For teaching purposes can you kindly donate any current gen assets?
quad damage
Hi
As always I am on the look out for quality material donated for my students to explore in relation to what we teach. It will give them a chance to pull the product apart and explore them in there own time. While lecturer staff do come up with material and we employ Visiting Lecturer staff to help do the same the more material I can gather the better. An example of this was a recent donation of a character from a film which had 50 plus artists working on a single character. So whether its a Aircraft carrier, Drop Ship, Vehicle, Character, Asset all is welcome. It would be great if the characters or creatures where rigged to give a chance for the technical artists explore the models.
University of Hertfordshire students thread.
Any source file is fine, Maya, Modo, 3DSMax, Marmoset, OBJ, FBX, Unity, UE4, CryEngine and so on. We appreciate you might not have the time clean up the files so we can do that at our end.
Thank you to Rare, Sony, MPC and Framestore for your great files, please keep them coming.
The lecturer staff would like to give some in depth lessons on game topo and compare it to film topo to help show the difference (break down the muscle loops and compare it to more regular quad surface in VFX for higher res skin slide etc).
Feel free to Wetransfer the files to me - n.gallagher "AT" herts.ac.uk
As always we will make sure credits will go to you or your company and explain that any sharing of the files on free or paid websites would be a very stupid move. Feel free to put any disclaimer you want inside the folder.
Would also love to have any links to good quality give away threads like this lot -
Thank you DireWolf - http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138341
Thank you Eric Chadwick - http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Character#Character_Examples
Thank you almighty_gir - http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138341
Thank you Stromberg90 - http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38292
Thank you Frankie - http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/06/24/releasing-the-blacksmith/
Thank you JacqueChoi - http://www.dota2.com/workshop/requirements
Thank you JacqueChoi - http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70908
Thank you Shrike - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/
Thanks to EarthQuake -
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/499159/lenscontent.zip
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/499159/divinghelmetcontent03.zip
As always I am on the look out for quality material donated for my students to explore in relation to what we teach. It will give them a chance to pull the product apart and explore them in there own time. While lecturer staff do come up with material and we employ Visiting Lecturer staff to help do the same the more material I can gather the better. An example of this was a recent donation of a character from a film which had 50 plus artists working on a single character. So whether its a Aircraft carrier, Drop Ship, Vehicle, Character, Asset all is welcome. It would be great if the characters or creatures where rigged to give a chance for the technical artists explore the models.
University of Hertfordshire students thread.
Any source file is fine, Maya, Modo, 3DSMax, Marmoset, OBJ, FBX, Unity, UE4, CryEngine and so on. We appreciate you might not have the time clean up the files so we can do that at our end.
Thank you to Rare, Sony, MPC and Framestore for your great files, please keep them coming.
The lecturer staff would like to give some in depth lessons on game topo and compare it to film topo to help show the difference (break down the muscle loops and compare it to more regular quad surface in VFX for higher res skin slide etc).
Feel free to Wetransfer the files to me - n.gallagher "AT" herts.ac.uk
As always we will make sure credits will go to you or your company and explain that any sharing of the files on free or paid websites would be a very stupid move. Feel free to put any disclaimer you want inside the folder.
Would also love to have any links to good quality give away threads like this lot -
Thank you DireWolf - http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138341
Thank you Eric Chadwick - http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Character#Character_Examples
Thank you almighty_gir - http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138341
Thank you Stromberg90 - http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38292
Thank you Frankie - http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/06/24/releasing-the-blacksmith/
Thank you JacqueChoi - http://www.dota2.com/workshop/requirements
Thank you JacqueChoi - http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70908
Thank you Shrike - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/
Thanks to EarthQuake -
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/499159/lenscontent.zip
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/499159/divinghelmetcontent03.zip
Replies
University of Hertfordshire is in the Top 20 Schools in the world to Study VFX/Animation and Next-Gen Gaming for 2015 according to Autodesk the leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software.
http://www.cgstudentawards.com/magazine/entry/top-20-schools-to-study-vfx-animation-and-next-gen-gaming-for-2015?utm_content=buffer59c23&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
“Having access to over 1,000 entries ranked from top-to-bottom by industry experts is an extremely powerful indicator of where the best talent is coming from on a global scale, said Andrew McDonald, CG Student Awards - CoFounder.”
