Interview With A Slots 3D Animator

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Have you ever played slots like “Gonzo’s Quest”, “Wolverine” or “Jack and the Beanstalk”, which feature animated characters besides the reels and rely heavily on 3D visuals for its symbols and animations? Chances are you probably have – as 3D becomes more prevalent in both Hollywood and the world of slots (seriously, when is the last time you went and saw a brand new traditionally animated movie in the cinema?), more and more companies start relying on it to replace 2D animation. Naturally, those 3D images can’t make and animate themselves, and as such special animators are being hired to do the work. Well, I actually managed to get in contact with one such animator who has years of experience in the iGaming industry, and he has agreed to give me a short interview and provide me with a couple of details about his job as a 3D animator! Unfortunately, he was forced to sign an NDA upon starting his job, and he’d prefer to be safe rather than sorry, which is why I won’t be disclosing his name. With that said, let’s get right into it!

Q: Hey, thanks for agreeing to do this! Why don’t you introduce yourself briefly and tell us a little bit about your job and experience?
A: Well, I’m 33 years old, and I’ve been working on slots pretty much since I left university. It wasn’t exactly a dream job, but it pays the bills, not to mention it allows me to experiment with many different characters and artstyles in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to if I was working in movies. My job primarily consists of creating animations and poses for various slots that my company is developing.

Q: So it’s just the animation? You’re not making the 3D models too?
A: No. I can make 3D models if I need to, but that’s not really where my strength lies, so we’ve got a person for that. I’m just doing animations and poses.

Q: What about intro animations? Do you make those too?
A: No, those are typically outsourced. I can make them if push comes to shove, but the management prefers to have the slot out as quickly as possible.

Q: Do you come up with them yourself, or does someone tell you what to do?
A: Well, it’s a mix of both, really. Every slot has a designer that decides its theme, comes up with its bonus games, does the math for payouts, that kind of thing. I try to work pretty closely with the designer in order to make sure that my work matches his vision for the theme. If he wants something more cartoony and goofy, I can’t really present him with animation that’s realistic and fluid. But he doesn’t tell me exactly what to do, so for the most part I’m left to my own devices.

Q: How long does it usually take to complete the animation for a slot?
A: It really depends on the requirements and the budget. Sometimes all I need to do is a few poses for the title screen and symbols, which takes a couple of days. When more complex animation is involved, it can take up to a month. But typically, slots are very quick to make, and I personally haven’t worked on a project that has taken more than a month or two from conception to finished state.

Q: Speaking of budgets, I’ve always been curious about how much it costs to make a slot. Are they expensive?
A: Well, I can’t say for sure, since I’m not really kept in the loop, but I don’t think so, no. I personally don’t get paid very much for my job, and there have even been times in which I have worked overtime without pay. I’d certainly be able to earn more if I worked as an animator for a movie studio or an advertisement company, but it’s an easy, fun and stable job, not to mention it allows me to experiment with various characters and styles, so I’m not complaining.

Q: Okay, last question! We all know that plenty of slots get released every year, but are there any you’ve worked on that haven’t seen the light of day? And if so, can you share a bit about the ones you regret the most?
A: Oh, yeah, there’s definitely been a couple of failures. I can’t really go into a lot of details, but I’ve worked on several licensed slots that were ultimately scrapped because the license agreements fell through on a technicality at the last second. One of those I was really passionate about, so that really sucked. As for the ones that I can talk about, probably my favorite of those was one inspired by “Finding Nemo”, which forced me to step up my game and learn how to do fish animations that looked natural and beautiful. I was really happy with the results, but since we wanted the slot to have a pretty big jackpot our CEO cut the cord on it shortly before release.

Q: Thank you very much for the answers! I think I speak for everyone when I say it’s been quite informative!
A: It was a pleasure!

Should Casinos Be Involved In Game Development?

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In the world of videogames, the people running a platform are typically very involved with the development of games which appear on that platform, especially if they’re meant to be exclusively on that platform. I mean, it’s not hard to find a list of game development studios which are owned by Sony (and as such develop their games exclusively on Sony’s PlayStation), and I can guarantee you that on each one of them Sony is listed as a co-developer. And why shouldn’t they be? The exclusive games represent their platform, in a way. Good exclusive games means more people will be attracted to that platform, so Sony are inclined to hire experts and quality control people to make sure that the games which represent PlayStation will be as good as they can possibly be… But that almost never happens when it comes to online gambling.

Online casinos have tons of connections, mostly to various e-wallet services (I mean, just look at all the casinos listed on ponlinecasinos.co.uk), but I’ve noticed that they don’t really have a connection with probably the most important people in the industry – casino games providers. You’d be surprised about how little communication happens between the developers and the online casinos, especially in relation to game development! Imagine that Casino A wants to commission Developer B to create an online slot that will appear on their site and on their site only. They’ll agree on a budget and… Well, that’ll be that! Casino A will no longer care. Developer B can literally produce whatever they want within the allocated budget without getting into trouble at all. Of course, in many cases the casino can reject a game and back out of the deal if it doesn’t meet their quality standards, but they will do absolutely nothing to assure that these standards are even being met in the first place when it truly matters – during development.

One of the worst offenses I’ve noticed is that the games which are exclusive to certain casinos (for example, 888 and their “Millionaire Genie”) rarely, if ever, have anything at all in common. 888 isn’t a site about genies. It doesn’t have anything to do with Middle-Eastern mythology whatsoever. Hell, not even the blue and brown color scheme of the slot matches the green and black hues of the site! I mean, come on, couldn’t you try to make it look more like the game belonged? You primarily hear me talking about the visuals of a slot, and that’s because I’m one of those people who care about them more than other aspects, so I’m particularly agitated by this. With a bit of communication between developers and casinos maybe soon enough we’ll be able to start seeing games which better represent the casinos they’re associated with not just visually, but in various fun and creative ways. One can dream, right?

