Considering Game Art Institute Environment Bootcamp
polycounter lvl 4
Hello, I'm new to polycount and a beginner 3D artist. I'm the kind of person who needs feedback in a structured curriculum (I get distracted easily if there aren't clear objectives). Right now I have a subscription to 3dMotive and Pluralsight, which help with the basics, but I'm concerned about bringing my work to professional level. Does anyone have experience with GAI's Environment Bootcamp? It sounds like it's very structured. Do you feel your work has improved faster than "going it alone" or with other programs and mentorships? Any insight is much appreciated.
Replies
There's really no right way to do it, because any avenue you choose can easily help you out. You're getting lessons from those that worked in a professional/production level.
I don't know if it improved faster, but it must be a good sign if more eyes see your work, or if you get feedback from artists you look up to, or artists in games, etc.
@BIGTIMEMASTER you're right, having a big price tag on something can breed the fallacy of thinking it must be worth that much to you. I wonder about how much that influences my thinking. I'm going to give stick with the tutorials for a few months before making the decision. I might feel more confident to go it alone by then.
As far as BIGTIME's concerns and advice he is correct in that people will have a bias. However, I have spent much more than a dime on university pathway of learning game art and strongly recommend against that for reasons you can see in this forum that have been mentioned before. The money I spent on GAI was well worth it IMO.
The portions of GAI which I feel are the strongest is that you are learning from actual people in the industry that go to work everyday and sit down in their studios and work. They work their asses off like many of the people here on Polycount.
The pathway for environment art which I went through is very inclusive of the material you learn. It puts together the holes in pipeline, logic, or process that many one off tutorials miss. You may kind of understand how modular pieces work but you may not know the intricacies of constructing different kinds, for example.
It is critique focused and you receive heavy feedback often. One of the thing's that helps the most is just other people telling you what you did wrong and how you might fix it. Much like the critique forums on Polycount. However, unlike polycount (not shitting on you all just an observation) the critiques are guaranteed multiple times a week which is sometimes not achieved on here. This is peer critique, artist critique, instructor as well as Ryan and his employees. Multiple people that have differing views experiences and skill levels. You get a very well rounded grouping of knowledge and feedback very often so you can decided which is actually relevant to what you are gunning for.
No one is there to waste to their time or yours the instructors and Ryan very much don't care about your headspace or your ego. You get honest feedback and you get honest expectations of you. You showing up to meetings unprepared to show off your work or saying you haven't worked on your pieces doesn't fly. Just like missing a deadline in the industry doesn't fly. From my experience you get a good lesson of time constraints, time management and having a certain bar to reach while remaining professional.
The community of GAI is nice as well, the people in the group network constantly provide feedback and post their work. Again much like Polycount. There are constant interviews and tutorials, much of which are no longer exclusive so I can't include that in the decision making since they were exclusive when I was in. I still am a part of that community as well and you remain a part for a long time, they don't kick you out.
I believe in the push to do something which GAI provides. It's somewhat of a responsibility. I say this because you can achieve much of the same benefits on your own as well by being apart of this community as well as others. Joining Discords or specialized forums. Bet a friend $3000 that you will complete project X in 12 weeks or something. Put it together, pitch and designate weekly updates with that friend. If you miss an update you lose, and you forfeit the 3k.
Basically I highly recommend GAI I believe it is incredibly helpful to be in direct contact with an in industry professional for direct feedback and questions. However you do NOT by any means NEED it. Tutorials are nice but only go as far as helping you learn a process not how to make good art. That is on you.
As far as Josh goes the man is great and I have no experience with his or the Mentor Collective's teachings but I don't doubt that they are quality.
zachagreg said:
Or pick up some of the $30-$40 complete tutorials that are around gumroad or artstation. A lot of them are honestly a steal for the amount you get out of them. If you want feedback on the cheap get up on that 3d showcase and keep posting. That's the big secret just keep posting. Doesn't matter if you are stuck on something for the moment. Post your work and post your problems if the problem goes unanswered either solve it yourself or work on some other portion of the project.
Build a thread and they will come.
This.
