I discovered Blender two months ago, And i was instantly hooked, Ever since then i was in love with everything that is remotely related to 3D design, And im really passionate to professionally learn more about it, I began watching tutorials and courses but i want to take it more seriously.
So i wanted to ask, what college or type of education would you recommend, And what are the state of 3D education in general, Because i heard alot of opinions against the college method and instead self-learn the whole thing.
There are lots of options. Self learning will probably be the quickest if you are a good self learner. At least if you want to simply learn how the Program works.
If you want to learn about art, design processes, aesthetics and related fields it will take longer to learn Blender but all of these skills will be very useful for Blendering. And I think these fields are very difficult to cover autodidactically.
This is imo best done at a university. In this case it makes sense to study something like film making, architecture, product design, media design, art or something like that.
I heard what im looking for is called an Animation college, But i dont know the education process there, or what college to choose, We dont have this kind of college in our country, So im really lost on the subject
I’m not sure about animation (and gaming) colleges. Back in the days when I was a student they were bad, at least here in Germany.
Perhaps this has changed.
My humble 2 cents is that you can’t really LEARN these anywhere! You just…SEE good art, WATCH good movies, LISTEN to good music, etc etc, and…something will click in your brain! An academic environment to do ART is just…sucky sucky sucky! Having said that, maybe… JUST sitting around in your room all day long isn’t the solution either… I donno. Youtube is open. Whatever works for you
The process of designing something can be learned and is taught at universities. The process of designing something be it a film, a product, a building, or creating a scene in 3D is pretty similar regardless of what exactly it is you are designing and involves a lot more than just art.
It involves examining the target audience or customers requirements, developing processes to keep production cost low, budgeting resources like money and time and so on.
Anyways, a university is a perfectly fine environment for learning art. You have time to concentrate on creating your art, you are around other people who are doing the same thing and also have time whom you can exchange knowledge with or team up. And finally you have experienced people around you (professors and lecturers) whom you can ask for advice.
For the vast majority of people art is nothing that “just clicks”. It is something they have to learn.
You might also consider a more non-traditional approach to your education: “what companies in your town are right now using 3D techniques?” Are there any internships?
Remember – “3D doesn’t necessarily mean Lucasfilm or Pixar.” It doesn’t have to be out-of-reach. The universal and free availability of Blender has radically transformed the entire landscape. “Think outside the box.”
No, no, no just disregarding an academic approach to art is dumb, dumb, dumb. Really sucky, sucky, sucky is to think art is something that just looks nice or sounds pleasing. Sometimes art is just that because of it’s unpleasent nature. Art has a lot to do with history, philosophy, psychology and other disciplines. And there is a good of deal of real world craftsmanship involved. All that can and must be learned.
While proper education might not be for everyone. Playing the talent card that should click on Youtube, is as disrespectful for an answer to someone who want’s to get serious about art as it can get.
Edit: Even studiyng, in an academical manner, what was done in CG before, alone will lead to a deeper understanding and enable one to produce better art. Art comes from the mind to the hands. So you better train that source…
Most large universities that have a good arts program will have a media department where you would usually find the courses to learn 3D, Animation and Games or VFX in general. Every university is slightly different in how they offer this. So it would take searching around on their websites to find the right department and people to talk to.
The main advantage of a school environment is working face to face in team projects and interaction with other artists.
Even if you go to a school you should be motivated to study on your own as well. And to get into a school you will have to show a portfolio. So that means you will have to take advantage of all of the courses available online first to work on your skills and show what you can do.
In some countries having a degree is a requirement even for work in a studio. Not the case in the USA necessarily. But I have lived in a country where this is the case, strangely. So I would check that out in your country to see if having a degree is a requirement. If not, then school is more of a personal choice and the chance to work with and interact with people.
OP, have you actually researched quality online alternatives to brick & mortar colleges?
Where do you live?
Are there Uni’s with comparable curriculums that are industry recognised, nearby?
…etc, etc.
Without knowing your original intent, whether a potential in house career, freelance for hire or even advanced DIY hobbyist…then it’s a pointless exercise trying to frame an appropriate concise response too your query?!
And of further note, unless you’re prepared to invest 3-4 years of your life plus afford in most cases exorbitant tuition fees, year on year…then I’d suggest spending the time exploring a veritable raft of relevant content already available via the Net.
Lastly, if a career path is indeed in the offing, then remember this, a piece of fancy embossed paper can be next to worthless if your portfolio/reel isn’t industry standard and by that I mean compared with an artist already working NOT other candidate’s/students.
Yes, where do you live or plan to study ?
IMO between self-learning and art-college , you should do both ! You’ll have to be a self learner to work with 3D because there are a lot of things to know that can’t be covered at college, and it’s constantly evolving …
On the flip side , you can learn at college some stuff hard to master by yourself, mainly art related as Lumpengnom pointed out, you’ll make a lot of connections and in the end you can save you several years of learning compared to learning only on your own.
Self learner tend to lack artistic fundamentals and students have sometime a hard time to learn by themselves and tend to be less curious. That’s why you should do both !
In the end there are no rules and you can find amazingly talented people that are self learners or have learned at college.
