Web Development
After many thoughts on the matter I have decided to take my future into another realm, Web Design. I have always had website design in the back of my head ever since I was a 'wee lad' and I've decided to go in that direction. It has caused great confusion among my parents by switching from 3D art, to animation and then finally website development, because I was so sure about 3D art, but I think it's what I want to do : )
I am aspiring to make proffesional sites, such as Newgrounds and other community based Websites. I understand a team of people had to make these websites but I would be looking to join a few like-minded people in my quest to make a nice, proffesional site.
I'm going to be studying HNC Web Development at a nearby college which teaches html, CSS and 2D Animation.
Any words of advice?
Thanks, bye.
I am aspiring to make proffesional sites, such as Newgrounds and other community based Websites. I understand a team of people had to make these websites but I would be looking to join a few like-minded people in my quest to make a nice, proffesional site.
I'm going to be studying HNC Web Development at a nearby college which teaches html, CSS and 2D Animation.
Any words of advice?
Thanks, bye.
Replies
So they are going to teach you JUST html, CSS and 2d animation?
Not xHTML, XML, Java Script, ASP.NET, MS SQL.NET, PHP?
Wow, so they are just going to miss that entire part of networking out and teach you how to code in HTML..lol you can do that by reading online imo.
This! As a professional web developer for a company dealing with a lot of contractors across the US, HTML, CSS, javascript, jquery, PHP and mysql are definitely the major things I would recommend learning first. These technologies drive a lot of the major sites you see everyday (Facebook, anything built using wordpress, this forum is probably PHP/MySQL based as most forums are). It's easy to setup a local development machine for learning these by using something like XAMPP.
there are plenty of resources to be found out on the web to help you with your goals, as well as, plenty of people around here that can help I'm sure.
Web Development is more of a computer science degree than an art degree. HTML and CSS are the jumping off points, and you should definitely learn them. After that you should move on up to PHP and MySQL. After that you can try out a little AJAX for large-scale web applications.
Be warned, young padawan. This is not an easy discipline you are venturing into. And thanks to the numerous browser quirks, it can be extremely frustrating.
Programming is where the money is. Then again you'll be likely more of a programmer than a designer. Not sure if that's what you want. Anyway good luck!
If you do want to go into design, you want to focus on Flash and similar technologies. There are Photoshop gurus who rock at layout by the dozens, but not that many people who really get both the artistic and logical side of interactive work. I'm by no means a whiz at AS3, but it's enough to make a good career. Because Flash requires an equally important creative component, it's one technical field that can't be outsourced - clients can send their .php/MySQL/whatever work to India for a pittance, but they can't send the design work oversees.
If you want to be involved with building websites, it's highly important that you learn these basic staples of graphic design.
Just know that if you become one of those godawful no-skill, all-mouth developers/designers that seem to be anywhere and everywhere these days, I will hunt you down and fart in your cornflakes.
TomDunne - Flash? Seriously?
the money is in two areas right now:
1. hardcore backend database creation and management, system management.
2. actionscript3 programming.
To get "normal" web gigs such as designing front ends, you may be able to enter a company if your portfolio contains some shiny work, but you will be expected to know standard frameworks for working with PHP, CSS & HTML5.
Best of luck.
Also you seem to want to go the freelance route? You'd better be really talented or have a knack for PR because this is a though business to get started in! Hawken is right about where the money is! Sure you can make a good living making websites for small businesses and such, but the real deal lies within the development part!
I'll just be waiting to see what your next big career change will be.
cut him some slack, he's young. When I was his age I thought I was going to be a programmer, then I switched to IT and finally landed in 3d.
Seriously. There's way more money in that than in laying out web pages, especially if you can handle some of the programming as well as the animation.
*edit*
FWIW, salaries in the industry. Vanilla graphic design gigs pay the least. Jobs that emphasize 'multimedia' or 'interactive' are Flash/rich media gigs. The more developer-oriented you are, the more you can make. My salary is exactly in line with these.
http://www.simplyhired.com/a/salary/search/q-flash+designer
The Designpart will be more than hard to get in as theres tons of graphic
designers trying to make a living from it who have studied that field for
years.
Thanks for the heads up.
I started doing 3D Art when I was twelve, jumped to animation just a month ago and that didn't work out for technical reasons. This really suprised me because I wanted to do animation...I just somehow landed into environment art. I think I'm gonna think for a bit but right now I just want to go back to animation with Maya. I done 3D art for 4 years but I wasn't that great because I wasn't taking it seriously. Who am I kidding? I always wanted to do Animation so I'm going to strive to do it.
"cut him some slack, he's young. When I was his age I thought I was going to be a programmer, then I switched to IT and finally landed in 3d."
