Abertay College, Dundee

[Anonymous]

Myslef and Krudd ventured over ther for the open day on OCtober 17th.

Although we were impressed overall wit the setup in the college, the Computer Games Arts module seemed far more Promising than the COmputer games Development ( mainly programming through PS2 and PSP dev kits) module.

Abertay seems to have a phenomenal reputation within the gaming community, especially with Dundee based realtime studios, And Rockstar North, and they were adament on the EA support too.

I am just curious on anyone elses opinion on Abertay’s "white space" variation on the generic teaching / lecturing scene, and if anyone has ever considered attending Abertay?

It has really attracted my attention in this sense.

I am contemplating attending interviews for positions n Ballyfermot and DCU and Trinity in March but should this interest me just as much?

[Anonymous]

Not to go on too much of a tangent but what course in DCU were you thinking about doing?

[Anonymous]

I did the PgDip there in 2002.

I am just curious on anyone elses opinion on Abertay’s "white space" variation on the generic teaching / lecturing scene, and if anyone has ever considered attending Abertay? [/quote:5a364dbc2f]
What do you mean by this?

Real Time Worlds are just down the road, as are Denki.
Rockstar North are in Edinburgh (never heard of any link with them)
EA have strong links due to Dare To Be Digital.

Abertay defnitely has a good rep in the industry, but I think the courses have changed a lot as have the lecturers since my time.

[Anonymous]

I did the PgDip there in 2002.

Rockstar North are in Edinburgh (never heard of any link with them)
[/quote:c8a9f84cc6]

Ya i never heard this either.

[Anonymous]

So in other words degrees in games still suck.

[Anonymous]

We have 3 abertay grad programmers here at lionhead. Possibly more. I haven’t asked any artists.

Games courses are as good as the content they cover and the staff that teaches there. A course like Abertay’s is influenced by the vast industry involvement that it benefits from, plus there’s the contacts you’d make and Dare to be Digital.

[Anonymous]

We got an abertay grad here also, but he was at dcu before that and work for blitz games for a few months befoe that. So anyone of these might have got him the job. good programmer though.

[Anonymous]

Blitz seem to grab a lot of Abertay people for some reason. I know at least 2 guys from Dare last year ended up there. 3 more went to EA

[Anonymous]

Blitz seem to grab a lot of Abertay people for some reason. [/quote:fa58a539b1]

Theres a very good reason.. cheap $.

[Anonymous]

Theres a very good reason.. cheap $.[/quote:3cc4c4bec8]
Or because they have had success with grads from there in the past and it leads to expectations of what your going to get from grads. Also means when you get links to courses, you can ask the lecturers involved what to expect from a prospective employee. I’ve been in contact with lecturers in the past asking for recommendations on individuals.
I don’t think Blitz are linked to the course, but they are interested in the grads, they definitely try to contact the grads to get them interested in their company.

[Anonymous]

It might be Dare to be Digital specifically that they are interested in. All of those programmers I mentioned were at Dare 2006

[Anonymous]

Nah, Blitz mail all grads and ask them to check out the company. Think they have an Open Week at blitz and they invite everyone to come along.

[Anonymous]

I did the PgDip there in 2002.

I am just curious on anyone elses opinion on Abertay’s "white space" variation on the generic teaching / lecturing scene, and if anyone has ever considered attending Abertay? [/quote:598ec64b13]
What do you mean by this?

Real Time Worlds are just down the road, as are Denki.
Rockstar North are in Edinburgh (never heard of any link with them)
EA have strong links due to Dare To Be Digital.

Abertay defnitely has a good rep in the industry, but I think the courses have changed a lot as have the lecturers since my time.[/quote:598ec64b13]

They just have this open space where everyone from every year is working away within the same area. The lecturers desks are even in this space, as is the Embrionix small business venture support, and the dare to be digital office. The lectures also take place here in and around the Computer stations. The idea is that anyone in the room can join a lecture / demonstration that is going on to either try and learn more or simply brush up on something.