Even though I've worked semi professionally (CG pre-vis, plus a bit of game res) and over many years have specialised in mechanical hardsurface modelling however despite an accrued competency there's still plenty yet left too learn, so pro authored workflows specifically either via Gumroad, Udemy or 3DMotive are the main go to learning references I regularly tap.
I'd also add, if time coupled with a viable sustainable financial position present no foreseeable issues, then GAI as zachagreg detailed I'll suggest pursuing but nonetheless your call at the end of the day, just keep in mind you're up against those already working in the industry which actually you'd essentially be competing with for gigs whether studio system or freelance.
Put quite simply whatever discipline decided upon a quality proven folio fidelity is a primary criteria most candidates must attain to be even considered and posting work is but one stepping stone towards that end goal you envision. Anyway have a ball, all the best.
As a modeler, I'm only really on the lookout for stuff by Tim Bergholz and/or Tor Frick so although you've an interest in a disparate field, all the same you'll likely need to be fluent with various subsets shared across the board. For instance a Middleware package (game engine) plus principle DCC app also knowing how to create your own textures and materials alongside some sculpting...etc.
Hmm...sounds not a little formidable however even so for further insight I'd recommend reading through a few thoughts penned by working professionals to enable a sense of what it would typically take:
Everything You Need to Know to Become a Game Environment Artist - By Robert Hodri ArtStation
Polygon Academy - Tim Simpson ArtStation
EDIT:
Oh!...and if all that wasn't enough to get your head around, I'll throw in learning how to draw as well
The package around it... I don't know. There is a lot of talking, a lot of new courses (some free sessions, but a lot of advertisements for new classes), mostly feedback by other students - as once the course is over your teachers will get a lot of new students to care about, so I am not certain how much real feedback you will get. I myself stopped asking for feedback there shortly after the bootcamp. Another issue I have there were some strange ideas that were pushed to the students - like classes how to make online classes to put your name out there -as many of those who were interested in taking these were people who had a hard time getting a job, I am not sure how helpful that dogma was (If your work isn't considered good enough to get a studio job, why should anyone pay you to teach him, if there are so many top level instructors out there?).
In any case its not the place to learn the basics. Those courses are so expensive that their main benefit is not learning the tools/workflows, but getting feedback from artists who made it and get some insight on some more advanced techniques. Also to get to understand the quality demanded. Those curses are ment to push you over the edge and not to get you there from zero. And from that perspective I simply don't think 3.000,- is a good price. Rather pick up 3-4 classes from CGMA to finetune those areas where you have issues once you already mastered the basics. The bootcamp has a huge mix from beginners to guys nearly making it in the same class, meaning a lot of the lectures you will see will not be that appropriate for you.
As a last comment here my background so you can get a better picture where my comments are coming from. I did an one year course to learn the basics of games (focus on graphics, Maya, ZBrush, Photoshop, modelling, rigging, texturing,...pretty much everything you need for a small game), then after 2 years learning on my own (and working in a small studio) I started taking classes to get to a hireable level - I did a course in Marvelous Designer, before attending Adam Skutt's character creation class (so here I could just focus on his workflow and learning more advanced approaches/quality level). After those I had a couple of months on my own, but I decided to give the Bootcamp hype a chance and I did that one as well (here I was just polishing my skillset, not really learning anything new, but I have to say they didn't get the chance to go into deep like Adam did in his class due to the large amount of beginners in the class).
Maybe I should have done things differently as well, some people might have a very different take on it and maybe they have also improved since. So I'm not sure my post is helplful at all
@andrecastel Thanks for your comment. Gives me a better perspective of what the actual session is like and how much feedback you can expect. I had a one-on-one call with GAI's manager recently it sounded like they had tried to address that by hiring on someone available part time for technical questions, and increasing the bootcamp meetings from 2 to 3 times a week, and having Ryan available online for "office hours" on Tuesday evenings PST. But I can imagine how frustrating it can be to sit through a class you're putting a lot of resources into to just get two minutes of feedback. Regarding the 2am classes, I live in California, so hopefully the class schedule will work in my favor.
