The Glossary of Terms is a curated collection of definitions from the worlds of film, games, art, and design. Whether you're a student, artist, creative director or technical developer, this glossary is made to streamline your workflow and sharpen your understanding. All terms are written with clarity in mind, so you can move from confusion to creation faster.
The glossary includes industry-specific language used in animation, storytelling, production, visual effects, interactive media, conceptual art, and design systems. It’s structured for creative professionals, by creative professionals.Browse through categories like visual language, camera techniques, character design, game mechanics, UI principles, rendering technology, and more.
What is the Glossary of Terms?
The Glossary is a living index of essential concepts across entertainment and creative industries. It helps define and demystify production terms, art direction language, cinematic devices, and technical terminology — all in one place. You can use this glossary to learn the language of the industry, write clearer documentation, improve production notes, or enhance your storytelling vocabulary.
Why use a Glossary?
Many terms in the entertainment industry are often used inconsistently or misunderstood. The Glossary gives you clean, consistent definitions across mediums — helping teams stay aligned, students learn faster, and artists speak the same language. It also supports better communication between departments, whether you're working in pre-production, post, or interactive pipelines.
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A multiplayer mechanic where players can invade another player’s game world, usually to engage in combat or sabotage their progress.
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An impassable boundary in a game, usually preventing the player from venturing outside the intended play area, often invisible to the player but limiting exploration.
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Impassable boundaries within a game world, often found on the edges of maps, preventing the player from going beyond the intended space.
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Italics are forward-leaning characters developed in the early 1500s to provide emphasis or stylistic effect.
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A film editing technique where the audio from the next scene begins before the visual cut occurs, often used to create a smooth transition.
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Acronym for "Japanese role-playing game," a genre of RPGs developed predominantly in Japan, typically featuring turn-based combat, party systems, and anime-inspired visuals.
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The fascination with Japanese art and design that swept Western Europe in the late 19th century, influencing artists in fields like painting, printmaking, and design.
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A camera mounted on a crane or other moving platform, allowing for dynamic shots and smooth vertical or horizontal movement.
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An avant-garde collective in Japan formed in 1951, focused on experimental art and interdisciplinary collaboration between artists, musicians, and poets.
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A joint is the stroke that connects with a stem, typically in letterforms like the letter ‘E’ or ‘F’.
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A stuttering or uneven motion in a game, usually caused by inconsistencies in frame pacing or frame rate drops, resulting in jarring visual effects.
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A technique in fighting games where players keep their opponents in the air with a series of attacks, preventing them from recovering or retaliating.
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An abrupt transitional device breaking up a continuous shot, creating an artistic effect showcasing discontinuity by jumping in time between scenes.
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A sudden and unexpected event, often accompanied by loud sound, intended to startle or frighten the audience, commonly used in horror films.
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Justified text refers to text aligned evenly to both the left and right margins, eliminating ragged edges on either side.
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The contiguous positioning of two scenes, objects, characters, or images in a sequence to contrast and compare them, establishing a relationship between disparate ideas.
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Acronym for "kill/death ratio," a measure used in multiplayer games to track a player's performance based on the number of kills versus deaths in a session.
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A collective of African American photographers, founded in 1963, focused on documenting the Black experience, developing a distinct visual language through photography.
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Kerning is the adjustment of space between two specific characters in a typeface to ensure visual harmony and legibility.
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A crew member responsible for setting up and maintaining equipment that supports cameras, including tripods, dollies, and rigs.
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The primary light on a subject, generally off-center and angled, selectively illuminating prominent features to create shadows or depth in a 3-point lighting setup.
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Keying, also known as chroma keying, is the process of isolating or removing certain colors in a shot (usually green or blue) to replace them with digital elements, commonly used in green screen and VFX work.
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A modernist art movement from Sudan in the 1960s, focused on creating an artistic vocabulary that expressed the newly independent nation's identity and heritage.
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The act of removing a player from an online game session, often due to disruptive behavior or technical issues.
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A type of art that focuses on the movement of the body, often incorporating motion as a central element in the artwork itself.
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KineFX is a rigging and animation framework within Houdini that allows for the creation, adjustment, and manipulation of 3D character rigs, making it easier to animate and control character movements at the geometry level.
