The Sentinel,

Oh, no, there will always be a need for artists. Concept, modeling, animation and textures. In fact, the newer stuff just gives them more work to do in quantity and quality. No doubt about that. What I meant was that the limitations of traditional game art will be lifted and there will be new aproaches to creating new effects not seen before.

Texture art will always be needed to at least paint things like blemishes and imperfections as well as the coloration of a given surface. The effect that light has on the surface is what will be calculated. Also, some texturing will relate to supplying artistically realized "maps" of one kind or another that are used by the engine to "key" certain effects off of, such as specular maps. I'm sure other types of "maps" will apply to effects I haven't imagined here.

For sure, though, there will be no more drawing shadows directly into textures. Light and shadow is ususally drawn into static traditional art, but 3D game artists will need to think differently about this in the future. And many of the newer materials effects could never be achieved by an artist the way they need to behave in a game anyway.