I am going to attend Collins College for Game Production. They told me I need at least these programs for the first year.

3D Max
Adobe Flash CS5 Pro
Adobe Audition
Adobe Photoshop
Zbrush
Visual Studios
Unity

I've beginning experimenting with these programs and am adapting myself to their UI so I can be better prepared what they are expecting me to know. Anyone else know any other helpful programs that may extend my knowledge in the Game Production/Design field?

I'm just trying to get a jest of what's all out there, I don't want to limit my options.

That is A LOT of software to learn in one year. If they told you you need it, I be concerned as the total price is almost five figures. Will they be supplying you the software?

For a designer, I would say Unity and Flash would be your main focus or GameMaker for a slightly easier route into making games as both Flash and Unity require you to know how to program to a degree.

I just use Blender and Gimp. Autodesk Maya is a common 3D modeling and animation package, but it incredibly expensive ($3000+ last time I checked)

The price of a normal one machine license from Autodesk is in the thousands, but you can get student licenses which are approximately 500$. In my last year of my Animation course I bought Softimage at Studica.ca for 600$. Not only that, but you can most likely access the computer labs anytime you need them, which is convenient if you live on campus or close to the school.

Besides those softwares, the only other software I can see that you will meet in your program that you could look into is Adobe Premiere or Encore for post production video editing.

Besides that, you seem to be well on your way. Any other software will be very similar to the ones you are looking at now, it's just a matter of simply learning the interface and shortcuts for that program.

Quote: Original post by yaustar
That is A LOT of software to learn in one year. If they told you you need it, I be concerned as the total price is almost five figures. Will they be supplying you the software?

For a designer, I would say Unity and Flash would be your main focus or GameMaker for a slightly easier route into making games as both Flash and Unity require you to know how to program to a degree.

Yes, you may buy the software from them.
I don't need to master all these programs in the course of one year, but they will be getting into all the basics of what they do and how they play in the Game Designing world.

Total costs for software/books - $7000 (est.) 3 year program (Bachelors)

I would imagine they would supply you with the software on the school's machines. If they expect you to purchase it yourself, you should probably withdraw now. The utility of spending money on that kind of tool-focused education is, in my mind, questionable anyhow. If they're expecting you to front that much of the bill directly (rather than at least encoding it into your tuition), I'd consider it a scam.

Quote:
I'm just trying to get a jest of what's all out there, I don't want to limit my options.

The word is "gist," by the way.

Quote: Original post by jpetrie
I would imagine they would supply you with the software on the school's machines. If they expect you to purchase it yourself, you should probably withdraw now. The utility of spending money on that kind of tool-focused education is, in my mind, questionable anyhow. If they're expecting you to front that much of the bill directly (rather than at least encoding it into your tuition), I'd consider it a scam.

Quote:
I'm just trying to get a jest of what's all out there, I don't want to limit my options.

The word is "gist," by the way.

It's a credited school and the only reason they want you to have to software is so you can put it on your laptop. Any other school I've looked into near me is nearly 10k+ more. The school may provide you with a laptop, but I would prefer to buy my own.

Yes, I'm that stupid to invest time and money to a non-credited school. (Sarcasm)

Quote: Original post by eloadrin
The price of a normal one machine license from Autodesk is in the thousands, but you can get student licenses which are approximately 500$. In my last year of my Animation course I bought Softimage at Studica.ca for 600$. Not only that, but you can most likely access the computer labs anytime you need them, which is convenient if you live on campus or close to the school.

Besides those softwares, the only other software I can see that you will meet in your program that you could look into is Adobe Premiere or Encore for post production video editing.

Besides that, you seem to be well on your way. Any other software will be very similar to the ones you are looking at now, it's just a matter of simply learning the interface and shortcuts for that program.

Thanks for the link! It's a lot cheaper than store prices and a bit cheaper than the school prices. Saved me some money.

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It's a credited school

Note that many schools -- including my alma mater -- simply go about saying that they are "accredited." They do this because the vast majority of the population, yourself included it seems, don't know what that means and assume that a school must be accredited to be worth attending. Alas, this is not the case.

To claim accreditation, an educational institution must meet the requirements set forth by some organization that grants the credentials in question. There are many such organization, both public and private. Some accreditation is done by your local, state or federal government. Some accreditation is done by private consortiums. Not all "accredited" schools were judged equally or by the some criteria to receive that accreditation -- Ivy league universities, for example, tend to have all their various sub-colleges accredited by particular domain-specific accreditation boards. Collins is certified by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, which is not the same institution that accredits the computer science degrees for schools like Carnegie Mellon.

This is not necessarily good or bad, note. Basically all it means is that accreditation isn't usually a worthwhile metric for anything.

Quote:
the only reason they want you to have to software is so you can put it on your laptop

Note that most educational licenses would permit this anyhow, even if the school purchases the license for you. I'm still quite skeptical, although perhaps at this point it's not worth raising the issue since you've already enrolled. I just want you to have a realistic expectation of the kind of thing you're getting yourself into -- it sounds like they might have won you over with their marketing rhetoric at some point along the line.

My advice to you would be to keep in mind that the tools you use are largely irrelevant. While you might learn the tools that are in use today or were in use a few years ago, don't place too much weight there -- instead, focus your efforts on the classes that are more theoretical in nature, and/or spend your time really trying to dig in to the why and the fundamental underlying concepts of the tools that you're being taught. Don't just learn the hot keys to select and manipulate vertices in Max, learn what that really means to the underlying mesh on a fundamental level. That will help you weather transitions from one tool to another. Professional studios will care less about the tools you know and more about your ability to adapt to new tools. Most will assume that if you know Max, you could learn how to model in Maya, just like (for programmers) it would be assumed that if you know C++ you could pick up other C-like languages relatively quickly. Or the other way around, et cetera.

Quote: Original post by jpetrie

Quote:
It's a credited school

Note that many schools -- including my alma mater -- simply go about saying that they are "accredited." They do this because the vast majority of the population, yourself included it seems, don't know what that means and assume that a school must be accredited to be worth attending. Alas, this is not the case.

To claim accreditation, an educational institution must meet the requirements set forth by some organization that grants the credentials in question. There are many such organization, both public and private. Some accreditation is done by your local, state or federal government. Some accreditation is done by private consortiums. Not all "accredited" schools were judged equally or by the some criteria to receive that accreditation -- Ivy league universities, for example, tend to have all their various sub-colleges accredited by particular domain-specific accreditation boards. Collins is certified by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, which is not the same institution that accredits the computer science degrees for schools like Carnegie Mellon.

This is not necessarily good or bad, note. Basically all it means is that accreditation isn't usually a worthwhile metric for anything.

Quote:
the only reason they want you to have to software is so you can put it on your laptop

Note that most educational licenses would permit this anyhow, even if the school purchases the license for you. I'm still quite skeptical, although perhaps at this point it's not worth raising the issue since you've already enrolled. I just want you to have a realistic expectation of the kind of thing you're getting yourself into -- it sounds like they might have won you over with their marketing rhetoric at some point along the line.

I've done my research on the school and am very familiar with the ACCSC. All I asked is for advice on software. Instead I got a wall of text from a moderator telling me how the school I'm going to attend is a scam. Thanks buddy! I really appreciate it. The degree is technically in "Computer Science" as well. Their game course used to be split into two separate courses, but they combined them recently to allow a single degree pursued in the field.