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Art that incorporates movement, either through mechanical means or by responding to natural forces, creating dynamic and ever-changing visual experiences.
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The first motion picture camera, developed by Thomas Edison and his assistant William K. L. Dickson, in 1890, laying the foundation for modern film technology.
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The first motion picture viewing device, developed by Thomas Edison in 1891, which allowed viewers to watch moving pictures through a peephole as film was passed through the device.
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A bank of fluorescent bulbs used for soft light in filmmaking.
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Kitchen Sink painters
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A British art movement of the 1950s that depicted everyday life, often focusing on working-class experiences and utilizing realism and direct social commentary.
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A tactic where players lead an enemy away from a location, often to avoid damage or to lure the enemy into a more advantageous position for combat.
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Art or objects considered to be in poor taste due to their mass-produced, overly sentimental, or superficial nature, often characterized by exaggerated emotional appeal.
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A powerful type of carbon-arc lamp, sometimes used in filmmaking or promotional purposes at movie premieres.
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A film editing theory that suggests viewers derive meaning from the juxtaposition of two unrelated images, creating an emotional reaction.
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A transitional edit in digital films where the audio and video do not begin simultaneously, creating a delayed or split edit effect.
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A revolutionary African art collective founded in 1974, which aimed to combine traditional African performance with modern artistic approaches, to challenge political and social norms.
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Refers to delays or slowdowns in a game’s performance, usually caused by network issues or slow hardware, negatively affecting gameplay responsiveness.
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A movie deemed revolutionary due to its artistic or technological significance, such as Jaws, which introduced the modern blockbuster concept.
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A genre of art that focuses on depicting natural scenery, such as mountains, rivers, and forests, often used to evoke a sense of place or the beauty of nature.
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A transition between two scenes where the first scene fades out while the next scene fades in.
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A pattern created by overlapping and interlacing lines or brushstrokes, often used to create texture or depth in a composition.
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A small, wireless omnidirectional microphone clipped or taped to an actor to record dialogue without being visible in the shot.
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A soft, malleable metal used in various artistic applications, such as for sculpture, lead pencils, and in historical artistic processes like stained glass creation.
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A white pigment made from lead that is characterized by its opacity and permanence, but is rarely used today due to its toxicity.
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A ranking system in multiplayer games that displays the top-performing players, often showing high scores or completion times.
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Leading (pronounced ‘ledding’) is the space between lines of text, affecting the overall readability and aesthetic of a text block.
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The main actor in a film, often receiving top billing and playing the character central to the story.
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Left-aligned text is aligned with the left margin, with the right margin left uneven, typically used for most reading materials.
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A recurring theme or element in a movie, such as a person, sound, or idea, intended to unify the film by reminding the audience of its earlier appearance.
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An optical glass placed in a camera through which light passes to focus the image before it reaches the film stock, available in various types like normal, telephoto, and wide-angle.
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The effect caused when light reflects off the lens elements, creating bright spots or streaks, often used stylistically in films.
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The process of shrinking a film image to appear on a television screen with black spaces above and below, emulating the widescreen format used on older TVs.
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A printing method where raised letters or images on a metal or wood surface are inked and then pressed onto paper, often used for high-quality, tactile printing.
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Letterpress is a traditional printing method where a raised surface is inked and pressed onto paper, creating a distinct texture.
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A stock shot or a commonplace, unimaginative shot used in films, such as a shot of the New York skyline in movies set in New York.
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A ligature occurs when two or more characters are joined together to form a single unit, such as the common 'fi' or 'fl' ligatures.
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A lightbox is a backlit, translucent box used to illuminate and showcase artworks or to provide light for tracing and designing, commonly used in photography and graphic arts.
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The illumination within a scene manipulated by cinematographers to alter shadows and brightness.
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A distribution strategy where a film is shown in only a select number of theaters, often before a wider release or as part of a marketing campaign.
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The producer responsible for managing the budget and daily operations of a film shoot, working on location with the crew.
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A long, fine-tipped brush used for making long, continuous lines, particularly in calligraphy and sign painting.
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A canvas that is reinforced with an additional layer of material for increased strength and support, commonly applied during restoration or conservation of artworks.
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A link is the stroke that connects the bowl and the loop of the lowercase ‘g’.
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A printmaking technique similar to woodcut, but using linoleum as the cutting surface, resulting in bold, graphic images.
