Thursday, March 15, 2012

Future of Industrial Education

 Education will likely soon have to evolve, College will become mandatory as grade school is, and in that future we will likely enter in with a specific job area in mind. So to that I propose what a degree in game development should likely be.


what makes a good game development degree? by class
animation
concept art / drawing
modelling, and rigging for animation
modeling should have an advanced class for learning flow and speeding up processes, using tools and plugins
animation should have focus classes, body , face, lip synch, mocap
programming, popular game languages such as C++, D, etc
game engine choice
an advanced degree such as masters would include how to make your own engine
programming and engine choice would be a pre-req for learning engine scripting, aka how to work in an engine

modeling would be a pre-req for texturing, mapping, meshes etc
weight and uv maps, lighting by specular, occlusion etc
user interface design, aka controller inputs, HUD's on screen
a writing class for story development
management class for project coordination and working in teams
asset efficiency class, managing objects and their sizes so you don't waste resources, making the game run faster and smoother

development methodologies, such as procedural generation, voxels, etc not just as level design but as overall game design
rule based vs event based particle flows, object fracturing, etc
networking
balancing weapons and their damage vs armor vs ammo, etc

genre development, teaching theory on genre's and showing how they work, what certain games did right or wrong
creative thinking classes to merge genre's, brainstorm game ideas, think outside the box on stories or game aspects

class for learning to break things down into smaller tasks

game asset development, starting with tools such as max, maya, lightwave etc
then creating small objects like guns and importing them into integrated development environments like unity, ogre, udk, and scripting them making them work in game
    euclidian?

then final part would include compiling, debugging, and testing

4 comments:

  1. I definitely agree that education will have to evolve, but I don't think that all those new game designing degrees are a good thing.
    People who make games right now haven't majored in games, they are enthusiasts from many different fields of science or art - and it's perfect, because they put their heart in the process of creation, they love games, they are open-minded.
    Game making degrees will produce professionals, who will treat their professions like a normal job. They will work, because they have to work, it's what they were thaught to do. Basically it will produce more studios like EA.
    But it's inevitable, I guess.

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    Replies
    1. I'm basically trying to say if you're going to do a degree in anything you should do it right. In relation to a game degree these are a few things I think should be necessary

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  2. Bachelor of Science in Industrial Education Program, lol

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  3. Sounds like a plan, but with the current politicians we have going into power I think education in North America is just going to continue going downhill.

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