I live in Egypt, and no, we don’t have any universities or schools teaching 3d
That’s why i wanted to gather people’s opinions on the thing, and see if there’s a scholarship for studying abroad and stuff
Yeah thats exactly how i thought of it, Self learning is great and all, but the academic value can add alot to the learning process
Problem is i live in Egypt, and we dont have schools that teach 3d or anything remotely related to graphic design, so i wanted to know if an academic element is necessary for the learning process of such a medium, and hopefully find a scholarship for studying abroad, so what do u think?
is the academic element so important that its worth travelling abroad and stuff?
Hum, going abroad is a question on his own, if you don’t like the idea I’m not sure it’s worth it…
But If you’d like the idea to travel and live in another country/culture for a few years that may be the solution !
Do you know what you’d like to do in 3D (modeling, animating characters, being a generalist that do everything …) ? and in which field you’d like to work (video games, VFX, architectural visualization, cartoon animation …) ?
Having an artistic, traditional background can be just what you need. For instance, if you’d like to sculpt some character for videogames, knowing how to draw and all the anatomical stuff is very valuable !
For that you can just follow traditional artistic studies and learn the technical / 3D parts on your own.
It’s a bit less straightforward than just going to the appropriate college but it’s a good balance and you can probably end up being very good as a 3D artist after that. But that’s not a one fit for all solution , if you’d like to be a character animator you’d need to take specific studies for that and probably go abroad.
All that said , for now you should just keep on learning 3D for some mouths to start to see what you like most with it, then show your work to some professionals or in 3D forums and ask for advice on where to go from there.
As a professional 3D artist you can be a modeler spending your day doing sculpting, or a guy that do mostly Python scripting and run VFX simulation. For the first one it’s better to take art studies , for the second it may be better to study how to code 3D has a really broad spectrum and there are plenty of possible jobs and skills needed. As you’re starting just keep on learning what you like and it won’t be wasted anyway !
I’m working (and living) with 3D for 15 years now and I didn’t go to a specialized school, I did a lot of drawing at school before that and study a bit of art there. I guess the most important was the passion and motivation to put the hours to learn by myself. Now I’m still lacking some fundamentals stuff that I try to learn bit by bit but nonetheless I’m happy with my life and I’m doing what I like, so it’s possible to get there without studies, it’s just longer and harder
As someone that thought college levels course in 3d I can give you my perspective. Brutal harsh truth about colleges. Most departments are hamstrung by the system they have to work in and the time they have to work with. Think about it a class might meet once a week for an hour. A semester in the US is roughly 15 weeks. If your lucky they have an hour or two lab also. Lets say the class is 21 credit hours. That means only 21 hours of exposure to the subject. That’s only 2 days At 10+ hours of studying that same thing on your own.
On top pf that the instructor has to divide the time among 10 to 20 Students. And the school might not have the latest software etc.
What a GOOD college can give you is exposure to professionals working in the field that can be mentors and give you advice. And hopefully recommendations when you leave. Also it gives you a broader education in other subjects, like a broader understanding of math or basic programing which can be useful. But above all in any art related field you need to have a demo reel or examples of your work. Lots and lots of examples.
The thing you need to figure out first is make a list of what you NEED to know, and what you do NOT know currently. For example take 3d modeling, Polygon or sculpting? How to make basic shapes and forms, hard surface vs organic, Human anatomy and proportions. etc.
I would go to several colleges websites and look and the class requirements for a degree in X department. Also look for online for a Class Syllabus. That’s the outline for a class the instructor makes up. That will let you know what specifically they are teaching
A college will give you exposure to what they think you need to know. And limited one at that. In the end you will still end up have to teach yourself a lot.
I would go to college for programing or engineering and teach yourself 3d on the side. Also Talk to professional that are already in Working in the field and ask them what they know now that they wished they had learned in the beginning.
Look under the Department of The Arts which I found by searching through “Humanities and Social Sciences”.
That is one example. I am sure there are many in your country. You have to know what to look for and it is not usually obvious like it is with UCLA or NYU where they have large schools of film for example.
You can go through this entire list here and look in the various sections of thier site for the Humanities or Social Sciences or Liberal Arts. Sometimes even Mass Communication (Media)
Just keep in mind that even though some schools don’t advertise or are not known for being an Art school, most usually have some kind of art department and some of them are well staffed and have good curriculum.
Also I googled “Art and Film Schools in Egypt”
There are unis that do it differently, too.
At my university we spent most time working one larger semester project (often in teams) in the universities work spaces or wherever you wanted. Once or twice a week a mentor would come by look at the progress and help with questions and things like that.
Once or twice a semester the projects progress had to be presented to the professor and in the end there was a more or less public presentation of the project where the work would be graded.
Then there were lectures, theoretical presentations and smaller projects but the bulk of time was spent on the large project mentioned above.
The projects you could either chose from a pool of about 30 or so different ones ( for example design a museum with such and such specifications) or simply come up with your own project and find a professor willing to accept it.
That way you were exposed to the subject all the time, you had to find out a lot of stuff by yourself or with your team mates but got regular guidance. This way you learn how to learn.
AFAIK the film school in the city I studied in had a similar approach. The students there did their projects and spent most time working on them. One guy I know went to the middle east to film a documentation for example. Another one made a short with 3d elements and assembled a whole film crew, 3D artists, a product designer actors and so on.
An academic environment to do ART is just…sucky sucky sucky! 
Having said that, maybe… JUST sitting around in your room all day long isn’t the solution either… I donno. Youtube is open. Whatever works for you 
3D has a really broad spectrum and there are plenty of possible jobs and skills needed. As you’re starting just keep on learning what you like and it won’t be wasted anyway !