Given the rapid rate of change in the interactive animation industry, we thought it would be interesting to check in with some of the key figures to see what they feel the future has in store.

John Gentile, President, Abrams/Gentile Entertainment, New York City: With the future megabyte platform just around the corner, true interactive entertainment will finally occur with the introduction of DVD and multilevel DVD (supporting up to a terrabyte of data on one mini-CD). But, what will truly drive interactive media will be ultimately one thing--content.

Content in the form of good stories and original characters is king and will always be king. The focus in creating such content will be to develop and create multi-layered storylines and characters to take advantage of the interactive process and maximize the multiple decision trees, the interactive viewer must choose to complete the story or adventure.

AGE will continue its pursuit of state of the art animation, both in cel and digital form, along with the creator of animotion (animation and live action) and live action with computer entertainment programs that push the visual envelope of TV viewing, while at the same time, creating content that is able to be totally vertically integrated from animation to interactive publishing and all forms of multimedia byproducts."

Blaine Cone, Vice President Research and Design, Nicholas Frank Company, Atlanta: The emergence of DVD will be a godsend for the "content intensive" segment of the industry. DVD is a medium capable of providing enough disk space for extensive animation, audio, etc. This means that animation and audio quality won't be as limited by space constraints anymore. It's a beautiful thing . . .

Gail Williams, Director, Multimedia, Corel Corporation, Ottawa: Corel is very excited about the future of the multimedia industry. Industry trends show that educational products are expected to boom starting as early as 1997 and will eventually match game revenue. Corel hopes to be a dominant force in both areas.

In addition, Corel has entered the high-end multimedia market with Corel Click and Create a multimedia authoring tool, which will soon be bundled with Corel Lumiere.

The recent progression in hardware development in such areas as increased processing power, larger mass storage devices, and plentiful RAM on computer systems being purchased in the consumer market, coupled with readily available video capture technology, has made the market ripe for applications that can quickly and easily turn raw video footage into a highly polished production. Corel Lumiere is just such a product.

Computer animation has never been more exciting and Corel hopes to continue to provide excitement to its users with leading edge graphics and animation in its series of multimedia products.