Some quotes from this years graduates.
Jessica Lennox
Definitely three of the best years of my life. I have no regrets in regards to attending the university of Hertfordshire. It offered me the rare opportunity to explore both my creative and technical skills together and develop myself into the basis of a solid 3D Artist. Because of the tutorship and self motivation, I was able to improve upon the right skills which allowed me to go straight from university and into an industry job that I enjoy'
Connor Sheehan
"Attending Hertfordshire was a fantastic move for my career, there I was able to really find what I am most passionate about by exploring different aspects of game design. Combined with the tutorship and advice from the lecturers I was able to hone my skills to be employed right out of Uni doing exactly what I want to do."
Kye Holt
"Studying 3D Games Art at UHanimation has really helped me to achieve my goals of becoming a Character Artist. Gaining a job in the industry straight after finishing my degree, would have been impossible without the help of knowledgeable lecturers and useful links to industry professionals. I have evolved as an artist over the past three years and would thoroughly recommend the university."
Connor Sheehan
"Attending Hertfordshire was a fantastic move for my career, there I was able to really find what I am most passionate about by exploring different aspects of game design. Combined with the tutorship and advice from the lecturers I was able to hone my skills to be employed right out of Uni doing exactly what I want to do."
Why, exactly, cannot the university pay for its teaching tools? Why not pay the graduating students who cannot currently find work to create these assets that you want?
And what does this post even say to perspective students? Come spend thousands of at our university and then work for free afterwards because that's how little you're valued?
"What is the total cost of the program? "
Costs can be found here - http://www.herts.ac.uk/courses/3d-games-art-and-design
"How many graduates do you have a year? "
Around 100 on Games Art, VFX, 2D and 3D Animation also have some MA and PhD
"How many of them are employed"
Employed, to early to say but its looking good from this thread, previous year was 67% first choice employment -
http://www.3dhit.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=14971&&page=30
"Who do you connect them to?"
Manly the the following studios were our alumni work, but expanding into Research and Indie Dev now, also visit as many studios as possible over the summer, also need to add to this list.
Activision (Shanghai)
Activision (UK)
Apache Solutions Ltd
Babel Media
Beatnik Games
Bioware
Blitz Games
Bohemia Interactive Simulations
Climax
Creative Assembly
Crytek UK
Digi-Guys
Dovetail Games
DR Studios
Electronic Arts
Eurocom
Eutechnyx Ltd
Exient
FortuneFish Ltd
FreestyleGames
Frontier
Frozenbyte
Full Fat Games
Geomerics
Gusto Games
Headstrong Games
Hothouse Creations
Idle Creations
Ignition London
Jagex
Juice Games
Keen Games
Kuju
Lionhead Studios
nDreams
Nektan
Nintendo
Outso
PlayerThree Ltd
Playfish
Playground Games
Plumbee
Poly Assets United Inc
Psychotron
Radiant Worlds Ltd
Rare-Microsoft Games
Real Time Worlds
Rebellion Games
Related Designs
Reloaded Productions
Remode
Rockstar North
Rocksteady Studios
Slinky Pictures
Sony-London Studio
Sony-Cambridge Studio
Space Ape Games
Spiral House
Splash Damage
Square Enix
Supermassive Games
Traveller's Tales
Twimler
Ubisoft (Singapore)
Ubisoft - BluByte (Germany)
Zoe Mode
3D, 2D & VFX :
Activ8
AixSponza
Analog
Ancha
Aniboxx
Animated Storyboards
Anthem Studios
Archipelago
Atomic Arts
Atticus Finch
Axis Animation
Azimuth Post Production
Baby Cow
Base Black
Big Red Button
BinWeevils
BlinkInk
Blue Zoo
Boutiq
Caboom
The Character Shop
CherryCherry
Cinesite
Click 3X
CoolToons
Cult Toons
Cumi Ltd
Digi-Guys
Digipost New Zealand
Disney Production
DixonBaxi
Double Negative
Factory Fifteen
FireStep
Flickerpix
Fluid Pictures
The Foundry
Framestore
Gener8
Gentlemen Broncos
Glassworks
Glowfrog
Gnu Films
Happy Finish
Hi-ReS
Huge Media
ImpossibleTV
Infinite Frameworks
Inspidea
Jellyfish Pictures
Jim Henson's Creature Shop
Kavaleer Productions
Kazoo Creative
Keyframe Studios
Laika
Les' Copaque
Lupus Films
Mainframe
Method Studios
Milk Visual Effects
