I know the thread title could be a bit confusing but i will explain. First i would like to introduce myself a bit. I’m Jerry, originally from Holland but studying in Belgium now. I’ve been interested in game design for a long time, yet I’m not a hardcore gamer by any means and have never been. Years ago the art side of games appealed to me a lot but since i started learning c++ my focus is starting to shift to becoming a Technical artist.
So what is DAE, DAE is the curriculum I’m attending in Belgium. It stands for Digital Arts and Entertainment. I’m in my second year at the moment working on a mod, learning extensive rigging and high level C++. The curriculum is geared towards delivering TA’s at the end of three years.
They do not make it easy though, About 180 started last year and less than 50 are left in the second year.
Also, after reading some threads on this forum i feel some aspects of being a TA are ignored in DAE, Like Maxscript and Python. Although we are learning C++ and DirectX.
I am interested to think what you think of the curriculum and if it is a good thing or maybe not that such a coarse exists. You can view a showcase on the site, some of my work is featured
I would not worry about the language as long as your learning good solid programing concepts and then as Kees said, few days and you will be running with python.
Thanks for replying. Yeah i know that about the languages, i took a peek at python and maxscript and c# already and i know i can learn that pretty fast i think.
I must say i think our C++ classes are very good. We are going over function pointers and functors at the moment, which is pretty tough:D:
The program you are taking sounds EXACTLY like what I’m taking at the Art Institute of Orange County, in California. Our degree program is called Visual Game Programming and focuses on all aspects of 3D art (from rigging and animating to modeling and texturing) as well as programming from VB up to high level C++. But yeah, my program too seems to skip over python and maxscript.
The guys that have responded to this already seem to have the same idea as a few of the TA’s I’ve talked to in the industry around here. Those languages just aren’t thought in school so you need to learn them on your own. Fortunately, if you know enough about other programming languages, those two are easy to pick up on. You just have to read up on tutorials and keep pushing new buttons! (thats pretty much my motto when it comes to learning something new… keep pushing buttons till you figure it out)
I thought i should bump this thread instead of making a new one.
A bit of a buzz is going on amongst DAE students at this point. This year for the first time students are looking for internships and they find it really rough to get in at alot of places.
Our skills are being taylored to being a Technical artist. Naturally this does not produce superb art from every student and the same goes for our programming. Students are being turned down on their work, because it’s not good enough:(:
Now i don’t think many students are really aiming for a TA position but that is party because it is rare i guess. So my question is: Do TA internships even exist or how does that work if you are looking for an internship?
Luckily this isn’t an issue for me yet, but it will be the coming year:nod:
At EA we did have Technical Artists as interns, you’ll probably find that the bigger studios will be the ones in which the Tech Artist role is more defined, not to say that smaller studios don’t have them.
One mistake I know I did when I was looking for a job was putting crappy art in my reel in front of my scripts. If you’re going to be a tech artist, dont even bother showing your modelling skills. Show a badass rig and what are all the features it can do, show a tool being used and how it saves time, or show some cool shaders.
I’m not familiar with the studios in Belgium though so it could be quite different =) Hope that helps,
That’s a great reply. The situation in Belgium isn’t that great actually. One of two big studio’s closed doors this year (10tacle). So that leaves one gamestudio. In The Netherlands there are a few more studio’s though so i might get more lucky there.
TBH though, i would really like to push my luck and try to go some place out of europe
If I was in your situation I would try and make your portfolio towards what you are best at, this may mean aiming for an Artist role rather than a TA. If you are really technically minded then it will be easy for you to move into more technical work after you get a job. To me the technical interest is lacking more than ever in artists, most would rather stay a million miles from the pipeline. The more technical people are the more useful they are in terms of game development.
This might also mean you are amazing at writing scripts, so you would end up writing loads of well presented useful tools.
Still you should have some good art,
If you’re no go good at characters, then do enviroments or mechanical stuff.
guess i need to learn to do some rigging soon,
as well learn more on shaders and etc,
i use to do character modeling my self and now do environment and props,
learning so much reading around on this forum,
Thanks,Chris
