The Growing Use of Cel-Shading in Computer Games
Cel-shading is a rendering process which using shading to make the assets more ‘toon’ like, it has become more of an art style that is prominently used within games, however it has appeared in other forms of media but has a vastly smaller example size. It is mainly used to create games that focus more on the cartoon style, an almost comic book effect to the environment and characters.
Codehunters and A Scanner Darkly both show just how Cel-shading is used in a more ‘adult’ way as a pose to the more generic animation/cartoon styles. Looking at Cel-shading overall we see that the vast majority of games that use this art style are for more mature audiences, often involving drugs, violence and adult content. Richard Linklater said that he wanted to create an animated film directed at adults and chose Cel-shading as his muse, showing furthermore that this art style creates a more dismal effect on the project.
We see this in games that use Cel-shading; Borderlands, Telltale Games, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger and Crackdown are just some examples of games that include violence and adult themes. From the images we can see the adult themes that would not necessarily be seen in other ‘toon’ sty led games. In my opinion Cel-shading is relatively moody, the use of lighting within this art style is one of the striking features as it utilises this in a different way to generic 3D modelling.
Cel-shading is still in its infancy but we still see it being a big part of gaming culture. There are many games that have used cel-shading as their main art style and most of which have been successful, just a few examples of these would be; Borderlands, The Legend of Zelda, and Telltale games series. This little selection of games shows just how the art style has grown over the years, now being in ‘AAA’ games we can see the growing impact of this style. One major example from film is Codehunters, this is a 2006 short film that was written and directed by Ben Hibon and this film directly influenced Borderlands and this was confirmed by Randall ‘Randy’ Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox. According to Ben Hibon he received no credit, this was until he pointed out the plagiarism involved. In the early work for Borderlands there was no signs of Cel-shading used as stated by Ben Hibon, who at the time was in talks with Gearbox over other ventures, however nothing came of those talks.
Borderlands is one of the best examples of games using this art style. It was one of the first ‘open world’ games to adopt this style and it was a massive hit from day one, the art style complements the games playing style and the almost comic book atmosphere creates a story driven element. When Borderlands (2009) first hit it used a dusty colour palette, similar to Codehunters, however in Borderlands 2 (2012) Jeramy Cooke used a more colourful palette. This is also used in Borderlands: The Presequel! (2014) however because of the environment setting on a moon we see the colour stand out more in different areas.
Telltale game series is a perfect example of a company that have took this art style and created a story and almost comic book feel to a game, this style complements their game dynamic is a great way. The Wolf Among Us is probably their best example, using Cel-shading to create graphic thriller experience. All of Telltale games use an episodic approach to tell the story and this could be because their games are based on comics or books, which using this approach means they can tell a more gradual story. I believe they chose this art style
The Legend of Zelda game franchise is one of the biggest game franchises to date, its array of games, positive reviews and sales show that it has been majorly successful. Nintendo have used different art styles but interestingly they have used Cel-shading in some of their games such as; Breath of the Wild and Windwaker (2003). This is interesting because they didn’t start off using this technique as their art style but have shifted over time to accommodate this style, this also shows that Cel-shading is being used more by gaming companies in their successful games and that the art style is more apparent in the industry. In Breath of the Wild (2017) we see the use of Cel-shading being used once again, showing that the creative direction towards this art style is overwhelmingly positive and this is highlighted by the game being voted Game of the Year for 2017.
Most game which use Cel-shading have relatively moody colours, most being rather dark and dismal. The Legend of Zelda franchise is an exception from this norm as they predominantly use a lighter colour palette. Sometimes we see glitches in games and Cel-shading is not exempt from this, in Breath of the Wild (2017) we see a glitch that if you stand in certain places in the game world the Cel-shading style does not work, this is presented in the image provided. The left half is the actual game design and the right is the glitch in the game.
Personally I think that these games used this particular art style to ‘stand out’ from an over saturated market of games within their genres. Borderlands was one of the first to use this art style in a post-apocalyptic first person shooter, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger surprised a lot of people by using cel-shading and in turn allowed Gunslinger to stand out in the overwhelming genre of military shooters. Furthermore the use of Cel-shading in Windwaker wasn’t hugely appreciated by the Legend of Zelda fanbase but pushed on with positive reviews and most saying that the play style was the same just with different aesthetics. Cel-shading is a type of non-photorealistic rending, this could be seen as a counterpoint to the over-saturated photorealistic games market, we see that Cel-shading is being used more to break the norms that have been set by other games.