MNC Animation
Moving Picture Company
Munky
The Mill
Nadom
National Space Centre
Natural Motion
nDreams
The Neighbourhood
Neon
Nexus Productions
Nomint Pictures
Nuframe
Nvisage
Nvizible
One Dead Pixel
One of Us
Overthrow Productions
Passion Pictures
Picasso Pictures
Picture House TV
Pipedreams 3D
Pixomondo
Plowman Craven
The Pond Studio
Postyr Post Production
Prime Focus
PTE media
Pumphouse Productions
Qvisten Studios
Realise Studio
Realtime UK
Redvision
ReelGood
Rewind FX
Rise FX
RJDM Animations
Rushes
Saddington & Baynes
Selex SI
The Senate VFX
The Sex Pixels
Sherbert
Smoke and Mirrors
Spider Eye
StitchthatTV
Storm Studios
Studio AKA
Studio Liddell
Sudden Black (SBTV)
Th1ng
The Third Floor, Inc
Tidal Films
Uber
Union VFX
Villains Wear Black
Vine Post Production
Visual Method
Windmill Lane VFX
Zoo Films
Arch Vis
ArcMedia
AVR London
BAM Design
Build
Crystal CG
Foster and Partners
Last Pixel
Miller Hare
PreConstruct
Real Visual
River Film Communication
Rock Hunter
Smoothe
Square Edge
Tiger X
Tinderstone
Uniform
V-Real
Vyonyx
Product Visualisation
A.i.Solve
Autonomy
Bentley Motors
Burrows CGI
The Creative Partnership
Dialectyx
Douglas Fisher
Firedog Design
Fusion Medical Animation
HMX Media
MediaSphere Ltd
Odd Boy
Random 42
Sparkle Media
Taylor James
Tekuchi
Wilma Studios
"What support do you offer each student afterwards"
Support, Alumni are always welcome back to use the equipment, events in central London, there is a Skillset event on monday in central London, constant emailing companies asking for graduates, many get picked up from the UHPolycount thread, we have a student forum 3dhit website - UHAnimation, invites to as many events as possible such as the Digital Art http://www.daconference.com/
"Why, exactly, cannot the university pay for its teaching tools?"
We do but we love free stuff too, happy to share these items with other uni's
"And what does this post even say to perspective students? "
Wow, those guys are teaching at the cutting edge
"Come spend thousands of at our university and then work for free afterwards because that's how little you're valued?"
No one is allowed to work for free, during a small internship, Sandwich year or as a graduate as its against the law in the UK
I hope that has answered your questions, also happy to hear about any ideas that you have on how to improve the course.
Also happy to help any indie projects to get off the ground, You can also get a free MA though this set up. So feel free to PM me and I will be more then happy to show you around.
http://www.herts.ac.uk/cerc/projects/verl-visual-effects-research-lab
And from there one could expect the teachers to provide such material created by them from scratch (after all, who would want to take an oil painting class taught by a teacher who doesn't paint him/herself ?), especially in an age where Patreon and Gumroad tutorships are flourishing, with industry vets putting out great content for very cheap.
That being said, a lot of game models are relatively easy to extract/decompile with just a little bit of engine knowledge ; and furthermore, directly asking studios for old assets shouldn't be a problem. Assets from current games are probably going to be an issue though, since in many cases the artists who created content for shipped games are not even cleared to show wireframe shots and budgets/specs.
So from there it goes back to the idea of having the teachers to create such content, or even, contracting freelance artists to create it.
Since you didn't post it here is the breakdown for everyone:
£9,000 per year for what appears to be a 3 year program. So a total of £27,000 (or $41,499 for anyone curious of US currency conversion).
£11,000 per year for what appears to be a 3 year program for international students. So a total of £33,000 (or $50,723 for anyone curious of US currency conversion).
So for this single program alone, based on the number of graduates you said you have a year (100) that is an average minimum of £2,700,000 (or $4,150,116) per cycle. That does not include mixing in international students or students who dropped the program.
None of the above includes the pricing for room and board either.
Alright, I'll take you at face value. Although I'd like to see an actual reference since you haven't minded providing links throughout your response.
