Subjects/Studies that help with Level Design/ Env art

[RedYager]

Hello, Lately I've been overwhelmed by how much I need to improve If I really want to try get into the industry. Also having been frequenting this forum for a few months and reading things by professionals, I realise there's so much more to it than I had originally thought.

I'd like to ask people what subjects and studies you think aid with Level design, Environment art and Game Design in general, be it films, reading fiction/non-fiction, photography, cooking. The chances are I wont be going to University, or other form of education other than internet. The reason I'm asking is that I'd like to know where to direct my attention, what to study, what to learn to aid me in my 'Teaching'. I know that there must be thousands of answers, that you can never stop learning which I agree with, However it would be interesting to hear what the 'Core' area's of focus are.

Thanks much, Red

[sarge mat]

http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/articles.php

Good stuff their go down to the level design tutorials section some good stuff well worth reading. Everything on that site is worth a look in my book though. Hard to beat jumping in and making stuff, spend time planning and thinking about how everything will look, play and feel. That's where I went wrong for a long time.

You can learn just fine from the Internet and many do. I study games dev at uni and its not what you think.....

[RedYager]

http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/articles.php

Good stuff their go down to the level design tutorials section some good stuff well worth reading. Everything on that site is worth a look in my book though. Hard to beat jumping in and making stuff, spend time planning and thinking about how everything will look, play and feel. That's where I went wrong for a long time.

You can learn just fine from the Internet and many do. I study games dev at uni and its not what you think.....

Dude, I didnt want to post this but I quit Uni just over a month ago. I was doing a 'Games Design' Course and was in my second year. Biggest mistake of my life. It was not what I expected at all, the description of the course was misleading. I was expecting a lot of theory, instead we were learning Photoshop and 3ds max stuff I had learnt when I was 13. I'm still very disappointed in the course and myself for being so foolish, my motivation and confidence has taken a massive hit which is making it really hard for me to carry on teaching myself, and whether or not I'm just following a silly childhood dream.

Thanks for the reply buddy, I'll get looking in there

[Vilham]

unless you are exceptionally good at one of those fields you might struggle to get a job in the industry without a degree.

As to what will improve your ability, practice makes perfect. Play games to study what they have done with mechanics and their art styles, whenever you watch/play/listen/read something and it gives you an idea jot it down in a book so you can collate ideas that may then be used to actually create something. Then just create things, use different sites to learn new things and try to implement ideas that aren't nessecarily supported by whatever game your modding, then find work arounds to get the results you want.

There is no "Theory" to games. There are many things you might consider rules to do with control schemes, UI placement etc. But its next to impossible to nail down a layout or game rules, if there were rules, games would quickly become the same (which too many already are).

Also if you didn't like a games design degree don't do one, do something different. I didn't even know I wanted to work in games until I was half way through my computer science degree.

[sarge mat]

Yea I agree with what Vilham said degree does help a lot even if they are a bit shit. I guess its what you make of it, you can always tell who are the people who spent loads of their own time learning and who didn't. I would guess 80%+ of the people on mine don't.

[RedYager]

Thanks Vilham, I think I'd like to go back to University some day, to study something that I know will get me somewhere, that I actually enjoy. But right now I've got to sort the mess out left behind from my previous Uni, whilst trying to keep motivated and stay positive.

I've also made a detailed 'Learning plan' for myself, it has area's to work on, tutorials i should finish, articles to read along with goals and challenges. Each section has tick lists so I can see my progression.

[RedYager]

Yea I agree with what Vilham said degree does help a lot even if they are a bit shit. I guess its what you make of it, you can always tell who are the people who spent loads of their own time learning and who didn't. I would guess 80%+ of the people on mine don't.

The guys on my course were very lazy, and I could tell it wasn't a passion for them. They were doing work last minute after alcohol and drug binges. I could tell them apart, like you've said there was about 80% of them who all thought that once they finish Uni they'll instantly be hired by Infinity ward to make the next COD, then there was a fraction of people who I could tell really enjoyed what they were doing, were determined and didn't just play COD in their spare time.

