James Cameron â??fascinated by game enginesâ??

One of the most powerful men in Hollywood is fascinated with with game engines.

In fact, Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron uses game engines for storyboard production, Develop can reveal.

As part of a feature discussing the parallel-production of both the Avatar game and record-breaking film, Develop spoke to production staff from both sides of the coin. The feature – which you can read in full here – explored how it isn’t just games taking ideas from films, but also vice versa.

Ubisoft Montreal’s animation project manager Xavier Rang said that the sharing of assets and tools between games and films was “an approach that is the future of the video game industry.”

Rang also revealed that, during production of Avatar, Ubisoft Montreal had established a work area it called ‘The Bunker’, where the studio could securely acquire and use the assets to Cameron’s film.

Meanwhile, Nolan Murtha, digital effects supervisor at Cameron’s movie production studio Lightstorm Entertainment, revealed how much interest the director of Titanic showed in the development of the Avatar game.

“I haven’t heard of asset sharing where the people who are actually creating the movie are sharing assets with the people who are creating the video game to this level,” he said.

“I really don’t know of any directors who have played such a large role in, I wouldn’t say creating the game, but in guiding the game. Jim [James Cameron] just let the designers develop what they thought was a good game with a good story, but he still directed, and provided input and was available for questions and concerns when those kind of things came up.”

Go here to read the feature in full.