heyo guys
well i am 15 years old and i am seriusly thinking on turning my hobby which is game development into my future job
for that i am going to need a good university
i am a 3d modeler
i also live in Brazil which well… Brazil isn´t a place where you could easly find a university of game design at all…
i am dreaming high i know but if i don´t wouldn´t my chances of succeed be smaller?
so i ask you where is a good place to have a good and reacheable university?
places I would prefer almost anywhere just, main language of the country has to be or portuguese or english
i thound a university but i don´t know if it is actually good i saw that they use unity 3d
Major in Math or Physics at a local University and write games on the side. You’ll liable to get paid to go to University to study those but you’ll wind up overpaying if you go to a University specializing in game design.
In the meantime just do the tutorials from Unity’s website and you’ll be ready to apply what you learn in University to game design besides learning to visualize in the Unity tutorials some of what you’ll be learning in college.
As I’m just finishing off my degree in Physics this semester, I’m going to have to +1 goat’s suggestion. The math skills you’ll learn as well as the required programming courses will be applicable to a wide range of things, Unity definately included. I was also required to take first year english, and an art credit, so it really makes for a well rounded degree. Supplement those skills with a tutorial or too and you’ll have all the skills you need to be a successful game developer.
That being said, since you’re only 15 you have LOTS of time to worry about University later. If you spend time now learning tutorials for Unity and Blender, you’ll be in a much better position than someone with a 2 or 4 year game dev degree and no game dev experience.
I’m not too sure about the situation in Brazil, but if the government won’t pay your way through a 3D modelling/animation degree I would suggest spending your time until you graduate high school building an impressive portfolio. If you can get involved and credited in indie game projects and open source projects that’ll also be great for a portfolio. But even when not involved in a project research techniques and make models of your absolute best quality.
I personally see no reason to study maths or physics if you want to be an artist. It’ll help with indie projects and working in Unity, but if you want to work as a 3D modeller for a games company then they will be irrelevant. You’d be better off doing a software or computer science degree and using that knowledge to become a tech artist, because artists with good tech skills are very popular.
Its always been my opinion that unless you are going for something specific such as physics or maybe AI that University degrees are a waste of time in regard to breaking into the games industry.
Here in the UK game companies constantly complain about the abilities (or rather lack of) from graduates and in my experience they will always favour someone who shows they have the aptitude, a great portfolio and the desire to work hard, over a piece of paper saying they graduated from a course.
At least that’s true for me, I got a business and graphics degree (weird combination I know), yet none of the companies whom I’ve been employed with have been interested in my degree, instead hiring me on the basis of my own personal and previous work.
However one thing University is good for, is that it gives you the opportunity to develop a portfolio and to mix with like minded people and learn from them. In other words paying for Uni gives you the time to develop your skills, which would be much harder if you were having to do some minimum wage job 40 hrs a week.
So University can be beneficial for all manor of reasons ( time to learn, networking, etc) however apart from a few specific science courses it is unlikely to guarantee you a job in the games industry at the end of it. In many ways I see game development much more in line with the old methods of ‘apprenticeships’, its the doing and learning on the job that is often far more important than some random modules from a degree course.
For example if I was hiring someone for developing some complex physics software I would want a degree education, however for a games designer or artist I’d want to see a rich and original portfolio, show-casing aptitude and creativity, which obviously does not require a degree level.
There must be some game companies in Brazil and local to you, even if just small indie studio’s? I would seek them out and see if they offer work-experience places or even apprenticeships. You may not earn any money from them, but it can be an invaluable learning experience.
Over my working life I have been, both as an employee and as a freelancer. However I dropped out of making actual games a few years back as the budgets dropped considerably, whilst at the same time the projects become more complex/costly.
Currently I focus on developing interactive projects mainly as physical installations for museums, exhibitions and the like as its far more interesting to me and usually with a decent budget.
Mind you I started off my working life training as an architectural technician, with a view to train as a full Architect. However due to the UK recession in the late 80’s and 3 day working weeks, I switched to DJ’ing ( my hobby at the time) and managing a record store (you know those old black vinyl things with a hole in the middle ;)) , whilst I waited to start my graphics degree as a mature student. It was whilst studying for my degree that I rediscovered my love for computing programming.
After graduating I worked for several years in the CD-ROM edutainment/multi-media field for a couple of companies in London (including Red Kite New Media which was part of the Saatchi Saatchi group). Was offered a job with Havok in Ireland, before going freelance and producing web and CD-ROM games using Director/Shockwave.
Finally a few years back I saw the error of my ways and switched to Unity
@LiamAtDevour
Brazil does have universitys that are free, they are the ones that need 24/7 hours of styding to enter…
i have searched universtys here on brazil but found nothing…
the reason why i need to go to a university is that my mother is totaly crazy about it… and also thinking like my brother is on one exelent university on brazil and i wouldn´t even have wen´t through one…
i hope at least that in these 3 years some good university appears, thats all i can hope for now…
I think this video can help a little bit.I think is better try to get into a federal university and do computer science,because as they said before you can learn a lot,you will have time to build your portfolio and will also be studying in one of the best universities of Brazil,for free:smile:
At least that’s what I will do:P