[knj]

All what is said above is true, and there is very few good school out there (in terms of art for games). My Uni sux ass (i'm on animation and 3d modeling) and as you know i'm learning, but most of the teachers don't know shit about games (sure i have 2/3 guys how are GD pros, but thats all). Only thing that keeps me still there is that EU is paying for our studies.

So what i'm gooing to say is that, most of env artist/ lvl designers i know are self tought, and some of the best arstist are as well.

Read articles at WOLD, Alex is really good theories guy.

Check out Eat3d, 3dMotive, Gnomon workshop (need to pay for most of the stuff, but at most of the cases i'f you are begginer it is worth it) and simillar

And post stuff here, i found mapcore the best community to get the really pro help, for instatce WOLD is very popular website, but the forum is very slow

good luck

[Sentura]

i don't know where you are based, but maybe i could get you in contact with people that have a line of study that would be interesting to you?

other than that, i greatly appreciate the studies of architecture, computer science and psychology. they may not be directly related to game design, but they are still things that are reiterated very much in it.

[slowdevelopment]

If you're looking for schools that are focused on getting into the industry, here are a few of the top ones:

The Guildhall at SMU - http://guildhall.smu.edu/

Digipen - https://www.digipen.edu/

Full Sail - http://www.fullsail.edu/about

I personally went to the Guildhall and can confirm it works. It's focused on practical knowledge and projects that develop your skills, the curriculum is designed and taught by people from the industry and you learn a lot.

[KorJax]

I've never trusted game design "schools" or "courses" for the same reasons you listed - often they give you tons of debt, and teach you nothing. The real secrets and meat of a good portfolio in level design are all things that can only happen outside of class. You are fooling yourself if you think you can develop a great portfolio through a game design school/degree alone. It just won't happen.

The only exception to this depends on what you want to do. For example, Digipen is great for their game programming and game theory stuff. You won't develop a great art portfolio there alone. But you will make a nice senior game design project that professionals generally approve of, and have a solid knowledge of game design in of itself (not speciically environmental or level design though, it's better from the perspective of an engineering/programmer perspective).

There are certain art colleges that offer great aniimation/3D modelling departments. Often they won't have a focus on game design, but obviously being able to create 3D artwork is extremely useful of a skill to "prove" you have if you want to go that route.

However, the "good" stuff requires you to move out of state to attend. They will also easily set you back $100k in debt - something I would never reccomend anyone get themselves involved with if they know what is good for their wellbeing later in life (unless you start out with a great finicial footing, therefore you know the debt won't rule your life).

This is a beauty in level/game design though - its a profession where your portfolio speaks higher degrees than your actual degree. You don't technically need a college degree to get a job at many studios actually, and you sure as hell don't need one if you're an indie. However, it is EXTREMELY reccomended, just from the standpoint of two things:

1. It gets you past HR, so people actually GET to see your (hopefully good) portfolio

2. It shows you can accomplish long term goals.

So what degree should you do? Ideally something you are interested in, that balances the design/3D work you'll enjoy doing at home. For me, I've not graduated yet but here's my plan:

1. I've already accomplished step one of my plan. I've got an associates degree in visual communications (graphic design) from a local community college, which personally is known to be pretty decent (NASAD accredited and all that jazz). I'm proud of the work I've done there, even if the design isn't related to game design. You can learn a lot from other "schools" of art/design that will only enrich your level design knowledge. A lot of things I've learned from my design classes are directly appreciable to the level design work I purue on my own time, such as the importance of having continuity, the power of line and type, how certain styles and deliver different messages, and how to create an "experience" for the user using visuals alone.

