Here come the next-generation of videogame consoles: PlayStation 3, Revolution and Xbox 360 (left to right). All require new skills and gaming companies seek additional artists from various industries to enhance their teams.

Developing games for the next generation of videogame consoles — Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Revolution — requires new skills, new tools and new processes. As a result, many gaming companies are turning to the film industry, as well as television, web design, online gaming, architectural animation and the commercial sector, as they seek additional artists to enhance their teams.

Jamie MacDonald of Sony Computer Ent. Europe, best known for the EyeToy, observes that videogames are no longer a poor relation. Film crossover into games will increase with film-quality resolution in the next-gen consoles.

The crossover from film and other industries into videogames has been ongoing for years, of course, but is expected to intensify with the advent of next-gen HD consoles, which boast film-quality resolution. “We are entering a new era where videogames are not a poor relation,” says Jamie MacDonald, vp development at Sony Computer Ent. Europe, the London studio best known for The Getaway and EyeToy.

Glen Entis, svp and chief visual and technical officer at EA Worldwide Studios, agrees, noting that films no longer wow audiences with spectacular new effects in every production; the main challenge now is to find a way to maximize the number of shots while minimizing the cost. “The level of excitement [in film] has calmed down,” Entis says. “Vfx have been almost commoditized.”

On the other hand, next-gen videogames present interesting challenges. “The challenges are basically invitations to growth,” Entis believes. “Creatively, we can almost not imagine where the effects are going.” EA has been hiring from the film industry for years, and it continues to seek film artists who are looking for that excitement.

EA Worldwide Studios’ Glen Entis notes that films no longer wow audiences with spectacular new effects in every production.

Sony Europe is actively recruiting from the TV and movie post-production houses that surround it in At the same time, many of the skills required to develop next-gen games are “more in the CG movie space than in the game space,” MacDonald explains. “Those skills haven’t been needed in the game industry up until now.”

London’s Soho district. “It’s an education process, really,” says MacDonald. “If I threw a stone from where I’m sitting 100 yards in any direction, I’d hit an edit suite or post-production house. But if you told them a large videogame development studio was 100 yards away, they wouldn’t know.” MacDonald’s goal is to encourage freelance artists to add videogames to their menu of TV and movie projects.

Epic Games is looking to films to recruit people in two specific areas where it believes schools haven’t prepared students adequately. Unlike modeling, where training has followed the leaps in technology, there has been a lack of education in textures and shaders, as well as in particle effects, says Epic’s art director, Jerry O’Flaherty. “We have a lot of explosions and muzzle flashes. It’s shocking how few people want to or are trained to do this.” Old-style particle effects and shaders won’t look up to snuff in the hyper-real environment of next-gen games, O’Flaherty adds. But he believes film people, who have been creating complex shaders in a hyper-real environment and blending effects with live action, will fit in easily.