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A printmaking technique in which an image is carved into linoleum, a soft material, and the surface is inked and pressed onto paper to produce the image.
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An oil extracted from flax seeds, commonly used as a binder in oil paints, allowing for smooth application and slow drying time.
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The process of synchronizing mouth movements with dialogue in post-production, ensuring dialogue matches the actor’s lip movements on screen.
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A printing technique that involves drawing with a greasy medium on a stone or metal plate, which is then inked and used to transfer the image to paper.
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Art that involves live performance or real-time actions, often blurring the lines between performer and audience, and focusing on the immediate experience rather than a fixed outcome.
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Live-action footage refers to video recorded from real-life subjects, as opposed to computer-generated or animated content. This includes scenes shot on location, green screen footage, and practical effects.
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Refers to the collection of weapons, equipment, and abilities that a player selects before entering a match or battle scenario in the game.
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An in-game area where players gather before starting a multiplayer game session, often used for matchmaking or team selection.
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Places or properties used for filming, which can be interior or exterior, real locations or studio lots, abbreviated as “Int.” or “Ext.”
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The recording of background sound while on location, also known as a buzz track, to enhance a movie’s realism with ambient noises.
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A 1-2 sentence summary of a movie focusing on the main character, conflict, and emotional hook, used for marketing and pitching purposes.
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A logomark is a visual representation of a company, usually in the form of a symbol or icon, such as the Twitter bird or Apple's apple.
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A logotype is a brand's name designed in a unique typeface or style, such as Google or Coca-Cola, serving as a visual identity for the company.
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A British exhibiting group formed in 1913, focused on promoting modern art and breaking away from conventional norms in the early 20th century.
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A camera view from a vast distance away, making the subject appear small in the frame, which can be a medium or extreme long shot.
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A shot that lasts for a long duration without any cuts, often used to showcase a complex scene or create suspense.
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Look Development (LookDev) is the process of defining the visual appearance of 3D models and characters. It involves tasks like texturing, lighting, and shading to make digital objects look more realistic and visually appealing.
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The re-recording of dialogue by actors during post-production, also known as Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR), to match lip movements on screen.
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In-game items or resources dropped by enemies or found in the game world, often used for crafting, upgrading, or enhancing gameplay.
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A shot filmed from below, tilting up to capture the subject or action, making the subject appear larger than life or more formidable.
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A lighting style characterized by strong contrasts, dark shadows, and minimal fill light, often used in thrillers or horror films to create tension.
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Lowercase characters are the non-capital letters in the alphabet, such as ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, which make up the majority of written text.
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A style of American landscape painting, especially popular in the Hudson River School, emphasizing the effects of light and atmospheric conditions on the scene.
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A digital timekeeping system used for synchronizing audio and video in film production, often used in music and sound editing.
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An abbreviation for "mit out sound" in German, meaning the scene is filmed without synchronized sound and will be added later.
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Motion Picture Association of America, an organization representing the interests of major motion picture studios and responsible for film ratings.
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A plot element or device that drives the action or logic of the plot but becomes less relevant once its purpose is served, coined by Alfred Hitchcock.
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The optimal time of day for filming with soft and warm lighting conditions, occurring around sunrise and sunset, characterized by golden-orange hues and soft shadows. Also known as Golden Hour.
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A genre that combines realistic imagery with fantastical elements, creating a dream-like atmosphere, often involving surreal or symbolic subjects.
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A prestigious international photo agency founded in 1947 by renowned photographers, including Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, known for their commitment to independent photojournalism.
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An art movement where works of art are exchanged through the postal system, often involving artist stamps, postcards, or other creative mail items.
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A public declaration of principles and intentions, often associated with art movements, that articulates an artist’s philosophy, goals, and critiques of society.
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A style of 16th-century art that is characterized by artificiality, exaggerated proportions, and elegance, in contrast to the more naturalistic style of the High Renaissance.
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Mantra is a multi-paradigm rendering engine within Houdini that combines scanline, raytracing, and physically-based rendering. It is used for rendering packed primitives and volumes to create realistic images for VFX.
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Maps, borders, and networks
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The use of maps, boundaries, and the concept of networks in art to address topics like migration, conflict, and social, cultural, or political connections.
