   Need direction on where to go
  I'm sure most of you have seen me around these forums, as of this point i need help getting direction on where to go in my life if i want to be a game artist.i will start by giving you information about me and my knowledge.Currently i'm 17 (soon turning 18) i'm a senior in high school. i know the following programs (not all related ot game art).Microsoft officePhotoshop 6 and 7 (or any other image editing program)learning flash atmlearning webdesign atmi know 3ds max 5, 6, 7going to start learning maya sooni know how to do skeletal animation using anim8or ( i find it easiest)and a few other programsi have experience with win 98, 2000, me, win xp, and by experience i mean i know tweaking, advanced options, recovery for each...etci have extensive knowledge with computer hardware both old and new.I'm currently prepareing to attempt to get A+ certification in both hardware and software.i have experience with modding morrowind and unreal games.i have experience with using 2 game engines atm, cipher and c4. i have done both high-poly and low-poly modeling and scenes.below are links to some images that i've done recently from renders to in-game screenshots;Pic 1Pic 2Pic 3Pic 4Pic 5Pic 6Pic 7pic 7And a link to the imotdmy gameMy business i'm startingmy business or www.surrealtextures.com if the link to the left doesn't worki need advice of where to go from here, college i mean. i am going to be going to college soon and need advice on how to go about doing this. i live around the dayton area of ohio in the united states of america.I was thinking of going to my community college for two years and getting my basic credits out of the way then transfering to another college after two years. i was thinking of devry or full sail after that, but after reading around i not sure if these are good colleges to go after. i was also thinking if i could go to all computer courses at my community college (such as progarmming courses and perhaps a few game design or tech course) and then transfer to another college later on and have those specific credits transfer over too. do i have to take english and all of the other basic classes if i'm not actually going to use any of that in the degree i'm going for? what colleges would you recommend? i'm asking here because a lot of you are in or out of college already and probably have good experience that would allow you to give me good advice. any help on this topic?[Edited by - Jarrod1937 on December 8, 2005 8:58:58 AM]
  First thing I'd say, like in another thread the other day, would be to stay away from those "game design" colleges, as they will limit your options even within the game industry itself, not to mention about alternative careers. Second would be to try to pick a path that is not dependant upon entry into the games industry. On the one hand, your career there is not guaranteed. On the other hand, you might change your mind by the time you graduate. Other people have stated, and I have no personal experience to back this up, have stated that a decent portfolio speaks for you better than an education from a "game design" college.   ;  Well, picking a good college can certainly help. I believe that every grad student at our school who had this one lady as a teacher got picked up immediately by Pixar. Certainly many of the other grad students, and undergrads as well, have succeeded pretty quickly out of the program.Anyways, just do some serious looking around at colleges with good computer and arts combinations (for example, we have a big electrical engineering/computer science school, but the useful degree here for this type of career is called Arts and Technology =P).   ;  Are there any particular colleges you guys would recommend? i was thinking about going into programming and general computer technology.   ;Quote:Original post by Jarrod1937Are there any particular colleges you guys would recommend? i was thinking about going into programming and general computer technology.Picking a college is not that simple, and ultimately it shouldn't matter that much. Generally you'll want to apply to maybe 4 to 5 schools, anything more is probably more than you can handle at once (you can reuse the recommendations, but you can't reuse your essay). You need to do research on a wide variety of colleges, on their programs and their reputation and atmosphere and such. You'll want to narrow down your choices and go for a campus visit at the places that interest you. At the end, you should have a first choice school, a second choice school or two, and maybe one or two safety school that you know you can get into. Things they will look at is your gpa, your extracurricular stuff, your recommendation letters, your application essay (many places require one of these), things like that. On the other hand, you yourself will be limited by your family budget, if there is one... education in the States is anything but cheap.If you want to go into Computer Science, well, I can only think of Berkeley right off the top of my head, but there must be many excellent CS programs, so look around.   ;  Ok so you're saying get a general degree and keep practicing game art in my spare time and when it comes down to it let my portfolio do the speeking? I'm go to have a talk with my school conseler later on to help me find good colleges with the right things i want. i also like electronics, like repairing tv's, vcr's..etc so i'm all mixed up on what i should put most of my efforts toward.   ;  Guidance counselors are useless in high school. Really.I'm a Computer Graphics Technology student at Purdue University. If you're into CG, there is no reson that you shouldn't persue it directly. At my school the first year or so of classes taken by all CGT students are the same to give you a bit of a foundation in everything and then starting your sophomore years you can start specializing in four areas: Interactive Multimedia (Mostly Flash, Freehand, and website development), Animation (using Maya, 3D Studio Max, etc and doing both mechanics and character animation, digital lighting, studying motion), Virtual Product Development (mechanical drafting CAD, Catia, Rhino, project management) and Contruction Graphics (minor drafting, studying materials and design, working in AutoCAD and Vertex). There are currently only two specifically game related courses in the curriculum, 3D graphics programmin and game development, but they can obviously be coupled with the four disciplines. Of course, we also have minor in Building Contruction Management, Computer Technology (where you can emphasize on Programming), and others like OLS and just straight management. Our CGT department is led by a series of professors who all have years of real field experience and choose to teach the curriculum from both an information engineering perspective and from time/project management perspective. Theory is emphasized, but how you use a specific piece of software isn't really the emphasis in any class. You're expected to more or less figure out how to apply a concept to the software for the most part.Well, that is enough pitching of my school. My point is that there are programs out there that will encompass multiple things that you might want to do, you just have to spend some time looking and well, probably visit the school and talk to the students there. No one can really tell you what school is best for you.   ;  No arguments with 0wolf. If you just want to do general CS, then do that, and keep up with game work outside of that. But if you're really interested in game art/etc, well, go for that.Unfortunately, CS can require a lot of hours, not leaving you a whole lot of time to make up your mind if you're unsure. I'm lucky enough to still have more than enough time to make my degree after three full semesters of being completely undecided (and I mean completely: it was either ATEC (arts/tech), government, education, or psychology. And now I'm Criminal Justice, and love it). Gaming and computer work, I realized, is only fun for me in small doses.   ;  If you're looking at going into programming (if its for games or not) a lot of people will look for physics/math backgrounds...check the requirements and plusses on the job openings here on gamedev.  Most of the work force, unless you're looking at something very specific, just wants to see that you CAN graduate from college.  WHICH college you graduated from seems to play more on who'll accept you for grad school.  I do need to say, there's an exception to every rule, so I won't say things always work this way.Now, obviously, if you're looking to build code for Blizzard or EA, and you got your BFA with an emphasis on sculpting, they're going to pass that over.  Portfolios speak volumes for art-related fields...they want to see what you can produce, not so much where you came from.  If you can include some measure of how quickly you work, that helps...like thumbnail sketches for 2d art, speed-modelling results for 3d, etc.  And make it diverse, this opens you up to more job opportunities.   ;  ok i'll check some schools out. I'm thinking of going more for the arts than programming, i was just thinking of doing programming on the side just the have the knowledge. I've heard of purdue though, its supposed to be very good. where is it located?and as far as this " speed-modelling results for 3d, etc" i actually practice my modeling with speed. i have a general rule, i never spend more than 4 hours total on any 3d scene i make (all of the above links i did), most i never spend more than 2 hours doing. this also works out to allowing me to do an entire level in about a days time myself.I'll checkout most of the colleges around my area online and see what options they have and then perhaps visit a few.   