C++ Game Animation Programming - Second Edition

Preface

Character animations have existed since the first games were created for computers. The spaceships in SpaceWar!, written by Steve Russell in 1962 for a PDP-1, and Computer Space by Nolan Bushnell, released in 1971 as an arcade cabinet, were animated, with the animation showing the direction in which the spaceships headed.

Over time, the evolution of character animation went from these raster graphics, drawn by the electron beam inside the cathode-ray tube of old TV sets, to simple 2D pictures (so-called “sprites”). These sprites were drawn by hand, picture by picture, and every one of these pictures showed a different animation phase. To create the illusion of real-time animations, the pictures were shown quickly one after another, like ...