I'm very interested in getting in the gaming industry but...

[joe_dirt976]

I needs me some good old fashioned learnin'. Seriously though, not only for me but for anyone else, what majors and/ or classes do you go to in order to satisfy the industry's demands? From what I can gather, I need to learned 3d design, programming, and various other disciplines in order to be of any use, and there are college "majors" that can take care of this, but are they even taken seriously? Is someone who knows a fair amount of every category as wanted compared to someone a little more specialized? What colleges (online classes, local community college, university, or cc to uni) would be the best option?
I ask now because I've been putting this off for way to long. I'm currently 22 Active duty in the USAF and in my almost 3 years of service I've only managed to complete 2 classes not including my technical training. Other than that I'm straight out of high school. I feel like I have potential but at this moment its rather difficult to unlock it. On another note, when my chance to cross train opens up, would it be any help to stay in a few years longer so i can cross train into programming? This definitely is not the greatest place to ask such a question, but I've grown to somewhat trust this place as much as one can rationally trust a website.

Edit: I'm also avoiding technical colleges with a passion

Your turn fellow 'lopers.

[Spas12]

What the game industry looks at is talent. You could have a masters degree in game art/design from Full Sail, but if you have a shitty or mediocre portfolio noone will be willing to hire you since there is another person with more of a skill than you. Not to sound harsh or anything, but that's the games industry.

But if you really want an education, maybe Full Sail? Guildhall? (if you got the $$$ for any of them)

[joe_dirt976]

nah, no cash. What I mean by education is the theory behind all of this stuff. Not only that but the know how with coding as well as the ability to work with 3d editing programs. I guess 3d is more like photoshop with 3 dimensions. but still..

Obviously theres no "make me a bad-ass" factory for game design. And education alone can only get you so far. But if I have the capabilty then why not?

[Mighty Monk]

May I suggest taking a look at some developer websites, into the job sections and see what kinda thing they want for specific positions?

I know from whenever I have looked through curiousity, they rarely require straight qualifications. Most of the time they seem to want decent portfolios and, the bane of all newcomers, experience. That's where I think you'd suffer, the experience, which I believe is what you'd gain from doing a qualification

[joe_dirt976]

so from what I've gathered, as you've pointed out monk, is experience is as key as creativy and talent. Perhaps a 3 and some odd year stint as a military programmer would be a plus. Not only because of experience but also time spent on a dev team in some way.

[Mighty Monk]

Well yeah. The experience doesn't have to be in the gaming field.

For example, you could work for a company that produces bespoke software for other companies, like a program that makes an analysis of somebody's personality based on the responses they gave to a series of multiple choice questions; which is psychometric testing. God knows why I needed to give an example, especially one as poor as that, but you see my point.

But it sounds like if you're doing some programming in the military for a few years, that'd certainly count! Maybe you could also build up a portfolio of personal projects that you program from what you learn while doing it; that'd certainly help! As long as they're mostly completed of course... if all your work is half-done, that doesn't make you look so sharp I'm sure

[Zipfinator]

Talent is definitely respected over a degree in the industry, but certain companies are moving towards requiring a degree now. I myself need to learn some more 3D modeling and art fundamentals such as color theory and drawing and also don't want to take a chance at not getting a job at the studio I want for not having a degree, so I'm planning right now on going to the Academy of Art in San Francisco. It's the school that Kremator and Srredfire are at now. I've looked at many schools and it seems like one of the best, but it's a very new industry so there aren't really any very obvious best schools. It really depends more on the student to put in time outside of school to practice and learn more on his own than depending on only what the school teaches and the projects you complete in school.

You said you're not completely interested in school though, so I'll share a bit of what I've learned from searching around. In the experience section having a successful mod, internship or some contract work will greatly help getting you a job. Mods will be fairly easy for you to join although tough to succeed in. Some of the internships I've looked at require that you're in school when you take the internship so you might not have success in that. The contract work requires a very good portfolio work which I'm not sure you have (I'm not sure if you have a portfolio and I've only really seen your Highway map). A mod really seems like your best bet if you want to get some experience and a good portfolio piece.

In case you want some more information or having it explained better, here's a set of podcasts made by some developers from Bioware that talk about various topics.

http://gim.acanaday.com/

the Design 101, Environment Art and Gaining Experience are the ones I've listened to and they gave me a lot of good information. These are released every few days/weeks so check back and something else useful might pop up.

[joe_dirt976]

Good points there. I was thinking about that programming for a while. Was my first pick but didn't qualify because of unrelated circumstances. [you need a Top Secret] and I was at the time unqualified for one. Definitely going to pursue the art route then. Sounds like if i get the programming job it'll satisfy that end while some art education will kick up the other one. Thanks for the input guys. Also I'm currently working on a 5 map campaign for l4d. I'm 2 maps deep with 2 protos in the mix. I plan on 5/5/5 vs, campaign and survival. Speaking of which, i just posted a couple of pics on the pimpage thread.

[Vilham]

Well I recently got a job as a level designer having done a computer science degree... so don't think the degree matters too much.

[Major Banter]

Multi-talent is a big plus. The difference between hiring a mapper and a mapper/modeler/coder is far being than just being multi-skilled. It means you've got a greater, deeper, more useful understanding of how to use, alter, create and so on within deadlines, the engine's capacity and prettiness vs gameplay.

[Vilham]

Multi-talent is a big plus. The difference between hiring a mapper and a mapper/modeler/coder is far being than just being multi-skilled. It means you've got a greater, deeper, more useful understanding of how to use, alter, create and so on within deadlines, the engine's capacity and prettiness vs gameplay.

this is true.

[coder0xff]

What major banter says is true, but I'm not so sure programming falls into the multi-skilled usefulness concept thingy. Being "kinda good" at programming doesn't really help you much. If you wanna be tinkering with a games programming, the guys in charge are gonna require you to be at a professional level. Even when considering the scope and complexity of a game engine, you still can't really grasp it unless you've been around the block. I guess what I'm trying to say, I personally feel that investing time in learning a little programming would have been better spent specializing in your main focus. Hope that makes sense without sounding like an ass hole/nay sayer.

[Major Banter]

Sounds pedantic to me, but fair comment. Just used a general example.

[Vilham]

What major banter says is true, but I'm not so sure programming falls into the multi-skilled usefulness concept thingy. Being "kinda good" at programming doesn't really help you much. If you wanna be tinkering with a games programming, the guys in charge are gonna require you to be at a professional level. Even when considering the scope and complexity of a game engine, you still can't really grasp it unless you've been around the block. I guess what I'm trying to say, I personally feel that investing time in learning a little programming would have been better spent specializing in your main focus. Hope that makes sense without sounding like an ass hole/nay sayer.

programming knowledge is a plus because of things like scripting and just understand how code is meant to work.

[Woe Kitten]

Lua programming knowledge is a definate plus but otherwise I agree with coder0xff. As for qualifications: you don't need any. They probably would help but what you really need is a good portfolio. What do you want to do exactly? Would you rather be an artist or a designer?