Video Game Colleges
<div class="IPBDescription">Anyone knows any?</div> I'm thinking on dedicating myself into the video game industry. I'm just not sure if I do computer science or computer graphics.
I know one college, <a href='http://www.digipen.edu' target='_blank'>DigiPen</a>, which is dedicated into the video game industry.
Does anyone know any other college(s) in which I can go to in order to learn the fundaments for video game making?
I know one college, <a href='http://www.digipen.edu' target='_blank'>DigiPen</a>, which is dedicated into the video game industry.
Does anyone know any other college(s) in which I can go to in order to learn the fundaments for video game making?
Comments
You could start here though: <a href='http://www.gamedev.net/reference/business/features/schools1/' target='_blank'>http://www.gamedev.net/reference/business/...tures/schools1/</a>
Whoops. forgot to mention what school it was.
Its the one that Dark Mage just put below mine. Look there- "Full Sail"
<a href='http://www.fullsail.com/' target='_blank'>FullSail Real World Education</a>
Wish you luck!
It's a college where you learn how to code games, or how to do the animation of the games. But in a professional level, not amateur like 3D Desigining and map making like most people (including me <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> )
DigiPen is ultra-competetive. You've gotta be really good to get in; they get about 10x more applications then new students each year. Literally.
It's good to talk to people who know what DigiPen is <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> . I mean, most of my friends never even heard of it. Well..... most of my friends don't play computer or video games....
I also heard there was a course on this at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design), but I'm not quite sure. All I have is their apllication form, and I have no idea how I got that.
For those who can't get it, some art/design colleges as well as tech universities have similar classes, albeit, less on-field connections.
I know one college, <a href='http://www.digipen.edu' target='_blank'>DigiPen</a>, which is dedicated into the video game industry.
Does anyone know any other college(s) in which I can go to in order to learn the fundaments for video game making? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, without directly answering your question...
Make sure you know exactly what you're getting yourself into. I can't speak from experience, but all the research I've done on the subject concurs that the game industry is hellish, cutthroat, and incredibly difficult to get into or survive in (I'm also trying to get into it; I'm doing a CS course at the moment <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->). You've probably heard this before (if you don't realise it yourself anyway), but just in case: nobody gets a job "designing games" right off the bat <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->.
Broadly speaking, there are three main areas of game production: programming, art, and level design. It's a very good idea to pick your area as soon as possible, and start learning it. The nice thing about making games (in fact, about programming in general as well) is that you can be self-taught. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of formal education (especially the piece of paper you get as a result), but it's possible (and a good idea) to start as soon as you can. There's a <i>lot</i> of material to cover, so the earlier the better <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->.
Anyway, as a source of information related to game programming, I <i>highly</i> recommend <a href='http://www.gamedev.net/' target='_blank'>GameDev.net</a>. There's a wealth of game coding information, tutorials, info on getting into the industry, a few tutorials on related fields (like physics), and the forum community are largely very competent.
Good luck <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
The college I'm going to has a 3-stage course to learn MS FlightSimulator! The 3 courses are of different levels, and each is 2hrs for 30 weeks. That's 3*60=...180 hrs of flight sim... OMG.
Back to reality. (Is this the real life... is it fantasy... Man that's poor.)
Anyway. The gaming industry has become so bloated and drained of orriginality that I think only the most competent bods stand any chance of getting a well-paying job.
Let's take a worked example. It is made harder by me only having estimates to values, but here goes.
UT2003. Took about 2 years to make, not including story boards and planning etc. Just the art, levels and engine.
The STUNNING facing worlds map took about 2 months by itself. I'd presume there to be about 3 artists making textures to design for each map (and that's a low estimate). If you have 3 teams comprising of 3 artists and 1 (maybe 2) designers working in rotation, that is the lowest feasable arrangement. That is a total of 3(3+1)= 12 people. Now that is for one map of about 20. To get the game out in that short time frame (2yrs) there'd be about 5 of these teams working on the maps. 5*20=100.
Yes, now it's obvious I've fixed the numbers, but hey.
That covers JUST THE MAPS. The Physics engine, character controls/animations, game interface (inc menus,) probably each have their own teams of 100ppl. 3*100= 300.
Now add loads of managers, CeOs, superfluous executives, to a total of about 200. That's 500 ppl.