I do have access to a few tutorials. I have Alex Senechal's Hard Surface Design and Weapon Modeling and Texturing on GAI, Marc Brunet's guide to being a 3D artist, and Wizix's Grenade and Gun modeling and texturing tutorials. They went over my head a little bit when I looked at them last September, so I was working on 3dMotive's Stylized Dungeon Tutorial. I want to finish it and apply the lessons to making a Shinto shrine (see image below), but I'm stuck trying to figure out baking.
The tutorial does baking and texturing in 3D Coat, but I'm trying to work it in Substance Painter. So far the all the maps except world space have come out all black
Here's some of my recent work:
3D Artist Workflow for Games:
https://realtimeboard.com/app/board/o9J_kzownlA=/
Environment art overview:
https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/modular-concepts-for-game-and-virtual-reality-assets
Modeling:
High fidelity prop modeling + texturing (Maya and SP focused): https://gumroad.com/l/spEkf
Texturing:
Substance Painter -
Flipped Normals' Introduction to Substance Painter https://flippednormals.com/downloads/introduction-to-substance-painter/
Vehicle Texturing in Substance Painter: From Clean to Mean with James Schauf
Substance Designer -
Anything by Joshua Lynch and Daniel Thiger. The latter has an excellent fundamentals series that managed to give my trash brain a basic understanding of node based thinking.
Unreal Engine:
Read every article and watch every video you can find by Clinton Crumpler.
Putting it all together:
Designing a Modular Environment using Unreal with Brian Recktenwald
I'm likely forgetting some things so if there is anything more specific you're interested, let me know.
@zachagreg tomorrow I'll have that sitdown with myself to plan out some milestones and which cheap or free tutorials/resources I think can get me there. I'll post what I come up with. Thanks for the response.
I did only the Marvelous Designer course there. Skutt was with GAi when I did his class, but he left I think 1 or 2 classes later and joined CGMA. The curriculum is the same and his style of teaching would fit that system much better.
So one of the issues I have with the GAi is Ryan sometimes trying to push some ideas without consulting or preping with the teachers. Putting up deadlines that don't fit the curriculum or prevent teachers from taking time to really hammer out some issues. Ryan has this idea of teaching how you have to make the deadlines and you have to finish your project by the end of bootcamp and so on. But this takes away from having the time to learn how to do things correctly and instead you will be learning to do things on time. That's why it often got confusing and there was not the same clean structure was with Adam's class. Maybe by now things are smoothed out through experience, but I can't say. The problem being, if you have 3 classes per week and there is something like that happening all 3 classes get affected before it gets sorted out. Also 3 times per week getting feedback is nice, but from 3 different people, it can end up being contradictory in the details - another reason why teachers often hold back and don't push as hard.
The CGMA class has 1 video per week that is a lecture and then you get your assignment for the week and you get a video with feedback. That's how its been with the Marvelous class I had a couple of years ago. Not certain if they changed it by now. It was also a very small class, so maybe with bigger ones they have to do it differently. But the teacher has full controll of how he/she wants to handle it. Where to speed up, where to take the time to let the class catch up.
The feedback was based on your own work and you get your own video. I think you can also see the other students videos. Probably that's the biggest plus, as with GAi's classes you end up having the lecture and the feedback in the same unit, sharing the class with 20+ meaning some get left out or get just very short comments. Generally speaking I personally learned the most from the feedback sessions, even though a lot of it was repetitive or not related to mistakes I was doing, but it taught me how the teachers look at stuff.
The biggest advantage GAi has compared to CGMA is that GAi is a community. You might not keep getting as much feedback from teachers as they make it sound, but the students are active. And even if I have some issues with how certain things are run there, Ryan is always cooking something up and every now and then this can help you. I also got a current gig just from being active there and a student recommended me to a big studio he was doing freelance work for.
To sum it up - CGMA is a clean and structured course system. Teachers are top notch, feedback is personalized should be worth the money. GAi is messy to some degree. You get also good teachers, but sometimes it misses the structure to make the most out of the plentiful resources they have. But you also get a community and the additional work you put into therefore gets an audience and there is no restriction on how long the videos are accessible contrary to CGMA.