What can I get from community college programs?

ambelamba

 The VA denied the tuition for Gnomon. Instead they will only support a community college program.

 I am supposed to take CG animation certificate program from Mt. San Antonio College. They do have some modeling classes. (basic, intermediate, and advanced) And yes, they teach Maya. 

 But I am not sure what kind of career I can get out of the certificate program from a community college. My goal was to take Modeling and Texturing course at Gnomon. With Mt. SAC, I will have to learn a ton of stuff by myself outside the classes. I am overwhelmed. 

 Anyone can give me some insight on how community college are helpful?

Jaston3D

That's the route I went. The good thing about most community colleges is how easy they are. You will have the necessary time to really grind out your personal learning. Just make sure your being guided by the good people of polycount, sometimes its easy to get off track when your learning by yourself and you see all these different techniques and programs. Anyways community college is great! Although I never got the chance to finish my 2 years their because I got picked up into the industry my first year of college, it's great, it'll get people off your ass, and you can still stay competitive with your art. Good luck

Nominous

I think schools will differ greatly whether they're two-year or four-year, traditional college/university vs. art school, East coast vs. West coast, etc. I first studied game development at a community college and its 3D modeling + texturing hybrid courses were far from bleeding edge. It was to be expected since its program was relatively new and its instructors had little experience in the industry.

The good thing was that we had a good variety of software like Blender, 3ds Max, ZBrush, and Photoshop. However, the lectures were underwhelming and we weren't taught the subtle, yet grossly important, 3D modeling and texturing nuances. We didn't have in-depth explanations of 3D modeling best practices, UV unwrapping tricks, different texture maps, etc.

My instructors didn't even explain things such as, off the top of my head, the difference between tangent-space and world-space normal maps. I'm pretty sure this is what led to so many of their students, including myself, experiencing problems with their meshes and textures. Meanwhile, most of this info can be found on the Polycount wiki and forum threads, albeit with a lot of searching and reading. I assumed this lack of detailed instruction was due to my instructors either not being paid enough, not having the experience, not having the drive to keep themselves updated on bleeding-edge techniques, or just having low standards for grading.

From what I see, your experience will likely be better than mine because your program's classes are split nicely into specific focuses. By comparison, my classes were fast-paced and time-constrained. One of my classes was 2D texturing + 2D animation, while another was 3D modeling + 2D texturing + 3D animation. Simply not enough time to learn about these different game development stages in detail. Granted, I don't know how well your instructors will teach nor how experienced or passionate they are. I assume that supplemental learning is inevitable, though, even if you were to attend a prestigious art school like Gnomon and you paid attention to everything their instructors taught.

beefaroni

Try to only take art fundamentals at community college.

Do fundamentals homework to the best of your ability
When you're not doing homework you teach yourself the software.

ambelamba

A slight problem is that their curriculum is geared toward organic character modeling. But they don't mention Zbrush in their catalog. Only Maya. And they don't mention hard surface modeling either.

Looks like I will have to use the school just for learning the basic approach on learning the tool.s

Brian "Panda" Choi

@Dylan Brady  didn't you go to community college?

Dylan Brady

yeah, so I would emphasize Beefaroni's point. Focus more on the fundamentals that are provided at most community colleges.
I went for a Fine Arts AA which included life drawing, design, and art history classes. focus on getting all you can out of those classes while working on your 3d skills in your own time. I remember one semester my school tried adding a 3d modeling class to the curriculum. It was really a waste of time. the professor barely even came to class, most of the time it would just be an open lab with little to no instruction.
I don't think you're going to get the up to date information that you can find here or in most online communities, but you will get a good art background and it will help you in your career.

one of the main bonuses I've seen since leaving school is that if you can get into the industry without a huge burden of debt, your options are less limited. you may be able to take a pay cut for a spot that has better growth opportunities or leave a position that is not what you want to be doing in order to focus on getting a job in your specialty. However, networking will be your main disadvantage compared to regular schools, that will be something that you have to seek out through local meetups, and online, rather than having a built-in peer network that you get at a school

ambelamba

As far as I know, Mt. SAC offers some decent modeling classes, and some of them are added very recently. I asked the students who took the class about the curriculum and they loved it. And they occasionally teach Zbrush, too.

Dylan Brady

of course, if your school offers some quality instruction on game art that's probably worth your time as well. and all the other advantages of community college would still stand

hmm_rock

There are so many factors outside of your control that may determine the quality of their program. What you can control is the effort and scope of your own work, inside and outside of the classroom. I did a 2 year associates for game art at a community college. The classes were lack luster, and as mentioned, easy. Challenge yourself and go beyond what is required. What you're really paying for is someone to stand over your shoulder and troubleshoot when you run into a problem, so take advantage of that. Learn when lab hours are, make friends with the tutors or TA's and use them as an extra resource for more specific questions. You're going to be learning a great skill, self-teaching and discipline. Get a tutorial subscription to supplement your learning once you get comfortable. 

ambelamba

Well, I've been teaching myself Maya for a couple of months. 

Now I decided to go back to Modo for now, since I will be learning the basic of Maya at the community college this Fall anyway. And I think starting with the simpler tool is more beneficial to learn something really complex. I believe there are people who use both Maya and Modo just for modeling, and are happy with their choice.