A couple of months ago I would think this wouldn't apply to me but I have been switching quite alot recently. I am going to get back into animation.
PS. Would anyone know why I'm getting extremley low fps in Maya 2009 with a GTX 260, 4GB Ram, 1680x1050, Windows 7?
For my part, I wasn't aware that there was a greater demand for AS3 coders now. I'll have to upsell my flash skills when I start firing off resumes. I've been an experienced AS3 coder for over two years, and learned quite a bit about integrating flash into CSMs and databases at my previous job.
If anyone knows why my system is running at such a low FPS for Maya 2009 I would be very, very grateful if you could tell me what's up with that xD
Also if you want to be an animator, stick with maya. It's a better animation package than max (which most people will agree to, as much as they'll disgree on modelling/unwrapping/lighting between those packages), and it's also far, far more standard for animators. It's usually either that or motionbuilder (mainly for mocap stuff) or a mix of the two.
If you're serious about it, look into animation mentor.
Basically, I'm getting extremley low FPS in Maya and I can't even move controls for a rig.
I can't get much further than that unless this is fixed.
And I really, really, really want to. You get the idea.
I'm abit bewildered as to why I'm having these issues.
Edit - Minor problem, I frequently get these weird faded white lines that travel up my monitor.
Uh oh's. Monitor problems?
I just want to share a little something that I had to sit through in school yesterday.
To put it simply, I was told, by my mainstream-accademically capable-non-game-industry-informed computing teacher that in 3D computer animation I need to learn ' 3D Vector plotting and data base managment' This guy, who is the head of my schools computing department, said that I should give up my life long aspirations.This is because, truth be told, I'm very, very bad at maths. Apparently, I need to know such things in 3D Animation and I would need to have higher maths and need to get into university.
I could barley contstrain my anger.
Yeah right, I was too busy thinking to myself, "What a dumbass, he clearly has no idea what I want to do and thinks I want to be a software engineer." Ironically, for software engineering you probably need a ton of programming knowledge, science and math qaulifications.
Gotta love it.
Just something to think about.
3d artist > 2d animator > web site designer > maya tech thread
It is true that a lot of major universities lump their 3D animation department under their more technical disciplines. Some of the best schools for 3D animation have extremely steep requirements and pre-requisites for their digital graphics programs. One graduate program I applied to required advanced Calculus and Linear Algebra. This was for a Computer Science degree, not an Art degree. If you pursue an Art degree that focuses on 3D animation, the mathematical requirements will be much less severe.
Database management is a good fall-back discipline to learn, no matter what you do. It's not nearly as hard as most people think, you don't need to know much math, and there are plenty of jobs for it. I'd take a course or two in database management, just to be able to put it on your resume.
/Clap
I'm in web advertising. Bubble has not burst. We are stealing all the TV ad budgets now as everyone gets a DVR. Web is just getting bigger and bigger.
http://www.unit9.com/
Just curious as to what sort of stuff you might be working on to get an idea of what opportunities are out there.
I am what is called in the bizzzzz, a super duper generalist. Tons of flash. 2d animation, 3d animation, illustration, vector illustration and animation, flash game design. Graphic design in all it's happy forms of course. We do lots of flash banners, flash adver-games, print, website design, and kinds of random viral ad campaigns that might amuse people.
It's not a job that would exist for me if I only did 3d, although a larger studio might have a place for someone like that. We're rather small.
Call me when HTML5 lets me do keyframe animation or render 3D in real-time.
Same here. We can't hire enough people to handle all the business we have coming through.
Web design, well is sort of like graphic design, full of people.
You don't need to be a math wizard to do animation, I'm not sure what that guy was on, but knowing how to do custom rigs and script would make you stand out if you were doing 3d animation. For 2d animation a lot of places want you to know flash and know how to script.
@ Richard Kain everytime I look for animation jobs most jobs that pop up up are asking people that can use Flash and code.
Could you elaborate a bit more about interactive design thing? I've studied actionscript3 as a tool for developing 2d games and I find user interface design as a subject quite interesting too. As web gets bigger and more complex, I'm afraid pure web development is going to get more and more computer-science oriented and technical. It seems to me interactive design is the right mix of creative and technical.
So, what does your working day consist of? What does portfolio of an interactive designer look like? Do you handle client-side programming only or database/server side too? What tools/scripting languages are you expected to use besides flash and AS3?
Thanks in advance
!! The person have no idea what he wants to do.
There are flash 3d games you can look in to, that is if you are still determined to do the web programming.
Anyways, good luck with your career hunt.
Yeah... I think I made that quite apparent already, thanks.