New tools, new tricks. (Games).

Artists working in the video game industry have seen many changes over the last few years. One of the most noticeable of these was the large-scale transition from 2D to 3D about six years ago. Fueling further change more recently are high-powered consoles and PCs that can handle procedures that were once available only to film-effects professionals. Cloth simulations, shaders, and complex facial animation rigs were not to be found in most games two years ago--now they are common. Subsequent console generations will see more simulations, such as muscles, hair, volumetric effects, depth of field, logical motion blur, and cloth with collision detection.

Several factors are driving the technological changes forward so quickly. Software companies are developing middleware for game development that allows artists to view and modify art assets in game engines without having an internal engineer develop specific tools to do so. Developers of 3D and 2D software now offer game-specific tools within their packages. Off-the-shelf programs now exist for the creation of character musculature, automatic level-of-detail foliage, markerless, facial motion capture, and accurate automated voice sync. Colleges and universities are now teaching game development within their curriculums, and their graduating students should theoretically be plug and play within the game industry.

Gone are many of the limitations that once prevented game artists from realizing their full visions. But gone too is the usefulness of many past techniques. For example, the smaller game company artist will now need to become a generalist and learn many more programs and techniques in order to accommodate the rise in technology. And the larger game companies will likely have to create specialized art departments that mirror those of large film effects companies.

An example that follows a film model might be a game character that is first created by concept artists. The character is then passed on to a modeler, then to a character rigger, then to an animator, and finally ends with an art technician whose task is to integrate the character with the game. The pipeline ...