He just mentioned Rockstar North in passing, saying that some graduates work there, and that they are tryin gto build a relationship with them

[Anonymous]

Are you looking at the Arts or the Programming course or both?
White Space is more for the Arts course, although, its not sue very often unless things have changed.
I wouldn’t imagine you’d be in White Space very often and I don’t think you can just join when you like…

[Anonymous]

I did the MSc in Abertay in the last year. While whitespace is nice if you’re going for a programming course you won’t see whitespace, it is pretty much made for the artist courses. you’ll be up in the roasting hot Jupiter or A.N. other room on the 3rd floor. Never heard of that lecture idea while I was there.

Don’t think they’re actually doing the PSP dev this year, from what I heard they’re gonna stick with the PS2 for one more year while Henry gets his head around the new dev kits and hardware of the PSP and comes up with course content – could be wrong though thats what they said all the way back in May.

Abertay has a good reputation in the industry by all accounts but I was wondering why when I was there to be honest. Over half the courses we did we sub-par IMO and while I did get some great experience I think as Omen said, we came at the wrong time as the course was disrupted with lecturer issues(leaving lecturers and other ‘problems’!) and has changed quite a bit. Then again it is free, Dare is a good competition(although I didn’t get into it this year), some of the lecturers are very motivated and interested and a good way to develop your portfolio.

Say hi to Louis if you go there!

[Anonymous]

Parrotbait:

Thanks for the impartial description.

eDen:

I was a little unsure what you meant by "white space", but that seems to have been quantified.

How about we take a different approach, and you enumerate your expectations of a post-grad game programming course, and perhaps then board members can better direct you.

Is there a particular programming role you are looking to achieve? (Physics, AI, Gameplay, Visual Effects, Engine, Networking, etc.)

Is there a particular platform you want experience with? (PSx, Nintendo X, Microsoft X, PC)

Is there a particular engine / middleware you want to get to grips with? (CryEngine2, Source, etc.)

Is there a particular duration? full time? part time?

Are you limited to studying only in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England?

Have a go at answering the above, and that should give us more to work on.

Sound good?

[Anonymous]

Well my ideal job would be in visual arts in games, movies, TV, advertising so mainly I want to do anything that includes:

concept art
3D modeling
Sprites
Level design
Animation
……..etc

I think the Trinity course is my first choice at the moment, Scotland is cool and all that, but id rather be qualified before I moved country. And I live about 15 minutes from town

[Anonymous]

eDen

with those details that you supplied, I do not think Trinity would be for you. I checked out the course outline for the post-grad games course:

https://www.cs.tcd.ie/courses/msciet/

and it appears to be 90% for game programming, not for the faint of heart. The skills you listed are more game art / level design related.

Ballyfermot seems to have more what your looking for:
http://216.240.136.7/bcfe/courseinfo.php?course=31

If you don’t mind going overseas, you should check out the likes of DigiPen, and GuildHall, as they produce some high quality student work (as evident on their student showcases)

http://www.digipen.edu/main/Main_Page

and

http://www.digipen.edu/main/Gallery_Games_2006

and

http://guildhall.smu.edu/specializations/teamgames/3dgames/index.html

There is also training institutes like Qantm in London:

http://www.qantm.co.uk/courses/index.php

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Cheers, i’ll have a good rummage through that.

[Anonymous]

I might be shot down by the ppl that went to Ballyfermot but I think you might be better off doing some art related course before hand like Art, Illustration or design related course and then do Ballyfermot. Might have a look at some Multimedia courses as well as they kind of give you a wide field of options when it comes to jobs and possibilites. Some of them have large modules dealing in 3D and games also, might be a good back door without fencing yourself in too early.

[Anonymous]

I was going to say the same thing…if you want to work as an artist in the games industry, get an education as an artist. (whether in college, online from books or whatever)

Learn to paint, learn to draw, learn to design, then learn how to use specific software packages and make sure you master them.

Develop your observational skills and imagination. Keep on working at it. Don’t stop until your work is at least as good as that in games today.

I cannot tolerate people making excuses for their poor artwork in applications or interviews. ( they didn’t learn to draw or that a certain thing is difficult to do in 3d.)

[Author]

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