(re: Couple Questions (Sprite and Interpreter related)) I know for a lot of your later games, you used video capture and rotoscoping to create animations and the like, but what about the first few VGA SCI games like Space Quest IV? Did animators make every single frame by hand, much like I do now? Also, how did you handle schedules for animators and the like? Was it a list, with specific due dates from certain animations, or was it a bit more leniant?
Also on the topic of your original engines, AGI and SCI… Who holds the rights to those now? Say for instance, you created a new game using SCI and sold it. Would VU be able to sue?
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Most of our animation was done cell by cell. For most games, we did good old fashioned paper pencil sketch animation, and scanned it into the computer — then did the ink/paint on the computer.
Scheduling artists was always a nightmare. Artists don’t work well when you put them on a deadline. Sierra’s artists never wanted to release a piece of art until it is perfect – they didn’t react well when you would say: “give me the best version of Graham swimming that you can do in 7 hours” … our art schedules were always “soft”.
As to your last question – about the rights to SCI and AGI – I have no idea. My sense is that distributing Sierra’s copyrighted code would be a problem. I doubt they would ever notice or care. I wouldn’t do it though…..
Good luck!
-Ken W