This I won't take at face value. It is a post from 2009 and it relies on input from the students themselves and there is no telling who and who didn't bother to utilize the forum.
This isn't a brochure here. List all the studios you want, but how do you connect these graduates to those people? Are you telling me you have a contact in all of those studios you just mentioned and you shoot out an e-mail for each student looking for work? Do all of these studios send the university constant updates for job opportunities for your students? Otherwise naming off all those studios is disingenuous at best.
How often are these events? Are these events solely for the 3D Game Arts majors? Or are they giant job fairs with ridiculous entry level jobs in random fields that universities like to pass off as doing their part? I'm unsure what you mean by constant emailing companies asking for graduates. Companies are contacting the university? How many companies? How many positions per year?
We all love free stuff. You know what we all love even more? Getting paid. Which is exactly what the university is getting.
That's not even close to what I'm seeing in these posts. In addition to the other points I've brought up you're also telling me you have a giant list of dozens of studio contacts, yet you come here asking for free work? Do these hundreds of alumni not have anything from all those studios to donate?
Answered? You did a great job of playing the PR piece, but nothing was really answered to my satisfaction. And as far as ideas? You seem to have glossed over the one I left in my post where I suggested paying your own graduates for the assets you're looking for. It's called investing in your work, and I'm a bit concerned how little confidence you must have in your own graduates not to go in that direction.
I am still annoyed by the idea of an artist giving away their work to a place that will turn around and make money off of it.
Obviously, as a teacher, you want your students to have the best materials possible so you can help them achieve their goals by the time they graduate. I don't really know your background but I assume you're not the owner of the school or anything asking for free stuff.
That about sums it up, while there is budget for Visiting Lecturer staff to come up with content the pot can only go so far, so to supplement this I am asking on behalf of my students to help them as a teaching resource to be able to study any extra content we can get out hands on.
As I said above we would like to compare and contrast models to the film industry techniques to help further their understanding, break down the models, rig them, add blueprints, rebuild them with different techniques and so on.
I'm not exactly sure what to think...
No current gen assets there though.
However there still is value in sharing assets for educational purposes. They're not being used to sell the school to new students; they're being used to augment course instruction.
We have links to some free content here.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Character#Character_Examples
Since you'll technically be using the models for profit though, before you try to use anything from there you should probably contact the authors individually and:
A. ask permission.
B. offer compensation.
Great stuff, cool for the animators as well.
Thank you.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138341
I think I share some of the other's view. Learning is good. I love to share my knowledge. But when this request was made for a paid course, it does feel cheap and rip off.
So I think one of the first places you should look is at previous student works that meet the quality you are looking for. Share that with your current students, since it's something your school and previous students produced. Also gives some motivation of, "Hey if that person can do it, so can I" instead of an industry asset that was probably worked on by several people with combined decades of experience. The final image is what matters, rather than digging into how the asset was made. I don't think there's anything special about an industry asset, we all model, unwrap UVs, texture things and understand how Shaders/PBR works, add on some good lighting/presentation skills and that's that, ship it.
1.) Hertfordshire is one of the few schools who seem like the students are well prepared on graduating
2.) little claude is always a student advocate on his own, pimping his students work for polycount to see and also pimping alumni work. His interest in them seems very genuine. (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68766&page=19)
3 - He is a productive member of PC outside his capacity as a teacher.
So while maybe asking for free stuff can be seen as shady, I really don't doubt his intentions of asking on the behalf of his students, and not on behalf of financial gain of the school.
I dont have any assets to donate but maybe it would be a little more give/take Littleclaud to ask Alumni who have gone on to big things, to ask them to donate.
Schools frequently ask Alumni for donations and time commitments.
Heres a couple Toolbag scenes for you. Feel free to use for any educational purpose:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/499159/lenscontent.zip
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/499159/divinghelmetcontent03.zip
A lot of hate towards an instructor trying to teach the RIGHT way.
Tough crowd.
I'm also a part-time adjunct professor, and finding up to date material is fucking HARD, and simply not feasible to do completely on my own.
Anyways....
Claude - One of the first assignments I now run is 'Make a DOTA 2 Weapon'.
http://www.dota2.com/workshop/
The FBX and maya files + Textures for the in-game characters are all up there.
Great documentation on the artistic pipeline.
