Traditional Arts and CG.

[Brander_Rly]

Hi everyone, I'm trying to decide what degree I should take to help me to improve skills in CG.

 

I decided that the tech stuff I can learn at home, so, a course in 3DS max and blah blah blah is not my goal.

 

Design, marketing, advertisiment and something like that degrees: Too "comercial", of course, you learn many things about art but that kind of approach wouldn't fulfill my purposes.

 

Any "game design course": Don't know why, but I don't trust them 

 

Visual Arts: Every Visual Arts degree I found in my region is full time. Can't do that by now, but that would be the most suitable course since  in this course the student make art (Not only the theorical part), like painting, sculpiting and so on.

 

Art History: The student won't make art, but a deep analysis of arts in many different periods since nowadays. That's the degree I liked the most:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_history

 

So, it's a good idea to study Traditional Arts with the intention to work with CG? How it is with you?

Edited August 22, 2013 by Brander_Rly

[Wail]

In my opinion: Far better to learn the technical stuff in a structured environment with knowledgeable teachers.

 

Art History can be studied on your own time, at your own pace, using your local library and museums. If you need some guidance talk to the professors and ask them for their reading lists, then write down all those titles and read them.

[syver]

(nb: I don't work in the game industry and work with game design purely on a hobby-basis)

 

Studying art history is probably going to be a lot of fun. Being in a community where you have like-minded people sharing a common interest is extremely reinforcing and productive, and could very well be the most enjoyable time of your life. However, it's going to suck if you have absolutely no job prospects after doing this. I studied Bachelor of IT with game design specialization. This allowed me to dedicate a lot of time to game development while still having decent job prospects after I was done. I suppose you have to balance it against the amount of perseverance you have. If you are very motivated and dead set on working with CG you're probably going to make it whichever route you chose to go.

 

I still agree with Wail though, it's probably best to do it the other way around instead. If you take a technical CG course I would suppose they apply art history/principles in a relevant way anyway, which you could chose to study further on your own time. However I don't i think it works the other way around. If you study art history they're not going to help you apply that to CG...

 

although...maybe you shouldn't listen to me. I value the enjoyment of studying more than I do the eventual work possibilities. If I had unlimited money i think I'd just stay in school forever and study absolutely everything i find interesting.

Edited August 22, 2013 by csyver

[Thrik]

I'd be inclined to recommend going with a technical course because you'll be given proper projects to develop and work on, and often you get quite a lot of flexibility in terms of what exactly you make so you even get that freedom of making something you're passionate about. Having that kind of structure will really help you to put together some great work for an eventual portfolio as long as you're made of the right stuff, and will help prepare you for the 9-to-5+ structure of working in the industry rather than when you feel like it.

 

A more theoretical course like art history will give you a lot of great knowledge but not a lot to show for it — and motivating yourself to work on significant personal projects might end up being harder than you think when you consider how much time your Uni course and social life will take up. You'll also learn a fair amount of irrelevant things, whereas you can fine-tune what you learn more precisely if doing it in your own time. Also, technical courses often have you do historical research anyway, just like an industry job. You're not expected to just know exactly how X from Y period in history should look, what every art movement has been, etc.

 

Another thing I noticed is that almost every single person who did the art history/fine art/etc courses at the art and design college I went to are now working in pretty shitty irrelevant jobs, whereas those who did the technical courses like me are doing much better. That could just be coincidence but I don't see people doing those courses getting very good returns on their investments.