Game Design Job Titles
Create Lifelike Video Games in Game Design and Development
You're driving your brand new Porsche at top speeds through a crowded city. You know there are police cars after you, but you don't glance back as pedestrians scatter to prevent being hit. The sound of the engine changes as you push on the gas and suddenly…you crash. There's a fiery explosion and the words "game over" flash on the screen. It's just a video game. However, today, game design and development has evolved to a movie-like state where the characters, environments and concepts are more real than ever before. Imagine being one of the creative minds behind these innovative video games.
At Toronto's Centennial College, you can take the Game Design and Development program to begin your exciting career. The program is 4 months and results in an Ontario College Diploma. To be eligible, applicants must present at minimum an Ontario Secondary School Diploma or equivalent or be 19 years of age or older. Applicants must also complete the compulsory English 12C or U credit, a skills assessment or equivalent. Another requirement is a portfolio assessment. Pieces may include 10 to 15: life drawings, sketches, paintings, sculptures or digitally produced artwork. Preference for the Game Design and Development program will be given to applicants who can demonstrate some familiarity with one or more graphics applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, 3DS Max or Maya. Applicants who do not submit digital artwork will be tested to determine their level of computer proficiency.
Once in the program, students participate in courses that are balanced between game development and creative story skills. In fact, industry professionals and instructors developed the curriculum with a forward-thinking approach towards the next wave of interactive games. Courses include: Game Theory and Story Development, Environment Art Design, Integrated Media, Game Animation and much more. Small class sizes and a hands-on approach in labs that simulate real-world production prepare students for their final semester field placement. Students, as potential candidates for field placements, are expected to send their portfolios to a company of their choice. This is an important part of the professional experience that the Game Design and Development program teaches students. Once at the field placement, students use what they have learned on-campus and apply it to being part of the design team. Placement is also a great way to network and build a database of contacts.
Graduates of the Game Design and Development program, are ready to enter the field in a variety of positions. Common job titles include: game animator, character designer, environment and effects artist, level designer, 3D modeler/texture artist, character modeler, character animator and game concept artist. Of course, daily tasks for the positions vary, but they all involve creativity and innovation. For example, the primary role of the character animator is to be the "actor" behind the performance. Character animation is artistically unique from other animation in that it involves the creation of apparent thought and emotion in addition to physical action. Character animation is augmented by environment and effects artists, who create anything that is not a character, most commonly vehicles, machinery and natural phenomena such as rain, show, lightning and more. But an equally important aspect of video games is the "levels." In Game Design and Development, the job of the Level Designer is to create levels that build upon the skills that the gamer has developed, while still offering enough difference to give the gamer variety and complexity. The level designer must carefully plan how the player will interact game. Clearly, all of the positions in this field are intertwined and depend on one another.
About the Author
Klaudia documents how professionals in the Game design and Development industry get their start with training from Centennial College, which combines game development skills with creative storytelling.
I need help with a job title?
So who are the people behind video game creating, like ubisoft, rockstar games. Those people. Who are the people that design the characters, vehicles, and so on? Also who does the actual animation, makes things move around?
Game Designer - So who are the people behind video game creating, like ubisoft, rockstar games.
Game Programmers - Who are the people that design the characters, vehicles, and so on?
Modelers or Animators - Also who does the actual animation
Game Programmers - makes things move around?
WikiPedia - look up Game Testing, Game Design and Game programming.
There is good info there.
Game Design Job Titles
Splinter Cell Conviction: Part 3: Design (All 5 Episodes Available on Xbox LIVE)
I wanna get into the games industry!!, but how
If you want to make your own game development group that makes games you might see on a store shelf then you should get a few years experience in the industry at least. If you want to do it on a hobbyist level to get some practice in i'd suggest looking for mod teams to join. There are hundreds of mods out there and most are always on the look-out for fresh talent.
So that leaves getting a job with an existing developer...
