Art pipeline: Difference between revisions

{{uncat|October 2006}}

The '''Art Pipeline''' is a term used to describe the entire process of creating and implementing art for a particular project, most commonly associated with the creative process for developing [[video games]].  In an era of high profile video games, wherein the creative energy of the teams and the budgets for projects surpass even some [[Hollywood]] blockbusters, graphics are ever-improving and an increasingly important selling point.  [[Video game developers|Video Game developers]] employ extensive teams of [[artists]] to carry a project's artistic goals through from the conceptual stage to the final release.  A fully realized game asset, whether it is a [[character]], background, building, object, or [[animation]], is created in a deliberate process with different artists working on and contributing separate aspects in a step by step process to the final product.  To facilitate this process, a number of [[software]] programs are marketed to developers as flexible tools for productively streamlining the transformation of elements created within a program to a fully realized game asset.  These highly customizable programs allow users to apply [[plug-ins]] or add-ons to tailor the interactions each [[Computer program|program]] will have with one another as an element moves along the [[Pipeline (software)|pipeline]] from [[concept]] to completion.