Upon visiting the ATI booth at Comdex, Luckee saw Manjit Jhita, Lead Animator on Sacrifice, playing the game and sat down to chat with him while he played.

Luckee:  I spoke with your associate, John, that worked on the models but how did you come up with the highly detailed, fresh animation that you see in this game?

Manjit:  Every creature is made up. I don’t think you’ll see any dragons or trolls or anything else in the game that looks familiar. We kept away from traditional characters because we didn’t want elves and dwarves running around the landscape. We wanted something different and I think that has paid off now. People are interested and are saying, "Wow what is that and what does it do?" I have been doing animations for 14 years and to have a new creature like this that I can make move, quite convincingly, unlike a human creature is great. Anyone can make something move like a human because they know how a human should move. Cats and dogs are also seen every day so people know how they move. But these are things that I animate because they are things you’ve never seen before and you don’t know how it’s going to move. I can make it move the way I want, yet keep it smooth so it looks convincing. After that many years of animating I think I’ve got it down to where there are no obvious mistakes that people can see.

Luckee:  What other things have you worked on?

Manjit:   The first interactive company I worked for was Argonaut Software in London. After that I went to work for Manger Entertainment doing film work again. I started off my career in traditional animation working for Walt Disney. I worked on Roger Rabbit and the film Who’s Roger Rabbit. From there I worked for various other companies and then came to the States to work for Shining.

Luckee:  You have a lead animator, a guy that creates the models, and then you create the animation? Is it hard to come up with smooth animations for someone else’s model?

Manjit: The gaming industry is a little different than the film industry. The film industry is more of a production line. You’ve got animators, modelers, drawers, etc. and you go from line to line to line or whatever. In games you get an artist that will build the model and do some animation, so what we have are experienced people at Shining, especially on the Sacrifice team. Each member has spent more than five or six years working on games and working in their particular fields. We have a specialist modeler, an art director who oversees the modeling and animation, an animator, a lead programmer, an AI programmer, and some level designers. We have had a producer for the last six or seven months to act as a polisher to make sure it is ready before we get it out.

Luckee:  With all that experience in mind, what is the average age of Sacrifice team members?

Manjit:  The average age here is about 29, I’m 35 and John is about 34.

Luckee:  I can tell you that the news on the Net already is that people are waiting for this game.

Manjit Yeah, we’ve had a lot of interest from a lot of newsgroups and Internet sites. Yesterday we had some artists playing it and they said there is absolutely no fogging in the landscapes and the graphics are crystal clear.

Luckee:  Do you think this game will really take advantage of the ATI Radion or Gforce 2 cards?

Manjit: Yes, but the real beauty of this game is that even if you have a low-end card, the game adapts to the capabilities of that card.

Luckee:  So you don’t have to spend hours tweaking the settings?

Manjit: No, what happens is that when you upgrade your machine, the game will upgrade itself automatically. It is really amazing.

Luckee:  Did you incorporate a lot of animation for the smoothness in the creatures, sky and for the weather effects?

Manjit:  What happens is each creature has on the average of 35 to 40 animations depending if it is a ground-based creature or air-based creature or both that can be running and take off flying. There are also tornados that can pick them up and tumble them through the air.

Luckee:  You have tornados in this game?

Manjit: We have tornados, volcanoes, and lot of other stuff.

Luckee:  So you worked on this animation? This is what you do?

Manjit:  No all of this is programming, just programming. All of the characters here that are running around the landscaping are me.

Luckee What game is coming out next, or are you going to be like the other designers or animators that say I can’t disclose that?

Manjit:  Well I can’t disclose any secret information, but if this goes well with the public we might be looking at an expansion pack for it.

Luckee:  I can’t wait for this game, I’m excited already. Thanks for your time.