Allison Hershey
Computer illustration and 2D animation for software games.
Major work in animation and stories for Inherit The Earth (New World; 1994, CD/ROM for Mac and PC) and FaeryTale Adventure II: Halls of the Dead.
Minor animation work on I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream (Cyberdreams; 1995 CD/ROM) and trained the animators as well as some minor animation work on Dinotopia (Turner Entertainment; 1996 CD/ROM)
My job title was indicative of the environment for this game development house: I was more than an animator or artist.
I worked closely with the chief engineer of R&D to perfect in-house tools, specifically those related to the artists and how to interface the art with code.
Such tools included the creation of a ``graphic class library" system to maximize the game's art complexity without enormous memory costs or artists' time; a multi-tooled program to help define the both the palettes for each object of a sprite's `library' as well as defining actions for each sprite, thus streamlining the scripting process; and a modular isometric-tile drawing package.
I assisted the Chief Art Director in teaching painting techniques and the use of these proprietary tools to other artists who needed them on different projects.
Non-animator tasks I performed included writing up game proposals, story design, character design-sketches, creating a company lapel-pin and assisting in creating company shirts, and coordinating the parking rotation.
On Inherit The Earth, I handled major portions of key character design, character animation, character close-up graphics, story, and Reality Check.
I worked closely with the Art Director and the chief programmer of the project to ensure that there was consistancy in the design and rendering as well as continuity of the story.
On Faery Tale Adventure II, I assisted the Art Director work with the process of using a 3D rendered mannikin to build the animation sequences with the necessary alignment to the isometric background, convert the mannikin into the correct 2D format with a special limited palette, test and build the underlying 3D animation sequences to the specifications of the Project Director so other animators can paint the 2D sprites efficiently, coordinate the looks of the sprites, key character design for minor sprites added late to the process, and did clean-up or correction of other animators' sprites while concurrently doing animation and sprite palette-definition.
I was one of the three full-time animators for the project and rendered major portions of character animation, story, color mapping and Reality Check.
As Dinotopia utilized the same graphic engine as Faery Tale, I trained the character animators of this project in how to use the in-house utilities and specifications for the engine.
I also worked on converting special dinosaur mannikins into the correct 2D format for the animators to use.
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