Online Game Art Degrees in the US
Hello, I was checking out some of the forums and couldn't find the answer to what I am looking for. I am looking for a school in the US that offers online bachelor degree programs in Game Art. I know about Full Sail but the student reviews don't seem too promising, plus the price is too high for me. Does anyone know a good program with a reasonable price?
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If you can only do online, just do Gnomon.
They are focused primarily on concept art, illustration, and etc but they do offer some 3d classes. I took a couple of part time classes there and at the time they only offered one 3d course taught by Polycount's own Brett Briley. Since then I believe they have added Andrew Gordon from Pixar to head their Animation department.
I felt like I learned quite a bit from the couple of classes I took there and I honestly wish I had the time to take some more.
Unfortunately Aspen is a nationally accredited University, which will limit your ability to ever go for a higher degree or teach in most Universities. It is a for profit, stock trading school. These institutions are in it to make money first, not train students.
Their paydirt is FASA which is why you more often than not see them charging more than most other schools for the so called same degree. When in fact, while the degree is accredited and recognized by the US government, it lacks the credentials to be recognized by standard Schools. This is why such schools can have teachers who have only a Bachelors (if that), versus Professors who at least have a Masters degree (from a regionally accredited school).
Full Sail isn't much better in this regard. It also is nationally accredited only, while though not being on the stock market, it is owned by a private equity firm.
One could argue that these instructors in these profit schools are more closely aligned to the modern career requirements. At the same time, it could be countered that a Professor will have a broader knowledge base and be able to teach unsaid foundations. Example: CS majors in public Universities learn about machine logic and reasoning before ever delving deeply into one code base. Many times they leave a school without training in the programing language to any great degree where they end up. However, they are able to adapt quickly because they can understand the underpinnings of the logic of a computer language.
Gnomon makes no qualms about what it does and is. If you just want the training, Gnomon. If you want a real degree, SCAD, but, that costs A FORTUNE.
On a bureaucratic level a degree makes a difference if you want to work abroad. You will need it for immigration. Here it's the paper that counts, not the knowledge. For this even a nationally accredited degree is perfectly valid, but please don't waste money just for immigration's sake.
I actually have a degree from SCAD and I took classes from TAD afterwards because what I learned from SCAD in my opinion was inadequate and left me feeling unprepared for work in the industry. Prior to SCAD I had zero experience with 3d as my high school only offered basic Art classes and I was unaware of places such as Polycount to help me get started. So someone who has some basic understanding of 3d before going to SCAD may have a better experience than I did, but I felt like at SCAD I was mostly taught a program's basic interface and the rest was up to me. While I don't mind teaching myself, if I wanted to do that I could do it without the ridiculous tuition that SCAD charges. Now don't get me wrong, there were a few classes that I learned quite a bit in (mostly the anatomy classes taught by Paul Hudson), but those were more the exception than the rule.
If I could do it over and TAD had been around before I went to SCAD I would probably have chosen TAD over SCAD.
Something I should point out about TAD's accreditation is that they originally were not accredited and didn't really feel it was needed. Ultimately they became accredited simply so they could offer student loans. So in this regard I feel they are closer to Gnomon, but with an option to get a degree if you need it or need student loans.
I can make no comment personally on SCAD except to say I met someone like you (except she got a masters) in a course for Zbrush from Futurepoly. The thing is, she excelled much faster than most of the class (including students from Digipen), which I attribute to her having those foundations SCAD (and her undergraduate school), gave her.
Which goes into my personal opinion on the distinction between career based national accreditation and traditional regional. I would say TAD most likely offers those underpinnings that most other for profit schools would breeze over.
Did they (TAD) raise their prices shortly after they got the student loans and had to connect with Aspen? I would be surprised if they did not.
I do not know for sure as I haven't had the time to continue taking classes with them. Originally it cost something like $40-45k for their full program with the minimum payment, with the ability to reduce the price by 50% if you paid in full upfront. There were smaller reductions in cost if you paid above the minimum up front but not the full cost. They offered portfolio scholarships as well. SCAD by comparison was $100k+ for their full program (I don't know about their online classes).
I personally took part-time classes at TAD and they were around $1200 per class or so with some small reductions in cost for early registration, but no scholarships were offered.
This all could have since changed with the accreditation, but I can say that the quality of the education was much higher than what I received while at SCAD. I think that was largely due to the quality of the faculty at TAD. Here is a link to their faculty page for anyone that is interested:
http://theartdepartment.org/faculty
As far as learning the tools necessary for game art, there is always the school of Polycount. On-line tutorials are free, and there are more inexpensive tools available for game artists now than ever before. The vast majority of game artists didn't get degrees in game art. They taught themselves the necessary tools and digital techniques.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=114849
I am not sure what to do. Shall I go to full sail or study from gnomon, digital tutors and other classes like cg society and zbrushworkshops over the next few years?
I already have student loans so thats another big reason why I cant go to those other schools.
Any thoughts on what to do?
from what i heard MB doesn't really like to be connected to Jason Manley and his artdepartment