What Makes For Good Animation In Slots?

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I often read online reviews on slots on sites, and there’s one thing I couldn’t help but notice. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m probably the only person who has noticed, all things considered, but I have noticed nonetheless! A few of the reviews I’ve read talk about the slot’s “animation”… But I have never really seen anyone actually explain what they mean. “This slot has very good animation” isn’t exactly a very self-explanatory sentence, after all! I mean, what are they talking about? It’s not something that’s easy to understand, like “This movie has good acting”, or “This song has good rhythm” – I mean, animation can mean a whole lot of things! It’s like someone saying “This game has good gameplay”… Like, what the hell are you even talking about?

As I continued to play slots, some things became clearer to me. I began to gradually understand exactly what made animation in slots good – maybe even better than the reviewers themselves! By now, I’ve got a more concrete idea of what exactly it means for a slot to have “good animation”, and it’s not just one thing. In order to make it clearer for everyone reading this, I decided to separate this into three different parts which encompass several elements of what makes good animation and then explain each in simple terms so that everyone can understand. Remember – I’m NOT going to be talking about the graphics, just the animation! With that out of the way, let’s dive right into it!

1. Smoothness of the Reels

First and foremost, “good animation” means that the reels of the slot are moving smoothly. I’m not sure how many of you have actually played or at least seen a physical video slot (I haven’t played them, though I’ve seen videos), but they always move flawlessly, without even a single skipped frame. It’s literally like they’re actual reels located behind the screen – it’s beautiful! I could literally watch them spin for hours on end! Hell, if my YouTube history is any indication, I probably have! But sadly, even in the modern day in which our phones are more powerful than the computer that sent people to the Moon in the 60s, I haven’t seen too many slots that offer the same smoothness. Sure, they show up here and there, and they’re always a treat, but honestly, they’re so rare that right now I can’t even think of one.

Most online slots feel kind of choppy, wouldn’t you say? They don’t really move smoothly – they have low framerates and often look like they were meant to run on a much older computer. It’s like they’re struggling to spin those reels! Hell, even those slots that are spinning relatively smoothly don’t come anywhere NEAR the smoothness and clarity of their physical counterparts, which is a real shame, because I’m absolutely certain that my computer can handle it. I mean, sure, I get that slots are made for the lowest common denominator – while I personally have a gaming laptop, most people who play slots have pretty old machines, and the developers want to make sure that everyone can run the slot. But to that, I say… Why not have quality toggles? Allow me to play the game as smoothly as possible, emulating a physical slot, with no cap on the frames per second, and at the same time give the option to other people to reduce the quality if they’re having issues running the slot properly. That would solve a lot of problems and make certain online slots even more desirable!

2. Spectacle

I struggled a lot with how exactly to name this, but I think “spectacle” is about a s good of a name as any, so here we go! What I’m referring to is what happens when you win. In most slots, whenever you line up multiple symbols they’ll often move about. In Mega Moolah, the animals move their eyes, ears and/or heads, in The Avengers the frames around the superheroes zoom out to reveal their bodies as they do a cool pose, in Terminator 2 they play relevant clips from the movie, etc. It’s all about making it painfully obvious that you’ve won (even if it’s just 1/5th of your bet, which means that you technically lost), and making you feel good about it. Of course, most of these animations tend to be pretty primitive. A good chunk of video slots only have blinking and/or sparkling icons to indicate that you’ve won, while even more have animations that can be created by a first year college student on After Affects… In other words, they’re not particularly impressive. Still, the few slots that do manage to put a lot of effort into their spectacle and use good animation to its full advantage always make a good impression.

But moving symbols aren’t the only things that indicate that you’ve won. Some slots, such as Gonzo’s Quest, have a character on the side of the screen who gets overly excited whenever you win. And pretty much all of them throw coins or confetti at you whenever you win some pretty big money. There are plenty of ways to make the player feel good about their winning, and most, if not all of them, involve animation, hence why it’s so important for it to be done well. Seeing a well-made shower of money run across the screen is way, WAY more satisfying than a bunch of blinking letters saying “Congratulations, you won”, isn’t it?

3. Bonus Games/Special Features

Last, but not least, the animation of the bonus games and/or special features is also evaluated. These special features (often, but not always, activated with the collection of 3 Scatter symbols) are extremely rare, and as such the player must feel good about having activated one. A lot of slots do that flawlessly – the aforementioned The Avengers, for instance, has completely different music and visuals for each of its 4 bonus games, and slots such as Avalon II have put a whole lot of effort into their games in order to ensure that their games are varied and interesting. But the games themselves aren’t enough to catch the player’s attention – you need to let them know that they’ve stumbled onto something very special, and that they’re about to make a whole lot of money. How do you do that? Animation, my friends!

A very good example of this comes from the slot Thunderstruck II, when the Wildstorm feature happens and the Norse god Thor comes flying in, swinging his hammer and summoning lightning bolts which turn two or more columns into gigantic Wild symbols. That has happened only once to me, but it was one of the most awesome experiences I’ve ever had. While the animation wasn’t exactly Disney, it was still pretty satisfying to see it all unfold – definitely much more than if a few rows suddenly turned into Wilds after a text message or something. Another slot with awesome animation is Pink Panther, which also manages to liven up its bonus games with small cartoons featuring the famous character, alongside an absolutely brilliant intro that explains the slot’s mechanics in animation form.

Hopefully that has made the idea of “good animation” in slots a bit more clear to anyone who, like me, was a bit confused about it. With that said, go and enjoy some slots with great animation! And don’t forget to drop a message and let me know which one’s your favorite, or if you have any questions for me!