Teacher here: This is what my high school students have done so far this year

mikepreble

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXPkJJuM_Xs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXPkJJuM_Xs[/ame]


I teach a class in Bangor, Maine where the students get a chance to study 3D animation, 2D art, or video game programming. I wanted to take this opportunity to show off the hard work of the 50 16-18 year old students to the knowledgeable folks here at Polycount.

I would appreciate any feedback you can give as I will be showing the replies to this post to the students. Any critiques, suggestions, or accolades is greatly appreciated.

Just so you know, we're working in Cinema4D, 3DS Max, Mudbox, Sculptris, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Unity.

Thanks so much for your time,
Mike

A-N-P

The fact you have 16-18 year olds working with game engines and making fully realised games/game art is so cool. I wish I had access to this back when I was 16.

The stuff I'm seeing here is really good and they seem to have the fundamentals nailed down (Basic modelling, texturing and animation). This is a really good base to have in order to continue learning more advanced techniques.

Continue working on these fundamentals and they'll set you up well for future education in games. With enough hard work and dedication you could enter this industry working at your favorite studio on your favorite games.

This is coming from a guy who only 4 years ago was still in game art education and is now working on Carmageddon: Reincarnation, a reboot of a huge game from my childhood - I'm only 24 :P)

I hope you guys continue to enjoy making game art and who knows, you could be in the credits of your first game in the near future

maximumsproductions

Man, I wish I had a class like this in highschool just for natural motivation from peers. Seems like you guys had a lot of fun. Hope those kids found a passion inspired from you and your class and continued on.

Add3r

Can't say much about the art quality itself, as there is just a pretty awesome quantity of it. Like the others have said though, its super awesome to see high schoolers getting into the game art and development pipeline. I started working in my spare time after taking a computer graphics class that touched on everything from basics of photoshop/illustrator and some 3D in 3DSMX, freshman year in high school. I fell in love the the 3D aspect, and in my spare time started pulling the internet apart trying to find tutorials and resources to learn as there wasnt much back in 2007 . It wasnt until my senior year of high school did I find Polycount, and I wear my polycount jacket just about every day it seems clean, in respect for what it has done for me.

But what I am trying to get at is, if you know you have even the slightest ambition to dive into the game development or CG industry, start now. I am 20yrs old and working on a HUGE AAA title, nearly completely self taught, and just living the life. Nothing better waking and being excited to go to work. I am going to say it again, start now. In your spare time, read read read everything you can get your hands on. Find a computer and download blender or some sort of 3D package or Photoshop and dive into the craft. It takes SO much time and practice to really master the skills, but looking back and seeing the progression and where you have come from... there is no better feeling.

Keep up the work, only crit I have. Only time will hone the skills, and get you ready for the industry/lifestyle. Study every moment you can, school is an amazing thing. And remember, math and science is huge in every industry, even making art and programming.

metric meditation

from one teacher to another, this is great stuff considering the age group you must be very proud of them

I will send you an email later and maybe we can bounce some ideas around

unit187

Thats pretty neat reel hehe.
Tell your students to never give up. Sounds cheesy, but seriously. Today your art might not look like it is from Battlefield 4 or next Transformers movie, but hard work and constant learning will eventually make you exceptional artist or programmer.
And yes, study math. Use khanacademy.com if you wish, learn to enjoy it, do it not for school but for yourself. Later on it might help you immensely.

heboltz3

This is awesome if only for the reason that this is being taught in the high school level.

Keep up the great work, and tell those kids they are doing a great job, and to stick with it. I want to see a handful of these younglings leading the industry in the future.

Also that biggie made me swoon.

EDIT: Just curious, how much programming is being put into these noggins?

mikepreble

heboltz3 wrote: »

This is awesome if only for the reason that this is being taught in the high school level.

Keep up the great work, and tell those kids they are doing a great job, and to stick with it. I want to see a handful of these younglings leading the industry in the future.

Also that biggie made me swoon.

EDIT: Just curious, how much programming is being put into these noggins?

A fair amount of programming curriculum is used in class. We focus on C# within Unity and I use standards from computer science classes in college for goals to adhere to. However, the students see the goal as having a playable game out of Unity.

Students are able to focus on programming, in C#, for 2 years here with the goal of their OWN game(s) being put into the market.

mikepreble

metric meditation wrote: »

from one teacher to another, this is great stuff considering the age group you must be very proud of them

I will send you an email later and maybe we can bounce some ideas around

Sounds good! We're the only class like it in the area, so I'd greatly appreciate any feedback and/or ideas.

SaboR1996

As a student at college I could say I haven't learnt anything from my college, its so bad for teaching games development, i'm currently 17, last year of my course.
Things I haven't learnt concerning 3D

Optimization
the importance of edge flow
sub-d modelling
modularity in environments
the importance of polygon count
UVW Unwrapping
and the list goes on.

Hey, at least the guys and gals in the video are being taught correctly, a luxury I didn't have.

mikepreble

As a follow up, here's our long form portfolio video: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u40iWDUjWww"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u40iWDUjWww[/ame]

Please view at your leisure.

GOBEE

My mind is blown that a high school offers this kind of class. You know what I had in high school? Keyboarding 101. That's as high tech as it got. A black screen, and green text. Oh and MS Paint, which I am still pretty badass with when it comes to drawing stick figures. I can't imagine where I would be in my career had I started a decade earlier. I am quite jealous of your students.

Your class may very well be the future of game development and I can't wait to see their professional work years down the road. Thanks for sharing!

Wells

This is awesome.

I'm from central Maine and would have loved something like this when I was their age.

I remember the industry seemed a very distant thing; about as far removed from living on a dirt road in the woods of Maine as possible. Nobody in my area had any idea what the hell I was talking about concerning 3D art or digital painting, and nobody really believed people could make a living doing this.

Luckily, I stumbled across polycount and lived happily ever after, but getting this sort of support at such a [relatively] early age would have been invaluable.

Even simply acknowledging that this is a valid path to pursue can make a world of difference, so seeing you actually teaching them the fundamentals and giving them a strong foundation to build on is really great, and gives me hope for my home state

Jet_Pilot

This was sweet.
-I would suggest talking about keeping an even pixel density through out their scene.
-To the animators, everything felt very stiff. Go over squash and stretch, and how you have to over exaggerate things for them to actually show up.
-And last you should go over presentation. Its a shame to see all the hard work they put into these projects, just to render it out with some default scanline render. I know that stuff takes time to get right and time to render each frame, but you could set it up to render over night.