Animation and its Evolution

Photo Courtesy of Steve Broumley

our editing is done in Premiere. Also, AI generated art is a big thing that’s intriguing to me. I understand that it’s just a machine doing it but it’s really cool!” Said Ray. But it takes more than software to make great animation. It takes imagination. It also requires studying the trends. What are the trends for the future of animation? “Machines are taking over everywhere, and never did we think it would take over creative. And I still don’t think it will, but it’s pushing boundaries so much. The tools that we have are so cool and are so readily available. Photoshop for example started as a photo tool that became a painting tool. AI will only get crazier and will move on to animation, then 3D art and then go faster and faster. You asked about trends, I think it’s technology that will be the trend pushing things farther, faster.” Said Ray. Lastly, the art and animation has to be turned into software for everything to come to life. Steve Broumley is VP of Technology and has worked in many different game companies for 20 years. “When I was a kid I had a computer. I would type in games and eventually I could read the programs I was typing in. Then I made my own video games as a hobby. I continued in school and got a degree in computer science and applied mathematics. After school, I went in to a company to show them the games I had made. They

asked me if I wanted to come to the States to work at a company called Iguana Games, and I did. That’s how I got in the industry.” Said Steve. As a game programmer, he has to use a variety of programming languages to make games run well. “The first language I learned was Basic, then in school, I learned Pascal and Modular 3. But in video games, to get the best performance for the games, we used to write in Assembly language, which is the only language a CPU understands. Every other computer language gets compiled into the assembly language. So to make games fast, I used to program in Assembly. Then as the consoles got faster, I started writing in higher level languages. I started writing in C and then C++. But even now if you need to get a routine running really really fast, you may have to go back to Assembly.” Steve Said. But like any creative person, being a videogame programmer still requires inspiration. “Back when I was younger, I’m originally from England, and in Europe we had a bunch of home computers. Well the Atari 2600 was the first one, but then the Atari 400, Atari 800, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, these were all machines that were out when I was a teenager. I used to save up pocket money and buy games for them. That definitely influenced me. The games I played, I’d want to make a game like them but make it better.“ Said Steve. In conclusion, great art in video games requires a combination of artistic vision and technical skill. It takes a lot of collaboration between many different skill sets. But when you get the right talent together, the end result can be truly a spectacular and memorable game experience.

Photo Courtesy of Steve Broumley