Courses for aspiring tech artists

Professional
#1

Hi guys,

I’m new to the forum, and I guess the career path. I’m currently a level designer at a mid-sized studio but wanting to move into tech art. I’ve been told I have the aptitude for it and I picked up Maxscript fairly quickly when taught by our in-house TA. I studied C++ at school, and am familiar with 3ds Max, Unity, UDK and have even made a level in Source so I’m wondering what to do next to broaden my skill set.

I’m considering going back to school and am curious if their are any schools/programs that provide some tech art specialized courses (I’m in Canada btw). Or any generally recommended courses.

Thanks for your help!

#2

Hey there Pixel,

As far as standardized curriculum, there isn’t a whole lot set up currently, but there are more programs getting started. I apologize, but I am pretty unfamiliar with Canadian options for technical art training, so I’ll speak to the American options that I know of.

I teach in a masters level program out of the University of Central Florida, called the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA). Technical Art is kind of set up like a sub track/specialization option for the Art program there. It is three semesters + a semester long internship of production environment education.

I think SoCal also has some tech art instruction set up, and I believe that something is in the works down in Texas, but I am a bit fuzzy on that. Anyone who knows any other programs that are up and running, let me know, I’d love to hear about them. Most people I have spoken with never got formal instruction in school, and had to pick it up as they went.

If you really want to go back to school, then I would recommend any school that has a solid tech art program/track set up in a production environment (this, to me, is a key part of getting any practical experience as a TA while in an educational environment). If you are just looking to build skills, this forum is filled of many awesome people’s opinions on what makes a solid TA. Find an area that interests you and research/mad science the hell out of it.

Hope this is helpful,
Mary

#3

[QUOTE=Pixel;25036]Hi guys,

I’m new to the forum, and I guess the career path. I’m currently a level designer at a mid-sized studio but wanting to move into tech art. I’ve been told I have the aptitude for it and I picked up Maxscript fairly quickly when taught by our in-house TA. I studied C++ at school, and am familiar with 3ds Max, Unity, UDK and have even made a level in Source so I’m wondering what to do next to broaden my skill set.

I’m considering going back to school and am curious if their are any schools/programs that provide some tech art specialized courses (I’m in Canada btw). Or any generally recommended courses.

Thanks for your help![/QUOTE]

Animschool has a good character and rigging long form track and a few other more rigging related tracks. Paul Neal http://www.paulneale.com/ has some nice max rigging master classes but it depends on what you want to do in the tech art field? Particle/shader work, character, pipeline and tools/plugins ?

Rigging Dojo (My plug) has diffrent forms of short term training that are a good fit for some people but translating your existing coding skill to python and then Maya maybe or another DCC would be a good place to start.

#4

[QUOTE=bclark;25074]Animschool has a good character and rigging long form track and a few other more rigging related tracks. Paul Neal http://www.paulneale.com/ has some nice max rigging master classes but it depends on what you want to do in the tech art field? Particle/shader work, character, pipeline and tools/plugins ?

Rigging Dojo (My plug) has diffrent forms of short term training that are a good fit for some people but translating your existing coding skill to python and then Maya maybe or another DCC would be a good place to start.[/QUOTE]

Approx. how many hours a week do I have to spend in order to keep up with that rigging course?
I’m a professional but rigging is an area where I’m lacking.

#5

What area of technical art do you want to get involved with? The two previous posts have mentioned rigging but of course there are many other areas.

#6

NVM :slight_smile: