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Introduction
As an industry, we are now deeply entrenched in a new generation of console development. What seemed unknown and even scary only a few years ago is now part of most developer's everyday work. In the end, most people's fears about the new breed of games requiring hundreds more artists, drastic increases in budgets and longer development times turned out to be unjustified. Many high quality titles have been made on time by small to average sized teams of experienced staff.

With that said, creating artwork for these new machines has never been more problematic. Many artists, especially those coming from the familiarity of the previous generation, have had to learn a whole new set of tools and work practices.

Creating efficient, high quality environment art can be done with the right amount of planning and forethought. I have identified, based on my experience developing several titles for the 360 and PS3, key 'problem areas' commonly found in next-gen art pipelines. This article outlines these areas and offers solutions, hopefully helping other artists identify problems earlier rather than later.

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