Informative Style Guide.
Hard Technical limitations.
Easy to integrate into an engine
Great support from the Polycount DOTA 2 sub-community.
TONS of examples.
The great thing about this assignment, is they get to see their item running in an actual game. They get to experience that ethereal connection artists get to seeing their art running in REAL TIME (and thwaking other people with it).
Another assignment I like run, are those old-school Hand painted Diffuse SDK's that Bobo/Mop made.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70908
And that is of course before even getting into the morality brought up by FuriousDark on anyone requesting free assets which they intend to profit off of.
If you don't want to give them models, don't. But there's nothing wrong with him trying to help out his students.
I'll try to throw together some in a rar. What sort of source files are you looking for? My maya files are usually pretty rough around the edges, and they don't always work right out of the box; sometimes I make a new file for exploding the high, for instance.
Consider this is the UK and the maximum tuition fee each year is £9000. Now almost every course I have seen not just in games but across several different subject areas almost all of them are at the maximum of £9000 and I think the lowest I have ever seen is £8700.
This is a rough breakdown of where those fees go (don't quote me on this I have not read all of it)
http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Documents/2013/WhereStudentFeesGo.pdf
The fee's themselves are probably decided by more administrative staff at the university themselves rather than the people running the course. If there was lots of free money that every course generated then the fees would be much lower for every course (computer driven courses being more expensive than more traditional courses that are non-computer based).
That being said I may be a little bit bias because University of Hertfordshire is my first choice for university applications next year.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/39941
(Below is assumed UK shit)
I also know about the red tape, paper pushing aspects of a position such as his. Going off of the standard UK teacher job, he's probably overworked, understaffed and does not see a fraction of that tuition fee. Most probably marking work out of hours as the going norm is.
So when you see FuriousDark, a 9 post account flaming the shit out of him, the natural assumption is that it's a pissed off student which by his own description, "has terrible short term memory", who also only wants to do part of a job role. I've seen what people produce off of Hert's course and personally wanted to apply there myself but circumstance stopped me.
Yes, for profit universities are terrible but don't hate the guy, who at the end of the day is trying to help his students.
Write an angry letter to the head of the department or the paper pushers who decide his budget?
When the students get to see these products whether its a Drop ship, Batman Car, Aircraft Carrier and so they realize its a team effort and it becomes quite apparent that for many in this industry you have to learn to be a team player, from Concept art to your first Edge Loops, UV Mapping, Texturing, Rigging, Materials and a so on. A recent vehicle that was donated had three artists for three months working flat out on it and that was not including the hi resolution model that came from the automotive industry which needed cleaning up for the bakedown.
Luckly many studios and artists see the value of sharing these resources to allow for a new generation of students to be exposed to great content as it all helps keep the industry successful. Some of the products donated to us especially from the film industry in London came from teams of fifty plus cutting edge artists just for a character let alone the environments and so on. And when you look at GameDevMap or Made in Creative UK part of my job is to keep those stocked with great talent and help keep the UK up there in the top performers, and in time after a few years experience some of that talent might go off to elsewhere in Europe like the healthy Scandinavian industry, USA, Asia and so on. I hate it when I see dots disappearing off the map in places like Australia which once housed some of my favorite studios and often think how I might be able to help?
I know from my own industry experience that making Characters, Environments, Galleons, Boss levels, Space Ships, Submarines, Rigging, Cut Scenes, Adverts, Music Videos and so on takes a lot of development time. Let alone breaking it down into the different styles can take years of development. Each cohort from year to year have their own overall style so maybe this year might be a high resolution Sci-Fi style due to graduates going to those kinds of studios at the moment. And I remember being a student and a guy from Rare turned up and gave us some of their models and suddenly it all clicked into place, while my lecturer at the time was cool he was very much a Sci-Fi Wipeout artist so to see a more stylized approach was so much more my cup of tea.
And finally yes I do go on student marches to bring down fees, education should be free and it was free when I was younger and I got a service grant as I was from a poor single parent family as my mum was a nurse earning under the allowance, which I found out this morning has also been cut from yesterdays government budget. There was some good news for the games industry and I commended the Governments decision to reduce corporation tax to 18 per cent by 2020, this will really help keep the jobs rolling.
Noam Chomsky at 16.30 has some insightful ideas about student dept and he is in the top 10 most cited scholars in the world.
