Schooling
Hello,
I have been interested in an online school. Does anyone have any experience with them (This is a in Canadian in province distance online learning place, called Dartt Instuite).
Or could someone point me to a forum that would have information?
I have been interested in an online school. Does anyone have any experience with them (This is a in Canadian in province distance online learning place, called Dartt Instuite).
Or could someone point me to a forum that would have information?
Replies
I don't know about any other online schools, but AIO consisted of a "lesson" for each week, and then a web forum to post assignments and stuff.
The lessons were written overviews intended to substitute for a lecture, but there was very very little content in any of them. Most of them literally consisted of an intro paragraph followed by links to other (free) websites with more in-depth information.
The assignments usually consisted of reading some chapters in the books (none of which really contained any information that isn't available online today for free) and then answering some questions about them. For attendance credit, everyone in the class had to comment on each other's answers. Because everyone was answering the same questions about the same material, these comments were always useless.
To give you an idea of the art assignments...
For anatomy and life drawing, in lieu of a classroom with a model, they had us buy VirtualPose and scan/upload our sketches, and also copy anatomical illustrations from Art Student's Anatomy by Edmond J. Farris. If you've ever taken a real life drawing class, you know the difference.
For their 3ds Max course assignments consisted of things like "Search online and find 3DS Max tutorials and follow them. Post your results and write a paragraph about what you learned" and then "Pick a room in your house and make it in 3d. Post your results". A lot of people complained because they weren't given any guidance on how to use the software, so they didn't know how to model anything. But the school's policy is that they don't teach the software. That's up to you. They just teach you stuff like what a vertex is and what it might look like. The rest you learn on your own and from critiques from your fellow students. The instructors sometimes drop in and post things like "Good job
tl;dr: Google, Wikipedia, and forums like this one are all you need and they're free. If you're spending money, spend it on the tools. Or at least on a physical school you can go to.
Online classes are tough though. For me, I mixed classes between campus and online. The online is so condensed, that it's sometimes hard to cover all the assignments.
:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
Another note, I've heard good things about session.edu and 3dbuzz and those types of sites. Any comments on them?
Also what was the first thing you modeled? I figured doing square objects (like chairs, boxes, crates, etc) would be a nice place to start. Plus I can learn to UV map them and texture them. It would also give me a gateway into volunteering for gaming projects, creating boxes and environmental art. Once I get a good grasp on that and the 3d content pipeline maybe move into trying characters.
Then I guess the road would be endless? What do you guys think about that?
if you're a retard, that won't work. I like to think that i've got some pretty damn good strategies for sorting out massive amounts of unorganized information. A school is a place where they organize information in a way that *SHOULD* be easy to understand. often this isn't even the case, but what ever. I'd say you can learn online IF:
-you can set a high standard, and DECIDE that you're going to hit it. that's fucking hard.
-you have some sort of ability to listen to people who are getting the results you want, take new behaviors from them, and consider whether or not those behaviors are taking you closer or further from your goal.
-you can accurately judge weither or not you are where you wanted to be. PC is great for that, because if you post shitty work we will rape you in your bum.
oh, and one that I find particularly useful.. be able to look at something you love, get in touch with your body, and find out WHAT you love about it... then, do that. follow the BEST FEELINGS you POSSIBLY CAN..
thats some of my self-taught learning strategy. You get the point. there are people who specialize in unpacking and teaching excellent strategies, btw.... like tony robbins.
I think you're spending too much time thinking what to model instead of just doing it.
But since you ask, yes, go make a crate.
May I ask what are you planning to study?
lol I was planning to study Game Development, online with AOD, but now I am doing it on my own. Besides these institutes just give you an "introduction to programming" "introduction to 3ds max" and so on if you go search these very topics on google, you will find many online resources, and if you search them on amazon you will find many books under 100$s which you can read and practice from.
That is better then online school imo. However; if you still wish to study online. Go for it.
you found my problem!
What fly_soup said is pretty accurate for most online courses, you'll get pointed to information if you are lucky, and then it's up to you. Going to school is like this except that you usually get to talk to your peers make friends and you learn from each other. Sometimes you even get a professor that knows what they are talking about. It's harder to get this from an online course.
3d buzz free content is really good, and just so you know a lot of things you have to buy are not even half as good as what 3D Buzz offers.
Without it, you will be required to have 3 years of experience for every 1 year of schooling lacking ( a degree being 3 years ) so without any higher education, for someone like myself to qualify for the H1B visa to enter the US I would need to have documents and references prooving 9 years of games industry experience.
Had I known this, I would have got my degree many years ago.
if you want to be a good artist, make art and ask questions and work your ass off.
if you cant figure it out by asking people around you and online and w/e you probably wouldnt like working in the industry as you will be having to teach yourself things all the time.