Item (gaming)

In pencil and paper games and computer and video games, an item is an object within the game world that can be collected by a player or, occasionally, a non-player character. These items are sometimes called pick-ups.

Items are most often beneficial to the player character. Some games contain detrimental items, such as cursed pieces of armor that confers a negative bonus to the wearer and cannot be removed until the curse itself is lifted; the means to do this may be costly or require a special item. Some items may also be of absolutely no value to the player. Items are especially prevalent in role-playing games, as they are usually necessary for the completion of quests or to advance through the story.

Types of items

Items often come in various types and in most games where items are collected, they are sorted by these types. In RPGs, an item inventory is a common UI feature where one can view all the items that have been collected thus far. Often, these are sorted by categories, such as "equipment" or "Potions." In other game genres, the items may take effect as soon as they are obtained.

Pickup

Pickup, Pick up or Pick-up may refer to:

Technology

Music

Film

Pick-up (filmmaking)

In filmmaking, a pick-up is a small, relatively minor shot filmed or recorded after the fact to augment footage already shot. When entire scenes are redone, it is referred to as a re-shoot. Both of these types of shots usually occur after continuity, logic, or quality issues are identified during the film editing process. In other words, such shots are occurring months after the sets have been struck, the costumes and props have been stored, and all the cast and most of the crew have moved on to other projects. If these issues had been identified during principal photography, the director would simply have asked for another take. Thus, the director and producer must carefully balance the cost of reuniting key cast and crew members on set against whether the pick-ups or re-shoots are absolutely necessary to fix plot holes (or worse) in the final cut.

The three movies in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson, were filmed back to back, and so used pick-up shots. The three films in The Hobbit trilogy, also directed by Jackson, used similar techniques.

Pickup (music technology)

A pickup device is a transducer that captures mechanical vibrations from stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, electric bass guitar, Chapman Stick, or electric violin, and converts them to an electrical signal that is amplified, recorded, or broadcast.

Magnetic pickups

A magnetic pickup consists of a permanent magnet with a core of material such as alnico or ferrite, wrapped with a coil of several thousand turns of fine enameled copper wire. The pickup is most often mounted on the body of the instrument, but can be attached to the bridge, neck or pickguard, as on many electro-acoustic archtop jazz guitars and string basses. The permanent magnet creates a magnetic field; the motion of the vibrating steel strings disturbs the field, and the changing magnetic flux induces a voltage in the coil. This signal is then carried to amplification or recording equipment via a cable. There may also be an internal preamplifier stage between the pickup and cable.