[ame]
Couldn't the University of Hertfordshire completely flip the script on this by working out an agreement with model donators to build an online database of downloadable educational models available to anyone ?
That way everybody wins :
- The Uni makes a good name for itself by being an active contributor to the global spreading of knowledge ;
- Students *and* non-students alike benefit from having access to industry-grade models to decipher ;
- The Uni makes a profit from what it actually brings to the table, which is the expertise of teachers lecturing about the donated models (on top of relying on the existing material created within the walls of the University or contracted out).
Would that make sense ?
+1
I still absolutely think that a university trying to weasel out of providing resources for its department/staff is despicable.
And if you tell me you wouldn't have torn apart any person who came in here that was making a game to sell, but asked for free assets then you're not being honest. I would imagine if the phrase, "it's great exposure/experience" was uttered there would have been torches lit.
This seems like something the Polycount community could start to do?
While I think most would agree that would be unfortunate, it's a pretty big assumption to state that Neil is weaseling out of his responsibilities, rather than going above and beyond and trying to provide the best resources possible for his students.
I'm not taking any of his courses so I don't know either way, but by all accounts he is well respected so I will give him the benefit of the doubt.
In terms of should the University pay for this sort of thing, well yes obviously that would be ideal, but to think it is as simple as that is naive. I don't know about Universities in the UK, but in the US there are typically massive hoops to jump through to get anything like this approved. As others have said, tuition money isn't funneled directly back into the courses, to the professors, etc. Often in the US most of it goes to sports/coaches, while everyone else has to fight to get basic operational funding. =/
This is exactly how I feel about my college experience. It's been many years now and I don't know if they've changed but you hit the nail on the head, it was a glorified tutorial.
There were times I, or other students were helping the teacher figure things out. We had a "game art and design" class where we were taught UE3 by a teacher who never used it before. We were told by the head of the program that we were a "test group" and they were just trying things with us to see what worked and what didn't to benefit future students.
Bottom line is I learned everything I know on my own, on the internet. I will never give credit to that school for anything I accomplish/accomplished and I regret ever thinking going to school for 3D was a good idea.
Those games were indeed all platformers, but not for that reason.
Literally the only art courses were traditional painting.
Oh yeah, and History of American Government was a mandatory part of my curriculum :poly128:
We also had mandatory classes that had nothing to do with 3D or Animation. They were required by the government in order to issue diplomas. So I had English classes, History classes, Geology, etc. I actually didn't even get my diploma because even though I had 90's in all my courses (the highest grades ive ever had in my life), I missed an English credit because of poor final exam results in my first year.
I think Pior has the best suggestion so far but I would go further and say that if this is a worthy endeavor it is best provided by an independent third party which the university is free to access, but can't promote itself through. As I recall, there used to be a site in the Quake 2 era that served as a repository for freely available 3D models that turned out pretty well....
Assuming files can still be easily uploaded to the polycount wiki then perhaps a page could be dedicated to this.
Without passing judgement on littleclaude's character, to me that Hertfordshire thread reads much more like an advertisement for the school itself than a promotion of the students in it. Many of the images are uncredited, without names or contact information and only a handful of students work gets posted which suggests to me at least that the work is being selected on the basis of what best represents the school. I'm sure littleclaude is a good guy, but the school is definitely getting the better end of the service that thread provides.
The Art Institute in Santa Monica had similar requirements. And if I'm honest, they were some of the most enjoyable classes for me, and some of the only classes that taught me things. Those are the teachers I'll remember for years to come; not the ones who taught game art (with two exceptions).
I understand that people hate those requirements, but every degree has those requirements, and they do help broaden horizons. Learning about other things can only help your art be better.
The broader your knowledge, the broader the base is upon which your art stands.
That being said, +1 to all the unwarranted hate. Think of this as a past student that we all once were/are. I mean, do not tell me you wouldn't learn a thing or two just looking at some of these recent kick ass models being dropped into these newer releases. I wish I could get my hand on some of the source files for example, The Order 1886, just to look at. I do agree that the school should pay for these materials, but Claude IMO is going above and beyond and looking for donations because for all we know, the school could have turned down the request for funding such an endeavor.
So yeah, if I had source files for anything that I had permission to hand off, would in a heartbeat in the name of helping students out.