Say each person gets paid a lowly... oh... ?10 an hour. (Out of the blue guess.) That's ?70 a week, and 52*70...=...
[mutter...5*7=35, add the 140...)
= ?3640 a year. That's PITIFUL pay, but this is just an example.
In retrospect, double it for increased accuracy.
= ?7290. That is your basic pay for 1 average person.
For the whole team = 7290*500 = ?36,475,000
[Obscenity]
And that's low pay. Real low. I make more than that and I'm in education.
Now take the profits.
UT2003 costs approx ?30.
To cover the COST ONLY, you need to sell 36475000/30 copies, = ?1,215,833 1/3 copies. Yeah. Hmm.
UT can afford it, they're a big company. They're international. (But they'd need to have a team of translators too, which I forgot about.)
Now you can account for Piracy, (-30% profit,) theft (-2%) and you've got little left.
Still want to go into gaming? Be my guest.
To quote the Tao of Programming:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the master: ``How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?''
``It will take one year,'' said the master promptly.
``But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers to it?''
The master programmer frowned. ``In that case, it will take two years.''
``And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?''
The master programmer shrugged. ``Then the design will never be completed,'' he said.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not so much a case of there being so many people on the job. It's a case of there being very few people who are capable of doing the job well. It's very, <i>very</i> difficult to do correctly.
[mutter...5*7=35, add the 140...)
= £3640 a year. That's PITIFUL pay, but this is just an example.
In retrospect, double it for increased accuracy.
= £7290. That is your basic pay for 1 average person.
For the whole team = 7290*500 = £36,475,000
[Obscenity]
And that's low pay. Real low. I make more than that and I'm in education.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I might be misunderstanding you here, but by your figures, it looks like everyone only works for one hour a day?
Cool job, I reckon I'll apply.. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Seriously, if you want a better indicator of wage structures in the industry, have a flick through the job ads in one of the more specialist mags, say "Edge" or whatever the equivalent is in your particular country.
The only guy I know personally who worked in games got ( If my memory is intact..) £12-14k ( $20k+ ?? ) as an entry level artist , which is alright in a cheap living cost area of the UK* , especially with no real industry experience, straight outta school and a few nice freebies thrown in.
He'd have got more as deputy manager of a local supermarket, but I don't suppose money is the major motivating factor if you pick a career like that, and the cash does rise considerably with experience I'm led to believe..
*Note: Standard living costs in the uk vary madly, I pay forty quid a week for a 1 bedroom flat with central heating, double glazing etc, the same flat in London would be at least four times that, hell I know someone who was paying more than double my monthly rent for a <i>single room</i> in Edinburgh city centre, a tiny one at that, bills not included..
What I'm driving at is that "crap wages I can barely survive on" in one part of the uk could easily be "woah, I've paid all my bills, done the shopping and still have £200 beer money!!" in another..
Anyway, UAT is a fine school. They have a ton of majors to choose from and yada yada yada. Check it out and judge for yourself.
Oh yeah, on the "DigiPen is the MIT of the gaming school" thing... No, it really isn't. A buddy of mine applied there just for a laugh. He had a 2.4 GPA, although he was bright as hell. The kid could program armegeddon if he wanted to, but he never put that on his application. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> Anyway, he was accepted just two days after he applied. Two days! It's like they don't even look at your application!
Anyway, my rant is done. Flame accordingly.
As for the art side, consider this carefully. It's not like you just take a few classes where they explain what a poly is and you can now magically make computer characters, at the very least you'll still need to know basic art fundamentals like composition, perspective, tonal values etc.
( I'm currently doing a short course in computer animation for my own amusement, it's astounding how many of my fellow students completely freaked when told to put the mouse down and draw something with a pencil..guys who know pc's inside out, completely oblivious to the concept that if you can't draw an apple, it's gonna be a helluva lot harder to model, mesh, texture, animate and render one using a clunky interface on some complicated software..)
Granted, there are probably loads of outstanding self taught artists / modellers out there, some will just be "naturals", but I'll bet you the vast majority have either a natural talent for art or some form of conventional art training. An understanding of how polys are rendered will <i>not</i> teach you to draw, just a warning..
Takes a few months to teach someone how to manipulate an interface in order to make their ideas 3d, takes years to train artists..
All just opinions, naturally, flame away.
