Did you attended a college for 3D?
vertex
Hi all, just wondering if you guys to get whatever current job in the 3D field went to any particular college or courses, since i want to go into the 3D field but can't afford any special colleges for it and wondering if anyone else was in a similar case and did something different? Also do jobs in the industry usually require a degree or is it mainly about the demo-reel? Thanks!
Replies
Nope.
Yup. I couldn't afford to go to college, so I stayed home and worked on game art all day.
In my experience, nobody cares about your education if you have an excellent portfolio. Most people I talk to wouldn't even think to ask if/where you went to school unless you're trying to get into something like engineering or graphics programming.
The general advice I hear from a lot of people, and that I would also advocate, is to go to school for fine art if you want to go to school for something. That will help you build artistic foundations that you might not have had with self education or a game art degree.
If you don't want to go to school, then you're going to be working very hard on personal work for the foreseeable future.
Mind if i ask if you used any programs/online classes like DT or something similar? or just all by yourself, thanks. Also thanks for the link and should i take this thread down because of that or something?
Did most of my 3D on my own time. Learned about game development and did game development in school.
It's easier than ever to learn 3D modeling on your own now
If you want to go to school for game development, start in Comp Sci and learn how to program. You can ALWAYS learn how to art on your own, use your free time while in school to learn from the artists also attending or sit in/take elective art classes. If you cannot get the motivation to work on your art in your spare time and teach yourself, chances are you will struggle to get a port together in your free time as well (to get a job with that studying). Just my opinion. Takes a shit load of self motivation to maintain a career in this industry as an artist, something I personally struggle with myself every single day.
I attended AiFL and got a BSc. Got a diploma in CS as well. Doing a MSc now next to work. I still like being on the production floor, but I want to have some options in case I get tired of it.
I used Polycount and other art forums to learn almost everything I know. I've never had much use for most online courses because they don't tend to move at the pace I'd like, nor do they usually focus on the things I'm interested in.
This is certainly not universal, so check that type of thing out if you think you could benefit from it.
Try out a few things and see what works for you.
Art school I think is far more important if you've never done art before. It exposes you to mixed mediums and helps train you visually rather then technically (which is why im all for an art school, not a Tech school like AI or some other college were you get a degree in games, though i think Ringling has that also). 3D is just another medium. Its how you use it artistically that's important.
Side benifit. If your plan on working oversees, a degree helps with that.
When they offered 3D in college, it was taught on SGI machines...
I failed and dropped out.
I got in right after high school and didn't know a thing about 3D. I only drew from time to time. If I didn't attend this school I probably wouldn't have discovered my passion for this field.
But being passionnate and at school at the same time is kinda frustrating : I wanted to learn more and more, started to watch tons of tutorials, and then I was quickly bored in class. I felt like my tutorials were a lot more useful, that my school was outdated in term of techniques. For example, in 2nd year, we had 1 course for ZBrush, we learned the UI and that's it, no assignment, no training, no tips & tricks, nothing about sculpting with flow, detail management and transitions. I don't really mind because I was doing all of this at home, but all that wasted money... ugh.
And now I'm in 3rd year, videogame specialization, and guess what ? we have game design and game programmation courses. ONE 3D class per week. That's cool for those who don't really care about what they'll do in the future, so they can try everything and find their way. But personnally, I KNOW that I want to do character art, and I really don't give a shit about game design and C#. Interesting, but actually a waste of precious time.
Not mentioning group projects and having to work with complete dumbasses who have no interest for their studies. Making characters to see them later literally destroyed after the rigging and animation process... Having to work aside guys who watch TV shows and anime all day... Yeah, fun. Motivating.
That's the problem when your school's intrinsic policy is "everybody gets in, just pay and get your diploma ! that's easy !"
The only positive aspects are a great social network, it's still important to get out of the bedroom and talk to people, and the diploma that facilitates obtaining work visas overseas.
Ive since been doing online courses as well, which i find to be much more valuable. You learn more, and from people in the industry who teach at night. 1 on 1 critiques, rather than a sheet of paper with some numbers on it of how you did.
But I got my first job because of the contacts I made at college. My second job was through contacts i made in my online class. and third / current job was because of the networking I did online/in person (outside of classes). So I wouldn't change a thing if I were to do it again.
This.
Exactly my story.
Got taught the basics, got a pat on the back. Passed the grades , got a piece of paper and a handshake and thus was promptly unemployed.
But it was 1996, and was very difficult time trying to learn 3D without going to an actual school.
You definitely don't need it now, but a degree helps a lot with borders.
I dropped out though. I was in school up until my first 3d max class. I realized I was not learning at the pace I wanted to learn at anymore (school was too slow), and my increasing school / life debt meant I had to take a promotion to assistant manager and go full time with my restaurant job.
It took me a year and a half to break in after dropping out, but that was still faster than most of my friends with degrees. Like JacqueChoi said though, This was 1998 - 99. A very different time.
Don't regret going and don't regret dropping out.
I have absolutely no background education in programming/logic and i've been a programmer for Marmoset for just over a year now.
hard work and passion are literally all you need to make it in this industry, and without either of those you are almost guaranteed to fail.
Now days you have websites like Digital Tutors and Youtube. All the knowledge is there.
You just need self discipline to sit there and practice.
Best professional decision I made, at the time. Absolute worst financial decision I've ever made.
This.
There is also http://eat3d.com/ and http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/
Or, if you find yourself needing school to keep you motivated, there are some pretty awesome schools out there that have professionals that teach you through live lectures / critiques. These are guys and gals that work in the industry, and do it as a part time job at night.
Animation -
www.ianimate.net
www.animationmentor.com
www.animschool.com
modelling and everything else -
https://www.gnomon.edu/
http://training.cgsociety.org/
You'll probably wanna learn at least the basics by yourself before entering a course though. You`ll get more out of it if you already know the tools. Though even when you know the tools, you`ll still learn different ways to do things in the courses. short cuts and what not.
The material is out there. What are you waiting for?
lol me too....I met a bunch of cool people at AIP..but it was like a very expensive introduction to the basics...I graduated almost 20 years ago though..so everything was still pretty much just the basics..given today's landscape and accessibility there is no reason to spend tens of thousands of dollars on it
20 years ago? You must have gotten your debt down to 50k by now! Woohoo!
I wish...if only it was 20 years of financially responsible descion making
I did an animation of a flower for one of my final projects, but win 95 crashed as the moderator was coming round:)
Sadly, this is my story too.
YellowYeti - I recently grabbed some good tuts on Udemy.com. They have some nice sales if you watch and you can pick up some good stuff for just a few bucks.
However I should let you know that it was an incredibly good school, HEAJ Namur. The school year cost 350 euros and teachers are actual veteran game artists currently working in the game industry.
There I met a senior character artist who liked my work and got me my very first gig as a intern character artist on a AAA game. And with that experience and a lot of work I got my current job as a character artist.
So sometime going to school is a great idea
Learning 3D at home through Digital tutors.
although i am using digitaltutors, i saw on gnomon that you had to be a resident of california to take their online courses? Which doesn't make sense to me.