- This topic has 26 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 1 month ago by
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http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single10374
mmm What do ye think about this???
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Anyone with industry experience who has shipped a game involved with it??
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Sounds good but serious come on. I am doing a fetac course at the moment and I swear I know more about programming than the teacher but not all places are the same.
If you really want to get into game programming just do a computer Science course. -
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I’ve given up worrying about the courses in Ireland. Apart from the Trinity course, the rest don’t seem to have much if any industry guidance…the main pre-requisite that I would consider in a games course.
Speaking of FAS…after I graduated, I came home for a short time while looking for jobs and signed on. When signing on, you have to go and sign up with FAS. I told them I was looking for a games coding job and I would look myself. The guy looked very confused, said I wouldn’t find a job in the country, I agreed, and that I would sort out a job for myself and he signed my form and off I went. Rather amusing.
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I wish they would get a few Game Design degrees going. Its all programing stuff in Ireland.
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Is there a need??
Surely you can learn 90% of what you need from playing with existing level editors -
I wish they would get a few Game Design degrees going. Its all programing stuff in Ireland.[/quote:deab779401]
Theres enough useless people in the world without adding a few more designers :)Dave
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I wish they would get a few Game Design degrees going. Its all programing stuff in Ireland.[/quote:4d2c537b4d]
Think omens right. I’d question if theres a need, due to the amount of editors etc out there. Majority of designers within the industry have no formal education whatsoever. Majority of their learning has happened through experience, experimenting and free editors. Although some ppl could say the same about programming. But I think in terms of programming and CS, without a formal education chance of you being a rockstar programmers are alot less.
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Its the way I am learning coming on well from what some people have said about my most recent map as well. But the problem is more and more places are looking for a degree even if they are shit.
I personally don’t believe you can just go to uni for four years and come out a good designer its wall what you do yourself that counts.
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I personally don’t believe you can just go to uni for four years and come out a good designer its wall what you do yourself that counts.[/quote:9e23b4d5bc]
That’s true about anything
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Is there a need??
Surely you can learn 90% of what you need from playing with existing level editors[/quote:08186e13c5]Well yes there is. How about elevating the standard of design and trying to integrating academic theory into games? Or are we happy with games being the dim witted cousin of literature and film?
No offense to anyone who is a designer without formal education, this isn’t a jab at anyone. Yes not all games are shallow frag fests but surely exposing individuals who aspire to be designers to design principles and theory can only be a good thing for the industry. Just playing around with editors will leave us exactly where we are now.
Would any one argue that film courses have been a bad thing for the film industry? Or that English courses are bad for literature?
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I think the problem is people want courses to be all inclusive, they want it to be like their SkyDigital, where they can sit there for 4 years and veg out. Hoping at the end of the day they come out of college capable of doing the job they want.
What they are not looking at is that college is not there to tell you how the industry works or give you great insight into the daily duties of your potential job.
Rather it is there to teach you as an individual how to think and apply what you have learned. The better designers I have worked with and infact the better artists I have worked with have been those who have attended college. It’s not that their college education increased their talent, but rather the whole college experience had given them a farther greater depth of knowledge and information to draw from.
Two particular artists come to mind when I look at this and one did a Bachelor of Fine Arts. The other learned his own trade built up his experience and talked the talk. Yet when push came to shove the guy who was Classically trained had a far greater depth and understanding about Art etc that he had so much more to draw from. While the other guy is unfortunately for all his ability still more than content to re-hash the bald space marine of 2146 over and over, it would appear that he lacks that added depth to bring new creativity to the medium. As an artist you cannot faul him he can model, texture and zbrush by numbers… there is just nothing new about his content. While Alex with his college experience, classical studies is just exploding with creativity and can bring far more to the table.
The reason I do this comparison is because both of the artists are exceptional at modelling, texturing etc. The difference is one has trained himself to provide what the industry needs, while the other has trained himself to think creatively and in the long run can bring ‘Art’ to the industry.
Now when it boils down to the courses, shuffling game design into a course, In a one glove fits all is rather unfortunate. You would probably be better off doing an Architecture degree and learning editors in your spare time. At least when you come out of college you will have something you can fall back on. I can’t see much need for a game design degree outside of the games industry. I would doubt even the film or advertisement industry would pick you up…
Pick a boarder subject that interests you, learn from it and find ways to adapt to game development and game design. You could even do landscaping, construction, engineering, fine arts, art history or any manner of off beat subjects, and use it as a platform for creativity. These Mickey Mouse game designs courses are appearing more like a fad than something industry actually needs.
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Pick a boarder subject that interests you, learn from it and find ways to adapt to game development and game design. You could even do landscaping, construction, engineering, fine arts, art history or any manner of off beat subjects, and use it as a platform for creativity. These Mickey Mouse game designs courses are appearing more like a fad than something industry actually needs.[/quote:3b9454e703]
Having another qualification would let me sleep sounder at night. One of the big problems is that Colleges and University’s are telling prospective students that these courses are the way into the industry. At 17/18 years of age they are naive and to be honest little more than children who are putting their futures and trust in people in a position of authority. I really think academic institutions need to stop taking advantage of students like this. Some of the out right lies that are told are shocking. They really need to portray a realistic picture of what is expected.
