描纸或任何同样大小的纸张上）。即使是白天，只要你是在办公室里拍摄照片，也要让物体的一边朝着窗户，并在另一边打开台灯作为辅助光。看看这张图片，这便是我在办公室拍照的布景。我并未使用任何专业的灯光道具，但对于游戏来说这些足以。

Setup(from gamasutra)

设置一台三脚架并连接快门线。因为你将基于这一布景拍摄许多物体/图片，所以三脚架和快门线将帮助你减轻背部和手部的酸痛。三脚架也能够帮助你基于最小光圈（f16）和最低ISO去拍摄物体。

对于游戏的物体照片，我们需要这些性能：

整个物体都是清晰的，不模糊；

高分辨率，拥有清楚的细节；

光线平衡；

没有强烈的光与暗的反差；

没有强烈的亮点也没有强烈的轮廓光；

没有明显的光色倾向。

总之，我们需要的是清晰的物体，以确保在2D复绘过程中，我们拥有所有的灵活性能够提供给物体这些所需性能。

所以，你需要确保拍摄你的照相机所允许的最大图像尺寸，如此你才能在之后压缩图片。根据你的物体大小使用长焦距，如50至100毫米，确保物体能够处于框架中最适合的部分；不要使用广角镜头，如24至35毫米，这将导致物体走形。使用F制光圈以获得清晰且完整的图像；检查白平衡，如此物体才不会出现强烈的颜色反差；或者你可以基于原始格式进行拍摄，之后再编辑；关于快门速度，你并不需要创造具有创造性的曝光，你只需要获得中等曝光图片便可。我建议你能够使用M或A模式进行拍摄，如果你使用了三脚架，那就将ISO调整为100以减少颗粒。

一旦你使用了三脚架并设置好拍摄参数（记得关闭镜头的VR），你便只需要旋转物体（而不是相机），并每次按压快门去拍摄物体的不同角度便可。当你完成一个物体的拍摄，你便可以换成另一个物体继续拍摄。通过这种方式，你将看到大量物体图像被快速创造出来！

如果你想要在设置好后拍摄许多物体，我将为你提供两大窍门：

1.根据产业生产方式，不要基于同样的快门速度拍摄所有物体。你应该根据每个物体的亮度调整快门速度，这才能为你创造更棒的曝光/外观。

2.你可以如下在纸上绘制一个小小的标记，也就是物体放置的地方。这将帮助你更快速地设定物体的对象以进行拍摄。

Marker(from gamasutra)

以下是我拍摄的一些物体样本，并且我们也将其应用于多款游戏中：

pot small(from gamasutra)

robot small(from gamasutra)

shell small(from gamasutra)

确保图像尺寸够大，如此才能将图片用于之后的一些设备上：

big shell(from gamasutra)

下一次，我将带你们到背景的国家博物馆进行拍摄，那就跟罗浮宫一样，在那里我们将能够为我们的寻物游戏拍摄许多很酷的物体。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转功，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

2D games: Shoot photos to make better & cheaper art (Part 1)

by Junxue Li

Today, in making art work for adventure/HOPA games, we use a lot of photo graphs, in two ways: For background making, we pie up photographs of architectures, furniture, then overpaint them; And virtually all hidden object games use photos to make hidden objects, props.

I believe any studio gets more than 90% of the photos from Google, and stock photo sites such as iStock, Dreamstime. And many people may freak out at the idea of shooting photos by themselves. I know what they have in mind:

1.Why go out to shoot, wasting time and gasoline while we can find pictures on the web?

2.Hiring pro level photographer is not cheap;

3.I’m no pro, and don’t have good shooting gears.

Well, if you look around you attentively, you may find lots of things can be shot and use in game with much less efforts than having to find/create those graphics. (We should be aware of the fact that the net makes people weird creatures, they would message people in the same office within earshot , and likely wise Google for pictures which they can shoot right on their table)

I would like to invite you go with me on a short shooting trip, that you could see how in many occasions shooting pictures can save money and improve art work quality.

Don’t worry about your photography skill. We are not about shooting pictures of aesthetic value; We only need to shoot clear objects, up to the use in games. After the trip, I’m sure you will know how to shoot for games, even you’re a beginner of photography. Regarding equipment, lower end DSLR would be enough, for example Nikon D90, D5200, Canon EOS 600D.

On this trip, we would shoot photos of these types:

1.Generic objects for hidden objects, props;

2.Antique objects for hidden objects, props;

3.Architectures for making background;

4.Interior scene/furniture for making background;

5.Etc.

Shooting generic objects:

The most intensively used hidden objects are those types: office items, kitchen utensils, every day life items, antiques (lots of HOPA games today are Indiana Jones type story)

If you’ve played or made lots of hidden objects games, you will see lots of repetitive items. It seems developer around the world get object graphics from a small pool of royalty free photos.

In fact shooting generic objects, which could be found in your home/office, super market, can give you these benefits:

1.Make your objects unique, not like the ones from the small pool;

2.Can get lots of object graphics real quick, and multiple angles of the objects. Which is good for the object placement in the scenes.

3.Can get HD pictures, which is hard to find on the web, or you should pay for the use of them.

4.You own the IP of the pictures, can use them for free.

Let us start with shooting a coffee pot. The setting is simple, put the coffee pot on a big sheet of white paper(could be sketch paper or any paper this big). While it’s daytime and you shoot in the office, let the windows lit one side of the object, and place a desklamp as a fill light on the other side. See this picture, this is my setup in the office. I don’t use any professional lighting gears, but this is enough for games.

Set up a tripod and connect cable release. Because you’re about to shoot lots of object/pictures by this setting, a tripod & cable release would save you lots of ache on your back and hands. And a tripod would enable you to shoot objects at small aperture (f16) and low ISO.

For object photos for games, we would need those properties:

The whole of the object are in focus, no blurry;

High resolution, having good details;

Evenly lit;

No very strong light & dark contrast;

No strong highlights, no strong rim lights;

No strong inclination of light color.

In one word, we need focused and “plain” objects, that in 2D overpainting process, we have all the flexibility to give the objects these wanted properties.

So, make sure to shoot in the largest picture size your camera allows, for you can always scale pictures down later; Use long focal length, something like 50~100mm, according to the size of your object, to make the object occupies a good portion of the frame; Don’t use wide lens, like 24~35mm,that would make the object deformed. Use f-stop from f16 up to get the whole object in focus; And check the white balance, so that the object has no overall strong color inclination; Or you can shoot in raw format to edit WB later; About exposure/shutter speed, you don’t need to produce those artistically creative exposure, just get good and neutrally exposed pictures. Suggest you to shoot in M or A mode; While you shoot on a tripod, use ISO=100 to reduce grain.

Once you set the tripod and shooting parameters(while you use tripod, remember to turn off VR on your lens), your job is reduced to rotate the object (not the camera), and press release button each time to shoot multiple angles; After you’re done with one object, take it away and put in another objects. In this fashion you can see how fast the object graphics are churned out! It’s sheer magic!

If you want to shoot lots of objects after setup the gears, I have two tips for you:

1.Please don’t shoot all objects with the same shutter speed, in an industrial production fashion. Adjust shutter speed according to the brightness of each object, that would give you better exposure/looking.

2.You can draw a small mark like this on the paper, where the objects sit. That would help you to orientate objects for multiple shoot in a speedy fashion.

Here are a few object samples shoot by me, and we actually use them in games:

Make sure the image size is large enough, to make the pictures usable for future devices:

Next time, I will take you to our national museum in Beijing, which is our equivalent of Louvre, there we would shoot lots of cool stuffs for our treasure hunting games.(source:gamasutra)