CGMA Online Course, looking for feedback!

p.francescoven

Hi everyone!

I was thinking about takin the "Intro to Production Modeling" course at CGMA. Does someone already took it? What's it like? What did you learn? What kind of project you managed to pull out of the course? 
Is it a good course? 

Let me know guys, I really wanna take It!

Meloncov

I haven't taken that particular course, but CGMA is general is pretty solid.

Alex_J

I'm interested in this as well. 

Given the hefty pricetags, I'd be disappointed if these were the type of courses were the instructor just prods you along and acts more like a coach than a teacher. I'd expect lots of "secret" techniques that you wouldn't discover on your own just by practicing for a few years.

Yura_Vorobiev

Dont know about that particular courrse, but i take vegetation and plants class. And i must say that it was great experience and i learn a lot. Every week you get training videos and in the end of the week you do homevork and recieve feedback from instructor.

Nuna

@Yura_Vorobiev Thats dope dude! Ive heard a lot of good things about that class.

I would love to hear what you guys think of the production modelling course.

Barbarian

CGMA took over the CG Society workshops. I took Phtogrammetry for Games CGMA with Jon Rush in order to learn the technique. I don't know any detail about the production modeling course, but the benefit of the course is having to submit work by a deadline, getting critiques, and then working toward a final scene that  was polished based on critiques. I think they are starting to upload weekly video critiques so all students in the course can review what you submitted and what the instructor's comments were.

In a nutshell, when you have to submit work by a deadline and your critique will be made "public" to the class each week it should motivate you to put a lot of time and effort into it. Therein lies the benefit of taking the course. I will note that in the several CGS courses that I took only about 3 or 4 of us ended up actually completing the course with a polished finished product. If you merely watch the videos and submit occasional work you will gain little. You could get the same benefit by working on a scene, submitting it for review here on PC, and then polishing it and repeating the process. You could ask questions about techniques. I usually only take a workshop on a specialist subject (e.g. photogrammetry). You can review the instructor's portfolio and read the outline to get a solid idea of what you will learn.

p.francescoven

Barbarian said:

CGMA took over the CG Society workshops. I took Phtogrammetry for Games CGMA with Jon Rush in order to learn the technique. I don't know any detail about the production modeling course, but the benefit of the course is having to submit work by a deadline, getting critiques, and then working toward a final scene that  was polished based on critiques. I think they are starting to upload weekly video critiques so all students in the course can review what you submitted and what the instructor's comments were.

In a nutshell, when you have to submit work by a deadline and your critique will be made "public" to the class each week it should motivate you to put a lot of time and effort into it. Therein lies the benefit of taking the course. I will note that in the several CGS courses that I took only about 3 or 4 of us ended up actually completing the course with a polished finished product. If you merely watch the videos and submit occasional work you will gain little. You could get the same benefit by working on a scene, submitting it for review here on PC, and then polishing it and repeating the process. You could ask questions about techniques. I usually only take a workshop on a specialist subject (e.g. photogrammetry). You can review the instructor's portfolio and read the outline to get a solid idea of what you will learn.

I see! Basically what I'm expecting from the course, is some techniques and ways to polish both my models and speed up the workflow. Honestly I don't know if Introduction to Production modeling is more aimed for Character Artist or Environment Artists tho 

Meloncov

p.francescoven said:

Barbarian said:

CGMA took over the CG Society workshops. I took Phtogrammetry for Games CGMA with Jon Rush in order to learn the technique. I don't know any detail about the production modeling course, but the benefit of the course is having to submit work by a deadline, getting critiques, and then working toward a final scene that  was polished based on critiques. I think they are starting to upload weekly video critiques so all students in the course can review what you submitted and what the instructor's comments were.

In a nutshell, when you have to submit work by a deadline and your critique will be made "public" to the class each week it should motivate you to put a lot of time and effort into it. Therein lies the benefit of taking the course. I will note that in the several CGS courses that I took only about 3 or 4 of us ended up actually completing the course with a polished finished product. If you merely watch the videos and submit occasional work you will gain little. You could get the same benefit by working on a scene, submitting it for review here on PC, and then polishing it and repeating the process. You could ask questions about techniques. I usually only take a workshop on a specialist subject (e.g. photogrammetry). You can review the instructor's portfolio and read the outline to get a solid idea of what you will learn.

I see! Basically what I'm expecting from the course, is some techniques and ways to polish both my models and speed up the workflow. Honestly I don't know if Introduction to Production modeling is more aimed for Character Artist or Environment Artists tho 

It's one of the intro classes shared by both their Charecter Art and Environment Art programs. Looking at your work, I think you might find it too elementary and be better off with one of their other classes.

Alex_J

Barbarian said:

In a nutshell, when you have to submit work by a deadline and your critique will be made "public" to the class each week it should motivate you to put a lot of time and effort into it. Therein lies the benefit of taking the course. 

Ah, that is what I was looking for. 

So the benefits of the course don't sound like they are beyond what I can get from working with some people trying to build a game. I mean, not to say these professional instructors aren't offering useful advice and have a keen eye for critiques, and that this focused environment wouldn't be exactly what some people need to put their learning into overdrive, but it's such a huge price tag for somebody who doesn't necessarily need a kick in the behind... especially when you can access so many tutorials from other pro's so cheap it's practically free. 

All that said, when I see the awesome work some of these instructors are putting out, I can't help but think, "Man, I need that guy teaching me!"

p.francescoven

Meloncov said:

p.francescoven said:

Barbarian said:

CGMA took over the CG Society workshops. I took Phtogrammetry for Games CGMA with Jon Rush in order to learn the technique. I don't know any detail about the production modeling course, but the benefit of the course is having to submit work by a deadline, getting critiques, and then working toward a final scene that  was polished based on critiques. I think they are starting to upload weekly video critiques so all students in the course can review what you submitted and what the instructor's comments were.

In a nutshell, when you have to submit work by a deadline and your critique will be made "public" to the class each week it should motivate you to put a lot of time and effort into it. Therein lies the benefit of taking the course. I will note that in the several CGS courses that I took only about 3 or 4 of us ended up actually completing the course with a polished finished product. If you merely watch the videos and submit occasional work you will gain little. You could get the same benefit by working on a scene, submitting it for review here on PC, and then polishing it and repeating the process. You could ask questions about techniques. I usually only take a workshop on a specialist subject (e.g. photogrammetry). You can review the instructor's portfolio and read the outline to get a solid idea of what you will learn.

I see! Basically what I'm expecting from the course, is some techniques and ways to polish both my models and speed up the workflow. Honestly I don't know if Introduction to Production modeling is more aimed for Character Artist or Environment Artists tho 

It's one of the intro classes shared by both their Charecter Art and Environment Art programs. Looking at your work, I think you might find it too elementary and be better off with one of their other classes.

Do you think so? I should consider the other courses then. I shall say that I'm still not very good at hard surface tho. That's basically the only reason to follow that Intro course, maybe? 

Meloncov

If you want to push your hard surface skills, I'd jump right into their hard surface modeling for film course.