Hi, what are THE BEST schools to learn 3D modeling/character design/animation. I know there are alot of answers to this question but I was kinda hoping some pros out there will give me a good point in the right direction. I love ZBrush and would like to find schools that incorprate this wonderful software into there classes. I’m kinda new to the world of 3D software. I do have ZBrush, Blender, Poser, and Bryce but know little of each. I would love to work for Pixar someday! Lofty goal i’ll admit but my passion won’t go away! Thank you.
I’m not going to make a list for you. Do your own homework. Read this. linky
Read all of it, there are some really good comments in there. It will hopefully teach you some of the red flags to look out for when you’re considering schools.
I’m 36
I’m 36 years old and was convinced by a friend who graduate from a school he now owes some 80k too. He is working in the film industry but he found the work on his own and not once mentioned that they took notice of his degree from said school. I’m enrolled at a local community college that has an animation program. I’m taking their Maya classes. Next week I start my fourth semester in which I am suppose to light, texture and animate a minute long short that I developed and built models for last, my third semester. One problem, I’m on a really tight budget, living week to week check to check, and I have two step kids, I asked the professor if I can work from home he agreed. This was a mistake on my part because of my responsibilities. I turned in, character designs, storyboard, animatic and that’s about it. I was missing my models, their textures, rigs and controls blendshapes and such. I passed with a “c.” I passed. The professor was nice enough to let me work from home, but I’m thinking if they failed me it would look bad and they would lose funding or risk losing the program. I would like to think that he passed me because my story, though simple as hell, is good and would exciting or pretty cool to watch. I planned to have my models complete before my next semester and I am not done. I’m working on my discipline, I work full time at a deli and I hate it. I’ll share with you all, you can view my animatic here, www.youtube.com/trappedinflesh.
I know I have an imagination, and to be honest I don’t know if I would want to work for a studio that would hire me because I have a degree from a university or a fancy art school. My friend the one who owes 80k tells me I will have a very hard time finding work without a degree. I will say this…I want to be hired because I can create and create well. I’m 36 years old and don’t know if I want to spend any more time turning in assignments or driving to school, looking for parking, paying for over priced text books. I want to be hired for my imaginative powers. I now have Zbrush and hope that it will allow me to produce more work and fast. Sculpting in clay takes a long time and can be messy. You can see a few pics of my work here. www.myspace.com/trappedinflesh. I’m on facebook too, I would love to have Zbrush folk on my facebook. www.facebook.com/trappedinflesh. I have always been an enemy of the term art student. There are those who are creative and those who are not. I’ve been to several art classes trying to do the “right” thing, get a degree and have seem people get good grades for not so creative work. Hmmm, artist or graduate?
Look, it’s really simple; if you don’t have talent no school is ever going to do any good for you. Talent or not, schools love to have you as you are a great source of income. If you have talent then you will find your way, with or without a school. I learned everything myself as a digital illustrator, everything. How? Manuals, training cd’s, dvd’s and working damn hard. The Gnomon Workshop has an incredible collection of training dvd’s you can download and learn everything from behind your lazy chair. Who wants to sit in a classroom and learn the same stuff you can do yourself? I learned photoshop in a couple of days with a training cd many years ago, and from that point on it’s just working with it every day and become familiar with it. Same with zbrush, I bought a dvd from Gnomon, learned the basics and now it’s just expanding your knowledge by doing this stuff all the time. Any company who only cares about your diploma should not be taken serious; they only care about talent. But hey, I did it my way.
The portfolio counts. Little else. Schools don’t count much either. The portfolios of their teachers do! Then there is networking. But for that you need results to show around. Or people will be bored of you real fast.
Lemo
Thank you everybody for the hard realities of life. I read the link dustinbrown provided and it was an eye opener. I think I’m at the right school right now, here at ZBrush Central!
TrappedInFlesh: Thank you so much for your personal story and responding to this thread! I will remember your reply for a long time. Your words just might have changed my mind of schools. I have been reading and viewing vids for over a year now and have recieved alot of great info and tips from great ZBrush artists. I have bought 2 books online “ZBrush Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting” and “ZBrush Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy” both by Scott Spencer. They will be here tomorrow and I can’t wait!
Also thanks to everyone else for taking the time to respond. I will take your words to heart.
I have the Character Creation book too and I’m waiting for the anatomy book as well. I believe my copy ships on the 4th. I can’t wait. I feel confident that I will learn a lot from Zbrushcentral. I"m already enrolled and am wondering if I should drop my Maya class. I’m also enrolled in Drawing 1, I’ve never taken a drawing class, I’m hoping I learn something because drawing in 2d on paper is extremely hard for me.
TrappedInFlesh: I would love to have Maya but its just too expensive right now. I think I would take a class just to learn Maya because all that I’m reading here in ZBrush Central (and in the anatomy book as well) is that almost everybody uses Maya and ZBrush together. Just got my 2 books today and skimmed through them and I think you will love the anatomy book!
I love drawing and it took me a long time to draw something I could be proud of. I would have my babysitters draw me something so I could draw it. Then I started coping cartoons from mad magazine and soon I developed my own style. That drawing class of yours WILL be a big help to you. Just keep at it and don’t get discouraged.
Also, since I got ZBrush, it has helped me get better in my drawings on paper. Seeing things in 3D has helped in my shading skills plus a whole lot more.
Good luck and hope to hear how your progress is going. Remember, ART IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER! So behold your drawings and screw everybody else!! :lol:
teaching your self is the best way to go, then work for free, build a folio
folio = work/money = experience = recommendation/reputation = more work/money…
btw Maya PLE!!!
hey man!
