Need help looking at colleges

Originally Posted by Jason 16

UM is there any one that does animation on here!!!

I do 3D design if thats what your looking for.

Originally Posted by logrus

I do 3D design if thats what your looking for.

umm and what all does that cover?

I'm not in the computer animation arena (more of the science and math field) but I can share with you a few tips.

Depending on your mind set and with that nice of a GPA, I would say screw the junior colleges and jump right in a 4 year. Out here in Cali, a lot of my friends in JCs are being messed over because they are seeing now that it won't be so easy to transfer to a 4 year. The colleges out here are accepting less people (incoming freshman and transfer students), and transfer students have to battle with incoming freshman for spots now too. If you can, definitely go for the 4 year right off the bat.

I would also advise being flexible with your major and what you want to do. I have already changed my major 2 twice (biochem---cell/molecular bio---bioeng). Just try and keep an open mind.

[NateR]

Originally Posted by Jason 16

This is for nate or for any other animators. Iam great at useing computer animation programs but how good do you have to be at hand drawing (Iam am very good at mechanical and architectural drawings but very soso at the drawing the flowers and crap like that type of stuff but I could do it on the computer).

The computer animation field is highly specialized. In other words, there are no jack-of-all-trades types. People usually focus in on one area and don't really delve too far beyond a basic familiarity with everything else.

So if you're really good with architectural drawing, but not with drawing human beings, then you'd probably want to be a environmental modeler. In other words, you'd build the environments that the characters walk around in. The characters themselves would be modeled, rigged and animated by a separate teams of people.

Even as an environmental modeler, you could specialize even further and focus on buildings while someone else models trees, plants and other organic forms.

If you ever look at the credits for a major special effects film, there are hundreds and hundreds of people involved in the computer animation. For instance, for the first Chronicles of Narnia film they had a team of around 100 animators working for two years to create and animate a single character: Aslan.

They would be broken down into several groups:
1. the modelers who would create the polygon model
2. the riggers who would handle the incredibly tedious and labor intensive process of creating the animation "skeleton" and controls.
3. the animators who would lay out the animation of the character throughout the film.
4. hair animators whose only job would be to make sure that Aslan's fur and mane looked and moved realistically
5. renderers who would take care of actually rendering the animation (which can take anywhere from 1-90 hours per frame in a 24-frame-per-second movie)
6. render watchers, the guys who simply monitor the renders to make sure the computers don't lock up or crash.
7. compositors - animators rarely render entire scenes at once, most of the time they render individual elements and another group of people composites everything together into a single image
8. sound designers - the team who would come up with the sounds of Aslan's roar, along with walking and general fur rustling sounds.

So you can see that the field offers almost infinite potential for specialization. As long as motion pictures remain a billion-dollar industry then there is going to be a demand for talented artists and draftsmen.

Originally Posted by NateR

The computer animation field is highly specialized. In other words, there are no jack-of-all-trades types. People usually focus in on one area and don't really delve too far beyond a basic familiarity with everything else.

So if you're really good with architectural drawing, but not with drawing human beings, then you'd probably want to be a environmental modeler. In other words, you'd build the environments that the characters walk around in. The characters themselves would be modeled, rigged and animated by a separate teams of people.

Even as an environmental modeler, you could specialize even further and focus on buildings while someone else models trees, plants and other organic forms.

If you ever look at the credits for a major special effects film, there are hundreds and hundreds of people involved in the computer animation. For instance, for the first Chronicles of Narnia film they had a team of around 100 animators working for two years to create and animate a single character: Aslan.

They would be broken down into several groups:
1. the modelers who would create the polygon model
2. the riggers who would handle the incredibly tedious and labor intensive process of creating the animation "skeleton" and controls.
3. the animators who would lay out the animation of the character throughout the film.
4. hair animators whose only job would be to make sure that Aslan's fur and mane looked and moved realistically
5. renderers who would take care of actually rendering the animation (which can take anywhere from 1-90 hours per frame in a 24-frame-per-second movie)
6. render watchers, the guys who simply monitor the renders to make sure the computers don't lock up or crash.
7. compositors - animators rarely render entire scenes at once, most of the time they render individual elements and another group of people composites everything together into a single image
8. sound designers - the team who would come up with the sounds of Aslan's roar, along with walking and general fur rustling sounds.

