I been thinking for quite a while in getting back to Uni to get a Degree, but since I was sure which course to go to and because I been traveling a bit, I left this idea aside.
But now that I settle, I think it’s time to give this idea some legs. There are a few problems though, I not 20 anymore and life is quite expensive here in London to just drop work out and get back to School.
So, what I’m thinking, is to get an online degree or part-time. I’m a Graphic Designer, but to be quite honest I think it’s time for a little of a career change. I have been using 3D Studio Max and Cinema 4D for a while now, I quite comfortable with modeling and texture and I want to take this forward.
The course that I’m looking for is Game Art / Design, since I been enjoying learning UE by my self for the past couple of months.
I searched online for courses but I didn’t find anything particularly interesting or that caught my eye.
I was looking for something like the Game Art Degree from Full Sail University, but at $54,000 for the Online Degree it’s a little to much for my wallet.
I also found the Escape Studio Programs quite interesting, but they don’t have any Part-time / Online options for their Game Courses.
And one of the last one that I found was Game2Train, they course seems to have most what I’m looking for. But not sure how good this place is.
I’m looking for suggestions or advices on any other places. It’s can be online or part-time as long as they are around London.
Train2Game has a long history of being outed as more or less scam, and you can find that out easily by googling reviews from former students of it - it is a colossal waste of money and you won’t come out of it with any kind of valuable experience or qualification. You’re going to find this is the case for almost everything that isn’t an accredited degree program. Honestly though, your best bet is likely to leave London - you’ll probably have to in order to find a games orientated job anyway.
PSA from someone with a degree in Simulation and Game Design, I’ve talked to a number of companies, and while they want degrees, these “Game Design” degrees have really no standard of measurement. And as such most of the big companies don’t give a **** about them.
Depending on what you want to do, there’s probably much more worthwhile ways of using your time and money–degrees aren’t super valuable because they don’t necessarily mean you know what you’re doing. Instead, a good portfolio is much more valuable which you can get by working on your own. If you want to get into 3D stuff then there’s a massive amount of free tutorials to learn from, and for some more specific topics there’s some paid tutorials and workshops that aren’t going to be super expensive.
I do know that a Degree is not going to do much for me. That’s why I was considering other training courses or workshop as well, CGSociety has some really good ones.
I can learn by myself without a problem, I work as a graphic Designer and I don’t have a Degree.
But one of the biggest problems is that I can’t do anything or concentrate at home. And I know that if I get into a course I’ll go all the way trough it.
Screw degrees. The most important thing is the skills and experience to make a game or content for a game. I found myself getting farther in game dev before I completed college solely because of my skilled I learned from college and outside sources.
If one is Godlike at his/her skills, they should not need to waste time and money just to get a college degree. I attended the Art Institute of Atlanta because I lacked the proper skills and it turned out to be a wiser move for me than struggling to pay for tutorial sites (like digital tutorials) or otherwise for it, when it provided more than enough over there. Sure, the accredited paper is nice and all but it did not really matter so much to me, the mastery of Game Art & Design did.
[MENTION=2316]Lord Iheanacho[/MENTION] I spoke on the Degree because of the learning and not the title or the paper. To be honest I couldn’t care less about it. I do that what makes the artist is the skills set.
I might put that idea aside for now and go for a few short courses, I came from 3DS Max and switched from it to Cinema 4D a few years back. Cinema 4D is not the best tool at it’s core for Game Design. So I might do a course in Maya for example since I found the transition from Cinema to Maya quite steep in term of a learning curve.
I still have to think about this better and this is why I’m asking for opinions here on the forum, someone that knows more than me about the industry and Game Design in General.
At the moment I’m lacking a bit of motivation, workshops or courses or any other training might be the push that I need.
Thanks for pointing this… But it’s too far for me, I live in London at the moment and that is in Cornwall which is the farthest end of the UK (South West).
Yes, I was acknowledging it and adding my two-cents to backup your response.
Many of us who build our art skills without taking the college degree path have used free sites like YouTube and some paid services like DigitalTutors or Eat3D to get skilled at what we do. I’d also say Cinema 4D was never designed for game design to begin with (hence it’s name; it’s designed for cinematic filmography). Maya and Max are your best bets for game design. I usually use Max for most of my artwork than I use Maya but either one of those tools is a matter of one’s preference, albeit it will help to get adjusted to Maya as well since it seems to be the industry standard. Also, it would not hurt to master up on Blender as well since that is becoming the standard very soon (especially since its free to use unlike the ladder, and it has drastically improved since the last decade).
Only do a degree if you have the money and don’t need to take a loan. Having a school loan sucks. But, I’ve worked with plenty of the people had their degree from either Full Sail or the Art Institutes, so graduates of them do work in the Industry and are good at what they do. It’s an expensive route though.
Your best off just making an Indie game, keeping the design not too far ahead of your current skill set and learn what you need to as you go to make the game from online videos etc. I didn’t see 3DBuzz mentioned. I’ve done several of their courses and think they are pretty good.
Student loans don’t work the same way here, mikepurvis - they’re not the absolutely crippling debt they are in the US. Honestly, I don’t see why anyone would even consider a games degree in the US, since for a lot of vocations you wouldn’t be earning enough to pay it back across the majority of your career…
Judging from the name Maya was designed for an ancient indio culture, 3dsMax was made exclusive for users named Max and Blender is a mixer then?
All of the major Packages are designed for multi-purpose.
You can do everything you need to do pretty fine with all of these apps.
Still you might want to do some stuff in specialized apps like zBrush or Substance,
not because the 3D program cannot do it, but because it’s easier and faster,
possibly even with a better result.
But this applies to all of them.
Just name a single game related thing a Cinema 4D user cannot do but a Maya/Max user can.
Ofc. programms like Max and Maya are used much more in the game industry,
but this is mostly because they’ve been there for a long time and are well integrated in
the pipeline of the Studios.
From what I found online, the Degree here in the the UK are not as pricey as they are in the US. But living in some parts of England sometimes it’s expensive, specially the main cities, like London.
I do get what he’s try to say and being a Cinema 4D user myself, I do know that Cinema 4D focus is Motion. The Unwrapping tools are not the best and exporting the files to fbx is a bit of a pain. It can be use for game Design and I seen a couple of games that used cinema for asset creation, but it’s not optimized for it.
In contrast software like Maya, because it kinda became the industry standard for game has been optimized over the years for kind of workflow.
Anything you can do for free or at a low cost online isn’t necessarily a bad option. Building a small game and working upwards can help you learn a lot about the process. Outside of that, if you wanted formal tuition, you really don’t have a lot of options
