My pet peeves with graphics in pc games and schools

[waggy]

wow thought i was the only one feeling that way. though i will mention it is either this way or far to much graphics and no gameplay.

 

[manimal]

Most art or design students are too quick to get into the workplace, Sure they know the tools but do they have a developed aesthetic sense to use them?
I came in during the paradigm shift of linear to non linear. The young guys would come in and wow management with their flashy vhs reels and their use of some new interesting filter. The people that still made copy were the old guys who could use the breath of their experience to create something that had never been done before. When we started using the first generation of NLE's for the first time it was exciting, all these young guys showed up at editing rooms and scoffed as us old fogies and our stained hands from the smell of glue in the room. What ended up happening is the young guys became assistant editors and did exactly what us old guys told them. What developed over the next generation was these green kids were wizened up and tought by us old fogies.

Nothing replaces experience. Nothing...

 

[KaOTiK]

No. They are not online . The way it works is they send the reel on dvd along with the resume and any printed work. It needs to be playable in a regular dvd player and not in some special codec. If it doesn't play the sender will not likely even receive a "I couldn't play the dvd" response unless the resume looks really interesting. Some places will accept website links to work, but it isn't too common. Mainly because people that review the reels are not sitting at a pc but like to do it in a room with others using a regular dvd player.

I guess to some it might sound like studios are being harsh or uncaring but the reality is they get a hundred of these . If they responded to each one or tried to troubleshoot why the demo reel will not play it would take too much time.


The main thing to avoid are schools that are taking anyone who can pay the tuition. If you look at the curriculum and the first things they list are 3d modeling, level design, or anything like that where they immediately start teaching how to use a program find somewhere else. Also places that start off with things like "You can earn $75,000 with this degree" should be avoided.


I will not go into specific schools to avoid but here is some I would look at if I were entering the field.
http://www.ringling.edu/
http://www.fullsail.edu/
http://www.fiea.ucf.edu/joomla/index.php


If you want to learn online from home I would look at animation mentor.
http://www.animationmentor.com/school/
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/

If you already have the art background look at digital tutors site as well. For about $40 a month you get full access to lots of training that some of those 'game development' schools would teach regarding programs and such.

http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/index.php

There is something special about the world of digital art. Studios at the end of the day don't care what classes you took or what degree you have. They only care about what you can do . I met someone working on 2012 that had never finished high school and also was dyslexic. He spent his time learning on his own by going online , reading and practicing. His work can be seen in a lot of that movie. The movie wasn't great but I thought the effects were good :sneaky:

I went to Full Sail and my experience was positive. We had quite a lot of traditional art classes for a school that focuses on this industry as well as business classes to protect ourselves and our work in the business world. It was a good experience for me and many others I keep in touch with that went there as well.