Hello, I tried posting this in the For Beginners forum but it only got one reply and it's already off the first page so I'll try here. I'm currently seeking out online 3D Animation schools and I just want advise as to whether one of the schools I'm interested in is worth taking. The first school I looked at was Art Institute Online but after seeing the total price of it converted into CDN dollars chances of me being able to go there are pretty much none since the only way I'm going to be able to go back to school is to get funded(I still owe $9,000 from my last course) which I'm working on right now and the person that's helping me get funding says there's pretty much no chance I'll get funded for a $92,000 course. The second course I looked at was the University of Advanced Technology and It's just as much if I want to get a Bachelor's degree. The third one I've looked at is the Centre for Distance Education in Sydney, Nova Scotia. This one is the most realistic for getting funding since both Animation courses are less than $20,000 together and it's located in Canada. I just wanted some advise as to whether these courses are worth trying to get funding for. I pretty much know Photoshop like the back of my hand as I learnt it in the Multimedia class I took about 5 years ago but we didnt touch too much on 3D Max(about a month) which was disappointing. Here's the addresses for the website and both courses. Website: http://www.cd-ed.com/digitalmedia/index.html 3D Animation Basics: http://www.cd-ed.com/brochures/3dbasics.pdf 3D Animation Advanced: Character Animation: http://www.cd-ed.com/brochures/3dadv.pdf I would appreciate any advice or suggestions of other online schools I should try. Thanks in advance

You do not need a course to learn max... offcourse it helps though as hands on tutors always do...
max and maya are the industry standard programs...
if you can get your hands on a license for either of these i would..

You can teach yourself relatively easy... and as you know the basic layout of max already you should be able to understand the online tutorials fairly easily... online tutorials tend to teach you quicker then official books. or so i have found..
Figure out in your head what you want to do then look up online tutorials that will help you with the techniques...
Learn as you GO!

Learning yourself is definitely do-able ..i can attest to that...
But be warned.. pushing yourself is nowhere near as easy having someone else doing the pushing.. in a class environment you just compete against your fellow students.. The fact that all the people around you are involved in this area just induces you to think 3d more...

if you can't afford a course i would advise joining a mod and learning that way... trial by fire.. i believe it is the best alternative...