Community college can only get you an associates, but it is EXCELLENT because it is so cheap to attend, and will (for most places) let you skip ahead two years or so when you start going for your batchellors. I was able to totally pay off my schooling as I signed up each quarter thanks to my part time job, and I've graduated from there with no debt to my name.

2. Step two for me is to continue my education to get a bachellors at the local university. They do not have a design department there, but they do have a fine arts department, which accepts design transfers from the above mentioned community college. I'm planning on spending the next 2-3 years getting my BFA. What I hope to learn is the wealth of experiences the university allows (i.e. first time I've ever been out west was this past winter break, thanks in part to my university hosting such a trip), and enrich my knowledge in Fine Arts so I can apply it to my level design work. There are a lot of things that are extremely important to creating impactful art that are directly related to design, such as composition, color, etc.

This university is extremely affordable to me, because not only is it cheap for being a state school, but I get an 80% discount because my dad works here. That in addition to a pell grant if I attend full time, means I get $200 every quarter I have school. So far, still debt free, and I'm still paying my own bills I realize I am lucky in this reguard though. If my dad wasn't working here, I'd probably have to take out a small loan every quarter - but even then, my debt at the end of it all would be only about $5000 or so, especially since my community college schooling took up a nice brunt of the traditional university costs.

3. While I've been doing all this, of course, I pursue my career passions. While I can appreicate and enjoy doing traditional art, what I ususally end up doing when its my time to be creative outside of class is spend time in the level design and game design spectrums. I can usually get more done too on break periods, whcih I treat as if its my job to do level design But I don't forget to enjoy myself too

I pretty much always priortize level design work over my school work, which I know is bad. But I'm doing school because of the supplimental knowledge, not because I want to be a charcoal drawing master. And I make sure to never make my grades really drop. I'm not an A student, closer to a B- student - but only because that "A" work I want to show in my design passions at home, rather than focusing all my time on the artwork And I know the goal is to get a degree through all this too. I'm not saying its good to get "bad" grades or skip work, because it isn't. I'm not perfect. This is why I am in school. Currently though, if I have a homework assignment that requires 10 hours of work outside of class I feel won't benefit me instead of doing design, while also having a minor impact to my grades, I might make the unwise descision to skip it

Basically, build your portfolio outside of class and find things to study that can suppliment your design knowledge. I'm hoping a BFA and VisCom associates degree with a certificate in Desktop Publishing will sound nice enough at an HR department to get the CEO of X studio to personally look at my portfolio

[Serenius]

I personally went to the Guildhall and can confirm it works. It's focused on practical knowledge and projects that develop your skills, the curriculum is designed and taught by people from the industry and you learn a lot.

I can vouch for this. I know quite a few Guildhall grads personally. I've noticed that even those who aren't naturally talented level designers can at least emerge from the program with enough working knowledge to create quality content.

[sarge mat]

I hear good things about the Guildhall and I am not even in the US. Problem is every Uni the UK has at least 1 games course at this point with 90% of them being crap.

[RedYager]

I'm starting to think the only way I could have a chance of getting into the industry is with a degree, but thanks to my cock up the chances of being able to go to University again within the next 10 years are very slim. I'm such a fool for ever signing up to that games design course, now that I've quit it I can see how horrendously crap it was.

[insta]

I'm starting to think the only way I could have a chance of getting into the industry is with a degree, but thanks to my cock up the chances of being able to go to University again within the next 10 years are very slim. I'm such a fool for ever signing up to that games design course, now that I've quit it I can see how horrendously crap it was.

But just work on your portfolio and keep trying. You learn so much from each map/model you make that the next one is always better. If you're working a crap job fulltime while striving towards a job in the games industry I actually think you're better off than someone sitting in a Game Design class creating a atrocious boardgame while analyzing the fun-potential of dungeons and dragons, thinking that it will land them their dream job as game designer on Diablo 4.

I'll try to sum it up.

If you hate your job and dread getting up every morning, then you're more motivated at working to fix your situation (ie. improve your portfolio and get a job already )