I think a couple of UC schools have undergraduate programs... anyway, if you want to know more about Tech's masters program, go to <a href='http://www.idt.gatech.edu/' target='_blank'>http://www.idt.gatech.edu/</a> and email some current students. They're great, diverse people. One just got off an internship doing a whole lot of direct work on Jedi Academy.
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I <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to say mate ( but phrased better..), even if the game industry doesn't work out, <i>someone</i> always has a use for a technically brilliant programmer , similarly a PC noob who can produce jaw dropping concept art will most likely find a job doing something that interests them I'd have thought.
Hence my suggestion to either just learn hard programming or serious art training.
A course in "Designing games" would worry me....I "designed" games at 10 years old, the world is full of people who could "design a game that pwns j00", how many have the actual technical skills to make this vision a reality, or the understanding whether their ideas are even possible or not is another issue altogether....
The simple fact is "designing" a game is not the same as going through the grim reality of actually <i>making</i> a game..
( I'm currently doing a short course in computer animation for my own amusement, it's astounding how many of my fellow students completely freaked when told to put the mouse down and draw something with a pencil..guys who know pc's inside out, completely oblivious to the concept that if you can't draw an apple, it's gonna be a helluva lot harder to model, mesh, texture, animate and render one using a clunky interface on some complicated software..)
Granted, there are probably loads of outstanding self taught artists / modellers out there, some will just be "naturals", but I'll bet you the vast majority have either a natural talent for art or some form of conventional art training. An understanding of how polys are rendered will <i>not</i> teach you to draw, just a warning.. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
This has always been a weird issue. There's the people who insist that you need both normal art skills (drawing, composition, etc.) and then there's the people who just say "if you can do whatever the heck you want to with the program, you're really not going to have to have a lot of art skills."
Personally, I think that you can be a fine 3d modeller/animator without being able to draw for crap. Of course, you need to understand all the things that make a good artist (or photographer), such as lighting, perspective, color, and stuff like that, but I really think that the idea that you need to be able to draw it before you can model it is just as weird as having to be able to model it before you draw it. As long as you know what makes a good picture, you should be able to make the picture in your chosen medium.
Heh, kinda agree, but I'd suggest that if you were able to model it straight away, then you already <i>had</i> most of the skills I was talking about, whether you realised it or not... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Heh, kinda agree, but I'd suggest that if you were able to model it straight away, then you already <i>had</i> most of the skills I was talking about, whether you realised it or not... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bah. I've modeled stuff without drawing it first, and you know why? I <i>can't</i> draw it. I can't draw people, I can't draw animals, I can't draw objects. I've taken drawing classes, I've practiced. I just can't draw. But I can model, and I know what makes a good picture/scene. So there. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
I did the whole " traditional art training", I felt I learned very little that I didn't undertand when I was 15, I just learned bigger words for it.
If you can easily hop into any medium and produce decent results, you are either lucky, inherently good at this "thing" or you already understood the principles required to be "good at this thing"..
See what I'm driving at here?
Sculpting = A lot in common with 3d = a lot in common with technical drawing ( CAD in US? I dunno? )
( btw, the whole "I cant draw thing", not true. You may not be <i>naturally inclined</i> to drawing, but ultimately it's a technical exercise. You can learn, monkeys can learn ,the key is to stop drawing a cat: Your brain will kick in and decide what a cat looks like, it will look crap. Draw the shapes, highlights and shadows that you <i>actually see </i> and the cat will draw itself..
You will probably never be as "good" as "natural artist guy / gal " *from your school( whatever that means), but you <i>can</i> improve your skills by 200% at least, I kid you not.
It will however, require faith and persistence, which rules most people out already...your call...?
*They are simply doing what you could , to an extent, learn, it's just their brains are already wired that way, it comes naturally. To suggest you <i>can't ever do this</i> is similar to saying the fat kid in gym could never be fit, which is clearly lies.
It will be easier for some than others, but everyone can do it if they want to bad enough, the only difference is starting skill level... some will start good at this, some won't, everyone has potential to improve, however years of being told "You can't draw" by incompetent art teachers will produce this effect / mindset...
It's a bit cheesy, but "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards is well worth a look..)
In DigiPen, I will specialize in video game making. In MIT I won't be so specialized in game making, but my computer science background will be more broad and easier to gain a job.
DigiPen or MIT?