CG Spectrum, CGMA, or Gnomon for online courses?
Hi everyone,
I just recently graduated from an animation program where I specialized in 3D modelling, but I’m looking to take some online courses to help improve my portfolio and learn ZBrush. I’ve been stuck between choosing either CG Spectrum, CG Master Academy, or Gnomon.
CG Spectrum has an Advanced Modelling course where you cover character, environment/props, and creature modelling and have the opportunity to get one-on-one mentorship. The problem is it’s the most expensive of the three (especially since I’m Canadian and the prices are in USD) and 10-months long.
CG Master Academy is much cheaper than CG Spectrum and most of the courses seem to go for at least 6-weeks and longer. Since I’m still quite new to ZBrush, I don’t know if the courses are too specialized to start learning right now as a beginner. They have a ZBrush for Concept and Iteration course which looks like it could be a good place to start, but I can’t find any many other reviews on the course.
Gnomon is very popular and their student’s work is absolutely amazing. They have the online Digital Sculpting and Hard Surface modelling course which look very good, and many of their courses run for 10-weeks and are a pretty good price. I haven’t seen many people talking about their experiences with Gnomon’s online courses though, so I’m not sure if their online classes have close to same quality as the ones they offer at the physical school.
Sorry for the long post, I just want to figure out the pros and cons of each before making the decision and spending the money on one. If anyone has advice or experiences with any of these three or have suggestions for any other online courses, it would be greatly appreciated!
Replies
Just about efficiency really. Use the minimum amount of money needed to learn what you need. After a few months, if you feel like you need a structured approach to the artistic side of things, then maybe some of those more expensive courses with professional one on one instruction would be worth it.
I've tried out a few Gnomon online courses... quality of the teachers vary and it can effect the content. Madeline Scott Spencer's Intro to ZBrush course is great though. That being said, so is Michael Pavlovich's youtube series.
What exactly is your goal?
You’re right about going with the least expensive options first before spending all the money on the online programs. I always thought the major perk of the expensive courses was the chance to network with the students and mentors, but I’m still hesitant over spending $10,000 for a course I haven’t heard too many people review. I’ve had some success finding good ZBrush tutorials on Gumroad or in 3dtotal’s books, but I’ll have to look through some more of the videos available on Pluralsight and 3dmotive.
So far all my modelling is done in Maya, so my goal right now is to expand into digital sculpting and become more skilled with ZBrush. I’m hoping to be able to practice and learn how to make detailed environments and characters for games or films.
Did you find Gnomon’s Workshop courses to be more helpful than their online programs? Think Tank looks great and from what their term breakdown shows it looks pretty in-depth. Do you find your teachers there are very good quality?
The first term at Think Tank is pretty broad. They assume you have no knowledge but push you hard. There is an expectation to be doing 30-40 hours a week but that's really just to meet the course work. This term we've covered texturing (briefly in photoshop and then mari... im a SP guy), 3D modeling (a LOT), a ton of lookdev stuff (vray shaders, lighting, post fx). The first term definitely feels more geared towards film but as you branch out in the 2nd and 3rd term you specialize further depending on your interests.
As far as how classes are handled I think it's pretty much exactly the same template as other online schools. You get course videos, do assignments, have a video session with your supervisor and classmates once a week, turn in assignments... rinse repeat. You can check out my artstation and go to the blog area. I posted quite a few of my assignments there. There's alot more that I didn't post
From what I hear (we have a whole private chat system) the higher terms get more involved, in coursework and how hands on instructors / directors get with you.
All in all, I am really happy. I felt a little discouraged by it half way through the term due to being kind of bored with our coursework (i cant stand tweaking a shader and waiting for a render) but now that we are into the final project I can really see how much I learned in such a short time.
edit: realized i didn't actually answer your question but just rambled about everything else. Instruction has been fine, like I said it's really just videos. My supervisor isn't one of the people doing the teaching so he is more there to help us fill in the gaps and offer critiques, as well as do live demos of techniques we havent gone over. I think in order to do well, and this goes for all of CG, you need to be a self learner who can research and experiment.