At the end of the day is it enough for the industry to pick up grads from other area’s of study? If I did engineering, architecture, architectural engineering, economics ect I’d have better pay and better job security just by sticking to my area. How many of these grads are going to be willing to enter and stay in an industry that basically operates on the good will of its employees?
Games Design courses are never going to produce whole crops of skilled designers just like animation and art courses aren’t going to produce whole crops of talented artists and animators but I think they still have something to offer the industry. After all there is more to design than just knowing how to use an editor. -
I think any course with the word "Game" in it suffers from the "O you go and play games all day effect". I would like to think of myself as someone who can see through the stuff uni’s tends to tell you. Once I have finished my BTEC in Media I plan to stay on for another two years to do a HND in Media. There is not much if any games stuff in the HND but its still interesting stuff so I will see where I am at after that.
I suppose a degree can be worth it just to say that you have one.
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I do not see "game design" and "level design" to be the same thing.
Am I alone in this?
I would say that level designers would need to know about structural engineering, possibly some technical drawing and architectural skills. Then take those skills (weight, stress, etc.) and using tools such as WorldEdit (or whatever) generate believable looking levels.
As for dedicated courses in level design, I think that may be too specialised a field to roll into a course. More like a few weeks of a workshop, from someone who does this kind of thing daily.
As for game design, I see this as a far broader field of study, encapsulating board games, puzzles, logic, challenges, sociology, psychology, a real mix of all traits.
I think any course that would market itself as "Game Design" and brings kids in, runs them through Unreal3 Editor, and spits them out the other end knowing nothing more than how to click on a widget and create a box is taking advantage of the gray areas of games development.
Just my thoughts.
The same applies for game artist courses; showing someone how to use Max is a Far Cry from teaching someone about composition, traditional animation, colour and light theory.
I guess its all about what you as a student want. Do you want to be a Game Artist, or a 3DS Max Operator? A Level Designer or a UnrealEd Operator?
B.
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Yup, there are several ‘levels’ of designers. Ones that spring to mind are:
Game designers – best doing a english degree?
Level designers – architectural degree?
Scripters – code degree
Story designer – english degree -
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I think if you want to be a game designer you need to have some grounding in data analysis, and depending on how high up the chain you are you would want to have a good understanding of business/marketing.
Personally I believe designers need a basic knowledge (at the very least) of every area of game development so that they know what the hell they’re asking for, hence the need for good quality game design courses.Depending on the role of scripters on your project, it can be enough for the scripters to be self trained in their scripting language while studying another sunject like film for example. That of course only really applies to projects where scripting is largely about staging. But a comp sci student would still probably get the job ahead of you.
Architecture might be overkill for level designers, but then again that role also changes hugely between studios. In my experience the artists create all the buildings and the level designers place them, and deal with things like triggers, impassibility etc. Coders with an art hobby or artists with a code hobby I’d guess (or work your ass off in a game design course and have a very strong level design only portfolio)
And as for story designers don’t get me started. Interactive stories (games) and static stories (books, films etc.) are different beasts and some english courses are just too rigid to allow for that. Its also the least respected role as far as I can see, given that quite a few post mortems I’ve seen have mentioned the writing being handled by a level designer or game designer rather than a specialist games writer.
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Thats what proper localisation is, otherwise its just translation
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Hey well I did this course a few years ago. What they’ve done is added in a games module to what was a "Programming" course, and changed the name.
What I know of it, though I’m not sure how much has changed:
You learn Visual Basic (mandatory), Java is optional when you finish other mandatory modules (though if you beg, they’ll let you do C++ instead) other modules include Databases, Communications… everything that’s required to get a FETAC cert in Information Technology (can look it up yourself).
The college itself, Roslyn Park, accept students only with disabilities or disadvantages… anything from obvious things to say dyslexia, emotional issues etc… it depends how your interview goes if you get accepted or not.
The good thing is you get paid, as with most FAS courses.
As for the course, it’s nothing amazing. I haven’t found many FAS related courses to be very good. I’ve done 2. But it is a good option of you don’t have a leaving cert and want to get into college by other means. It’s not too difficult if you apply yourself even a little.
The games module is using Flash. I don’t know more about it cause I never did it. There’s also an optional maths module, if you need to catch up on some maths for potential future courses that may require it. That’s one of the worth-while modules I’d say.
I guess that’s about what I know. If the information hasn’t changed.
I’d only recommend it to people who can’t get into a better course for one reason or another (like myself… don’t judge). It’s not a bad ease back into the whole education/learning thing… I can say that. And you can get into a good few degree courses using the FETAC certificate, which is a really nice way in, again, if you don’t have a leaving cert. Otherwise, don’t bother.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention also, they do have a link with Microsoft. Most of the good students (by that I mean, the ones who don’t have bad attitudes, and the ones who are there to learn) get to do work-placement there… that’s one of the highlights.
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Cheers for the info!
Oh yeah I forgot to mention also, they do have a link with Microsoft. Most of the good students (by that I mean, the ones who don’t have bad attitudes, and the ones who are there to learn) get to do work-placement there… that’s one of the highlights.[/quote:a826befe9a]
This is how I got my foot in the door to the games biz, the course I did had links with Microsoft and I managed to work there (on contract) for about a year. That was about 9 years ago….pre Xbox
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