I’m 28 
I read your post, I was also looking for a school to get a degree, that’s how I ended up here. I have several diplomas & degrees. but the story I’m about to tell, is not about any of them. I started my 3D journey, when I was 16, before that I started my programming or started using computers and take classes when I was 12 or something with an old 386 machines and dos. while other guys working on making a cal using a language called Q-basic I was trying to make some pattern or some kind a art work with * ( asterix’s ) turns out making a cal is way too easy than trying to draw a figure in Q-basic. then came windows, ( we didn’t have macs at that time) so I was so exited cause now we can see colors and most importantly I was psyched that now I can play PoP and Dave 2 with colors.( oh forget to tell you I could draw since I was a little kid,I’m not trying to make myself a smart ass or kind a guy who think “I’m the best” kind a impression just saying the fact I could draw since young age :p. nothing to be proud of actually :p) so journey began, and before I even graduate my high school I had two diplomas in 3D animation and graphic design ( again saying, this not to showing off :D) and I made a good thesis about 3D animation and whole 3D concepts that goes down to early 1400’s and a mesh concept by Paolo Uccelloin. And lots math around it. that time all those didn’t make sense that much. Its was the data I gathered from internet. not my own observations or anything.
So I graduated high school, but not doing art, by doing Physics,Biology, and Chemistry. strange right? yeah!!! I dint want to but there were no jobs in the 3D artists at that time in Sri Lanka. and I fallen in love with the DNA and the mysteries around it. so after i wanted to follow a molecular science degree. but there was none in SL (microbiology was there but molecular biology was a whole different ball game :P) so I ended up doing IT for my bachelors, spend whole 4 years in Uni, and had a remarkable crazy time without completing it and wasting lots of hard earn money of my parents. (still I regret that, they want to go to their sons graduation and take the picture and place it living room to show everybody that comes to the house .that’s all they want, innocent humble thought) some how i didn’t complete it. cause I dint have any real passion to live my life inside of sets of code lines and making lame apps for some firm and make them tons of money while I receive just a fraction sum of money. all for some bull**** software that nobody wants. but marketing makes them “Ultra necessary”. but its hard to explain it to parents, I could’ve quit, and do something else but I didn’t do it either, cause its’s hard to leave all that college fun. (stupid and heartless and most selfish years of my life i guess, apart from the fun :p).
So went back to real world for a job, right off the bat I was fortunate to get in to a indie game studio, as an Environment artist. By that time i was off from 3D scene for like good 7 years but I managed to passed their test and get in to my 3D workflows quickly. I think it’s just because I had that passion or innate ability for art and 3D and sculpturing, water color painting, oil painting,etc… so I gathered, downloaded **** load of tutorials and start getting up to date. and I had excellent support from my senior character artist, and a 3d generalist, almost every one at the studio. so I learned new stuff quickly, by the time I used maya last time it was alias wavefront but when I used it after 7 years it’s autodesk :P.( I was like that cad guys!!! ) so I spent a solid 6 moths there but got fired for trying to make real good assets taking a just a little bit extra time, and for making honest comments on the game that we were developing.
Since then I worked as a freelance artist and in house artist for lots of personals, studios and companies doing all sorts of 3D digital artwork. so end of this long boring post, all i wanted to say is it does not matter whether you are 36 years old and have two kids, just don’t give up, only if you feel that, you can do what other accomplished artist do, it may take some time than the guys who eat it and breathe it all the time. but the real point I wanted to make is, you can be a good at math even if you don’t know how to add, but once you understand it completely, you’d be able to do it, by practicing hard every day and putting your every thing in to it, hell, some times you could prove that Quantum theory is completely wrong and there is no such thing as gravity or the bond angle of a water molecule is not 109.5. or one day some times you could prove that there is not 3,4 dimensions, there 33 or 32. who knows… but to my understanding, if you cant draw a correct proportional human figure without having any prior training,( that you can look at it and satisfy that this is what i had in my mind, shouldn’t have to be perfect) no matter how hard you try, you cant be a real great artist, that who can lay down the pictures inside of his head on to canvas. but I think more than 70% (roughly including me) are in this category. but they are working as professionals in this industry. How? because, to provide some 3D assets to game or a film or anything, you don’t need to have a degree, or complete training of fine arts or anything, if you have just a bit of artistic ability you could do it, and make a living out of it. but to be a great at it, you have to have that innate ability, intuition. simply some of can play guitar since childhood without any training, some can sing, some can draw,paint, dance, sculpt etc… but some can feel something is not right when they listen to a song. and they can make great suggestions to make it better, some can see the missing part of a great art piece, I mean Beethoven made 9th Symphony, but i doubt he ever sang. so we all cant be Michelangelos, Rafaels, da vincis, or Bachs… but we can be good at what we love to do and make a decent living out of it. one Final food for thought :D. Steve jobs couldn’t paint ****!, or even draw decent anything for that matter, but one Sunday mooring he calls up one Senior VP of Google on his phone, while he was in Sunday service, and said "I’ve been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I’m not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn’t have the right yellow gradient. It’s just wrong and I’m going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you? " So Creativity is inside of everybody, just need to identify what you can do and can not do. start with what you can do. after that if you ever made some money out of it, just make some one else do the other part that you can not do. just don’t give up! creativity is infinite!!!
(If you want to download any sort a video or any tutorial that you can see on tutorial sites but you cant afford just go to http://cgpeers.com/ and make a free account (only offer new accounts at the beginning of the moth and 14 i think ) and type in the course name that you see on any professional training site, in torrent search box. you could find many more on this site, train hard my friend there is no shortcuts )
feel free to check my portfolio site if you want from the this link >>>http://www.gameartdayantha.com/