So you can see that the field offers almost infinite potential for specialization. As long as motion pictures remain a billion-dollar industry then there is going to be a demand for talented artists and draftsmen.

Iam best at architectural and me mechanical drawing. as far as Ive seen there is no major for animation (in the packets I got from school) it would be under computer science right? now sice you got a good Idea what I want to do does it pay good. well at least good enough for me not to penny pick over every little thing. Thanks Nate

[NateR]

Originally Posted by Jason 16

Iam best at architectural and me mechanical drawing. as far as Ive seen there is no major for animation (in the packets I got from school) it would be under computer science right? now sice you got a good Idea what I want to do does it pay good. well at least good enough for me not to penny pick over every little thing

Well, starting out, you can't really expect much. Probably $20,000 a year on average. But once you get a couple of years of practical, real-world experience under your belt, then you can start expecting a higher salary.

The nice thing about art related fields is that, if you have enough natural talent, then you don't need to waste your time or money on too much education. Most of the time, an Associates degree is enough if you're putting out high quality work. Anything beyond that is just a waste of money unless you are looking to be a teacher or college professor.

The most important piece of advice that I can give, and I can't stress this enough, is to put everything you have into every single project when you are in college. Treat every project like you are going to be presenting it at a job interview for your dream job (which I'm assuming is something in the CG animation field). This way, when you graduate, you will have a portfolio or demo reel literally overflowing with high quality work.

When putting your portfolio or demo reel together, you don't want to have a few good pieces of work padded with a lot of mediocre stuff. Your state of mind should be that if it's good or very good, then it's not good enough for your portfolio or demo reel. When presenting your work to a potential employer, you only want them to see your great work. Good simply won't cut it.

Nates list is pretty accurate if your going the route of Animation for Movies, and such. I believe that would fall under an art degree. The other route would be game design which falls under Computer Science degree.

Game Design follows the same rules Nate listed with each aspect of the game being handled by a different group of individuals.

Originally Posted by NateR

Well, starting out, you can't really expect much. Probably $20,000 a year on average. But once you get a couple of years of practical, real-world experience under your belt, then you can start expecting a higher salary.

The nice thing about art related fields is that, if you have enough natural talent, then you don't need to waste your time or money on too much education. Most of the time, an Associates degree is enough if you're putting out high quality work. Anything beyond that is just a waste of money unless you are looking to be a teacher or college professor.

The most important piece of advice that I can give, and I can't stress this enough, is to put everything you have into every single project when you are in college. Treat every project like you are going to be presenting it at a job interview for your dream job (which I'm assuming is something in the CG animation field). This way, when you graduate, you will have a portfolio or demo reel literally overflowing with high quality work.

When putting your portfolio or demo reel together, you don't want to have a few good pieces of work padded with a lot of mediocre stuff. Your state of mind should be that if it's good or very good, then it's not good enough for your portfolio or demo reel. When presenting your work to a potential employer, you only want them to see your great work. Good simply won't cut it.

um and you can get up to what pay? I would love makeing a liveing off of animations but if I cant work my way up to a good decent pay than I might stick with programing (even though its not as enjoyable)

[NateR]

Originally Posted by Jason 16

um and you can get up to what pay? I would love makeing a liveing off of animations but if I cant work my way up to a good decent pay than I might stick with programing (even though its not as enjoyable)

Honestly, I don't know. I'm not a "go where the money is" type of person. If I was, I wouldn't be here in Hillsboro, IL making less than $10,000 a year. I'd be in California working for a movie studio making tons of money, but I'd be totally miserable.

I believe that you should do what you love, not what pays the most money.

Originally Posted by NateR

Honestly, I don't know. I'm not a "go where the money is" type of person. If I was, I wouldn't be here in Hillsboro, IL making less than $10,000 a year. I'd be in California working for a movie studio making tons of money, but I'd be totally miserable.

I believe that you should do what you love, not what pays the most money.

Umm Iam just saying That I would not want to go to school for something and realy just be as well off going to votec.

for money wise it atuly doesnt seem as bad as you made it seem. I guess Its you get a job and you get payed what your worth and you have to prove it(what your worth). O and Iam still am going to stick with animation
http://www.animationmentor.com/press...-20081016.html