In order to be a video game artist you have to have a good mix of traditional art skills and modern computer based art skills, the balance of which will depend on the eventual specialization you go for. Within the title "games artist" are many sub-categories of artist including animators, texture artists, character modelers, object modelers, concept artists, etc etc. While it's ok for now to look at your target career simply as a games artist or game designer, the eventual specialization you do will have an impact on what you should be learning in the mean time, so you should start out by sampling everything and then concentrating on the bit/bits that you enjoy doing the most. For example, a concept artist will do purely traditional art, so they won't need to know much at all about computer based art. You can find out more about what each specialization of artist should be learning in the Animation Arena Video Game Design section, which is pretty much dedicated to answering the question posed in this title.
So once you've got in mind what you need to be learning you need to go about doing it. Unfortunately with all art the only way you're going to get better at it is through practice. Some people maintain that people that are good at art are "naturally artistic", like artistic ability is somehow genetic, but ask any good artist how they got good and they'll tell you how they got where they are by practicing their asses off.
Traditional art wise you should be drawing at least one thing every day. Whether it's a cartoon or a still life or whatever, it doesn't matter, but making sure you draw at least one thing a day will improve your drawing dramatically. Doing an art night class would help alot too. Considering this is for games, you need to be drawing lots of people, so learning to draw anatomy will be greatly beneficial too. One thing I would suggest is steering clear of anime. Looking at the portfolio work of other aspiring games artists just goes to show where this generations art influences are coming from, and learning the anime style won't help you stand out from the crowd at all when it comes to getting a job.
For 3D Animation you should worry less about learning a wide variety of programs and more about learning the general concepts of modeling. All the 3D packages work differently but the core concepts are all the same, so it's best to choose one program and get to the point where you can be creative within that, than trying to learn all the different programs at once. There are tons of books now on each package, or they typically have decent tutorials in the help files. As for which program you should go for, that used to be simple, but it's getting a trickier choice by the day. It used to be that everyone used 3D Studio Max, because it was powerful, reasonably easy to use (as 3D programs go), was well suited to games, and yet it didn't cost the earth. Recently however Discreet who make 3D Studio Max have started aiming their product at the movie industry, while Alias|Wavefront that make Maya and Avid that make SoftImage have recently switched their focus from the movie industry to the games industry. If it was me personally I'd still recommend you start by learning 3D Studio Max.
For 2D computer based work, such as textures, you should be learning Photoshop. Photoshop is like the mack daddy of industry standard 2D art, and absolutely everyone uses it. Again, it's best to just get a book on it.
If you want to be an Animator then it's important not to get too carried away with what the computer can do. Motion capture is getting bigger by the day, and games are now beginning to really take on stuff like physics simulation, but while games still require stuff like monsters and big robots there will always be a need for animators, since you can't motion capture say... a dragon. You should be learning the principles of animation first and foremost, things like squash and stretch and the wave principle, and some traditional animation will always help with that. For animation principles The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams is the absolute best animation book you can lay your hands on, although be warned that it has nothing in there about animating with computers (books about 3D programs will have that).
For all of these there are a number of courses at universities and vocational schools that you might look at (see 3D Animation Arena's list of Video Game Schools in your area). While some game developers are particular about their artist having a degree, most places are more concerned that you can demonstrate ability through a portfolio rather than a piece of paper, so a degree isn't needed if you have the talent. That said art schools and vocational schools are a good place to spend time working on developing your skills and creating a portfolio, and most people with the talent are the kind of people that could have got a degree fairly easily anyway. The Animation Ar Video Game Design section also has a section on how to get into the industry, which includes a list of all the universities and vocational schools in the country that do games development denaegrees.
So once you've actually learnt all this and you start apply for jobs, what next. Well you need to be able to demonstrate your abilities. When you apply to places you should send copies of your traditional work, and more importantly your reel. This is a video cassette which has 3D model turnarounds and animations on it. These days even better is a CD containing examples of your work.
I said I'd try and be succinct and I've not been, so I should probably finish off and any more questions you might have then feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them. Hope this has all been of help and good luck with the whole getting into the industry thing.
About the Author
Hi, I am Hina Khan, I am a student of 3D Max and CG (Computer Graphics), for more information about my work please visit at : 3dleaks.com
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