Good University,Institute, college for Game art in Canada

orpheus85

Hi everyone, i have just finished my course in 3D animation and visual effects a few months back, now i am looking forward to pursue my higher studies from Canada and specialize myself in Game art (modeling\texturing\sculpting....). but i have very little knowledge of the good Universities,Institutes,colleges and course in Canada, can u guys please guide me by giving your inputs bases on your knowledge and experience.

please also have a look at my demo reel. advises and views on my work are most welcome.

Thanks

DEMO REEL
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPh6zndyBjc[/ame]

orpheus85

The first female model in the demo reel was made for DW4...

malcolm

I've heard vancouver film school is good and also costs 40million dollars a year. I've also heard you should avoid art institute because the teachers are mostly ex students that haven't held jobs in the industry.

IEatApples

Im only a student myself so don't take my word on this, but from what I've read elsewhere 4 minutes seems maybe a touch long for a showreel.

ikken

orpheus85 wrote: »

Hi everyone, i have just finished my course in 3D animation and visual effects a few months back, now i am looking forward to pursue my higher studies from Canada and specialize myself in Game art (modelingtexturingsculpting....). but i have very little knowledge of the good Universities,Institutes,colleges and course in Canada, can u guys please guide me by giving your inputs bases on your knowledge and experience.

please also have a look at my demo reel. advises and views on my work are most welcome.

Thanks

DEMO REEL

what are you expecting from a game art course?
because right now your reel looks better than approximately 40 % of work produced by any kind of game art schools (they somehow prefer to conceal the amount of students completing their studies with crappy or incomplete reels).

my advice will be to decide early on what area of 3d you're more interested in, (characters, environments, tech stuff or whatever), and try to land a job in the meantime - a year of any related experience will give you probably more than a year at school. probably less.
however, if you can afford spending a year at school and spending $ (type numbers here) k of tuition, your current skillset will help you a lot.

Take a look at vanarts or lostboys at vancouver, vanarts being pricier, but their staff is good;
also, artschoolreviews.ca has plenty of student-submitted articles, check those too.

sir-knight

I think your base knowledge is there, you just need time to study other work and practice up, going into a 'game art' course now would just result in money and time wasted to go back and do basics you already know.

Finding the right instructors at any paid course is a craps shoot because it's hard to know what some of these programs have for instructors. A lot of these 'game dev' programs are cash grabs by schools to get money. I know some schools will pad their employed graduate numbers by including graduates that get hired... in ANY field, not necessarily their field of study.

That being said, if you want into programs that will teach you basics, then you should probably go for a fine arts degree (if you don't already have one), in my eyes, that's worth more than software and work flow knowledge that is generally taught in 'game' courses. That you already know judging by your reel.


If I could do it again, I probably would've went for a BFA instead of a useless diploma in animation.

Ontario schools for art would include Sheridan College, they offer bachelors degrees in various arts, digital and traditional (but sheridan is damn near impossible to get into). Algonquin college has a semi reputable animation program, doesn't really focus on game 3d though, just the basics of animation in 3d or 2d. Ontario college of art and design, various other universities for fine arts.

orpheus85

sir knight the reason why i am looking for a course is so that i can get proper guidance regarding the work flow of making a game model.may it be envior, character, prop etc..at times i get stuck during normal mapping, especially during re topology...i am still not successful with reto...i just try and reduce segments..practice and loads help from polycount keeps me away from trouble.

Time and money is very limited for me but i though of giving one last short..studying from canada and being around gr8 artists was my decission of improving myself..the institues\instructers here are more money minded, less learnt and is in the same condition as u have stated in ur post.

i will look up into BFA courses as u have suggested. thanks for ur support and advice.
take care

orpheus85

hi Ikken , i had shown my work to a friend of mine who works for a game company...and he found my work fine but not up to the mark for an entry level\fresher position according to his seniors. No probs, so i decided for a game art course to equipe me with better skills, a good schools name tag and output. I am dieing to get an oppurtunity and gain expereince, coz its obviously more gainfull than spending time in school....
i just love modeling, texturing games and game art, for now i have decided to start of as a environ/prop artist and then move onto character artist.
AT present am going to applying at various studios both game and non game\simultaniously look for an institute if things don't work out as planned....am having a look at the institutes and blog that u suggested...will be getting back to the thread incase of any quirey.
Thanks

orpheus85

HI IEatApples, m glad that u put up this though. me and my friends r really unaware of the time limit for a show reel...we just try put in all our work to show our skills...the more we have the more happy we thought the company would be....
As u r a student, If i may...can i know were u r studying and wat is the course that u r doing...

orpheus85

Hey malcom..i already had a look at VFS...man its costly...i would also not be able to get an internship or any work in Canada aftr spending a huge amount at vfs as it dosen't support immigration or anything of that sorts....no issues....i have kept it as my last option...i find VFS work good.....am kinda aiming of studying in canada...work there for a few months...being at the root of the industry with awesome artists will always help me to mirror myself with good talent.

Frump

I agree with the others. There is not much more you could learn from another game art course. You could take online courses with mentors for further improvement or just work a lot and get critiques. Posting here is already the first step.

My time at AI Vancouver was a great experience due to some great instructors who really helped us along and taught us a lot. However, those teachers have moved on to working at better schools as AI's politics and methods are... not the best. And even during my time at school a lot of where my improvement and learning came from was online sources. In school we roughly went through normal mapping and such. However, I ended up showing my instructors more specialized and in-depth workflows and online tutorials relating specifically to current-gen game art, because they were learning methods to teach us and trying to help so many of us in our different specializations at the same time.

My point of all this is, I was just lucky to have had such a good experience in school, because graduating classes just before and after me have had significantly less quality of instruction. And even with that, I still did a ton of learning on my own.

If you were to go back to school you would just learn the basics you already know. Online video tutorials, online classes and these forums are a greater source for specific information than any game art course, as they are aimed at teaching you advanced techniques to build on your current knowledge.

You say you are unsure about retopology workflows. I learned all about retopology workflows and normal mapping from reading threads and following people's work. It can be done, and people are willing to help you out with it. Just keep working at it.