School Recommendations??
polycounter lvl 6
I have decided that Its time to go back to school, this time for a purpose. Was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a good school ( IN CANADA ) for computer animation. The one school I am very interested in is "Think Tank" Out in Vancouver, British Columbia. If you know anyone who has gone to this school please ask them what they think.
http://www.tttc.ca/ Check out their site, would love some feedback.
http://www.tttc.ca/ Check out their site, would love some feedback.
Replies
If you wish to come to Toronto, On, there is a Sheridan College that offers alot. I've been planning to go back there for some arts and do some other courses for game development.
Plus, it is close to my place so it is going to be very convenient.
Do check out their programs and see if it fits your needs.
Do not go looking for the reviews for colleges and univs because you will be disappointed and discouraged. Many of them are pretty bad reviews...
personally if i wanted some education to help me with game art, i would just take a fine arts degree at a place like NSCAD, or any other knowen art school, than self teach myself 3d after the fact.
I graduated from Emily Carr, and I can't say that painting non-objective abstract expressionism really helped me. Nor did spending months planning and writing art manifestos, arguing about political agendas, and painting intangible ideas through colour.
I wish I could like your comment, facebook style.
But let me say this. It's not the school that will make you good. What I mean is you can go to the best school in the world and have shitty teachers (no offense) or go to a less known schools and have great teachers. You really have to ask around, try to talk to students from that school, go to the "Student for a day" type of days, etc.
I've been lucky, I've had great teachers, but I know some schools are known to have not so good teachers.
Maybe reading reviews can be discouraging, but jumping on the first school that offer a program you like is also a quick way to throw 20k down the drain if it doesn't fit your needs!
To sum it up: Good experience, some classes were unnecessary, paid only 25K as it was cheaper back then (I think its 36k now?). My mentor really didn't help at all (although some are really good, luck of the draw I suppose). Definitely the people that had some experience in 3D before hand have much better work after (arguably some really didn't even need to go to school, their work was good enough to land em a job). Also there was clear favouritism between some teachers/students (in my class anyways)
In my opinion, if you are really self driven, you can probably do just as well/better learning from tutorials online than going to school for it. (also online tutorials will set you back say... $300 tops, opposed to $36000)
I did however get my current job through Think Tank, so I really can't complain too much. It really depends on how much work you put into it (for example one of my classmates didn't really do much in his last semester and he is now litterally working at mcdonalds, I think he's now trying to get back in CG). You are also able to stay there as long as you need (as a result however, some people have been there for a couple years x_X)
One of my classmates made a review of his thoughts on (he really wasn't too impressed) it i'll grab it for you later. Also if you want some websites of my classmates just ask (almost none of us finished a completed demoreel, so they're not on their website)
At the time I went to Think Tank (June2011), along with Ryswick (hey dude!) the tuition was much lower than it is now. At the current tuition costs, I think it would be a rip-off. Here is my opinion as to why:
There is no render farm, the computers are dated and slow (most of my class ended up buying their own and stopped coming in to school to work because of that - which is bad since you wont get as much done at home depending on how distracted you get), The owners are kind of lazy and when things get asked for repeatedly they just keep saying they are going to do it... and they never do. They give a lot of promises that never happen. The "movie theater" isn't sound proof at all with a classroom right beside it, also the computer inside has been non functional forever. They have no game art class (we didn't touch UDK or CryEngine) Did a few classes on Unity, but I believe they took that out of the curriculum. We did 1 or 2 classes on normal maps, where it was just throwing a HP and LP into XNormal and generating maps. So if you are keen on getting exp. in game engines and game art work flows. I highly suggest looking at alternatives and make sure you know what programs they use and teach.
The teachers are pretty good there for the most part, better than most other schools I'd say. They are all mostly working in the industry, and just come after work to teach a class for an hour.... That being said, there isnt much to teach. It comes down to you and how much time and effort you are willing to put into it, and most of it is learning and figuring out things on your own. From watching online tutorials like DigitalTutors or Eat3D I can say that they are a very good alternative if you have the mental ability to sit through them and learn & apply on ur own. Going to school gives you the opportunity to engage with other students and make some life long friends. You can't get this from online tutorials and forums.
I enjoyed the first semester, and did learn a lot as I was fairly new to CG (just knew how to model simple objects before going to school) Once 2nd semester came, I feel the program went downhill real quick... We didn't have as many classes and there wasn't much learning going on. In 3rd semester we got to pick out a mentor, we did not get to meet with the choices beforehand and it was more like a draw from a hat type thing. The mentors were pretty good for the most part, but many of them did not know as much as you could learn doing online tutorials, which is pretty disappointing and felt like a waste of money. At the time, they had a couple very talented Character artists / sculptors and animation mentors for those who were lucky enough to have them as mentors.
It took me 6 months after finishing to finally get a job ( which isn't even an art position that I was hoping for ) I did not work as hard as some other classmates.. or to my maximum potential, But I believe that some of the reasoning for that can be blamed on the fact there was no render farm as promised, and switching to doing work at home since the computers at school were too slow to even model on. And I don't work very productively sitting at home.... which is one of the big reasons why I went to school. Another blame can be placed on the actual industry. It's super tuff to get jobs, and its becoming harder every year.. that's because there's so many more students trying to get into this field and there's 100's or 1000's of students applying to the same position. Some of them are not human and have zero social life but have a kick ass portfolio... So you really need to sit down and think to yourself if you want to pursue this field and have a passion for it and want to make it ur life.
Thats it for now. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. my e-mail is on my portfolio.. which is in my signature, along with my Twitter.