College – Map Development – question

[Anonymous]

Hi Game Development World :)

MY name is Timmy i am currently in 5th year
Sence 4th class i have wanted to be a Game Dev.
But in the last two years i have noticed that my
Mapping,Modeling,Graphics skills surpass my "coding" skills
My coding skills end at HTML,CSS and i used java
to make NPC for a game but it was really really basic stuff
like Shops or warpers.

At the moment i am a Map Dev. For 1 game that is in Development
and in the past few months of doing to maps i noticed that i actually
Really Really like Map Development. Hours in the day pass by so fast
i get up and its time for bed already :)

I was going to study computer science in UCC but as i said
my coding finishs at HTML & CSS.
So my question is :
What must i do in college to be a Map Dev./Modeler???

I asked the coder for the game im working on
(he is a software analysis for a marketing company in florida)
this same question and he said do architect,art,history he also
said that you have to learn how to model by yourself but
there are schools that teach that. My dad is an architect
So lerning how to model buildings and landscape shouldnt be
TOO hard to learn(or it could be).

I think out of them Three Art can be scratched out because i
dont do art in school at the moment As i chose Tech graph
Because i knew that in 5th & 6th year i got to do DCG which
teachs basic modeling :) me and my friend are the top of the
class in the computer work but i do need to work on my hand
drawing and sketching i am doing higher level in it at the
moment and its going well I also do physics becuase thats
always a good thing to have for games then theres
engineering i dont know how much thats worth but it should
be good and i kind of regret choosing history over wood work =/
then again im only 15 birthdays in June so ill be finished 6th year
just after i turn 17 which is young so i could always redo 5th year
next year and do wood work instead of history but i dont think doing
wood work or history will change anything except maybe a grade

[Anonymous]

How are your traditional art skills? Life-drawing? colour? charcoals? watercolours? photography? any of that?

If so, maybe something like an Art & Design major (IADT perhaps?). Anything with a architectural / CAD component will assist your level design (IMO).

So if you dont have much in the way of an aesthetic eye, then I’d forget about modelling and so forth.

Learning the tools is something anyone can do – its the fundamental artistic aptitude that really allows a person to excel.

As for your "coding skills" being not up to scratch, well, your in secondary school, so there’s not much expectation there. Comp Sci will teach you everything you need and then some. If you have strong Math and/or Physics then your going to find this "native." (IMO).

right. That’s my 2 cents.

[Anonymous]

Ok so theres modeler scratched off XD

im pretty good with autocad, solidworks and stuff like that
so architect is still in there? well until i looked at the pionts i need
450-500 in last three years dont even think i could make that……
although is all my JC results were 1’s like B1,C1 then i worked my best result out to be 350 just another 100 , i could make it i didnt study for my JC.

for computer sience ya i quess so :P
my physics is pretty good i have a good understsndfing of everything so far
as for maths when we get a chapter done we get a tet which i always get 90-100% on (oridinary level) but when we move on i tend to forget stuff
just need to look over is a bit. :) quess only time will tell.

thats for you reply by the way

[Anonymous]

Research map making with Unreal or Crysis. There are shedloads of sites dediated to level design out there.

Get Unreal and a copy of Maya, play around with them. There are lots tutorials for both programs out there.

This guy is a very good:
http://hourences.com/book/tutorialsindex.htm

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

There’s also plenty of tutorials on YouTube. And also Gnomon, CG Academy, etc. who tend to have "sample" lessons on their sites.

[Author]

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