Course Title: Game Art Certificate
Hours required: 420
Price: $5,595
Length course offered: N/A
Instructor: Nat Stein [Bio]
Description:
This nationally recognized Game Art online certificate program helps students gain the skills and knowledge to get started as a digital artist in today's fast-paced game development industry! This Game Art program builds technical and artistic skills in 3D modeling, texturing, lighting, and animation using Autodesk Maya and Photoshop. Challenging, practical projects put you through your paces, helping you develop a high-quality portfolio of game art. You will also experience mentoring and feedback from an industry-leading faculty of game art professionals. This online certificate program is offered in partnership with major colleges, universities, and other accredited education providers.
Goals:
Students who complete the required courses can expect to achieve the following objectives. Additional objectives will be attained depending on each student's choice of electives. Construct 3D models in Autodesk Maya by creating and editing primitives by moving, rotating, scaling, and grouping them. Manipulate objects in Maya by selecting components, and rotating, scaling, and transforming them and using Boolean objects to combine or extrude shapes. Develop tiling textures for video games from reference photos or other source material. Test and apply texture tiles to 3D objects and environments and apply tiling textures to a range of maps commonly used in video games.
Apply basic three-point lighting techniques in Maya and use shadows and highlights to affect emotion. Apply ambient, directional, spot, and point lights in Maya and modify their controls for position, intensity, and color. Develop and apply shaders that create realistically-lit surfaces with color, gloss, reflection, and other characteristics. Apply basic principles of animation with Maya such as squash and stretch, anticipation, and follow through to basic characters and objects. Use the Maya Graph Editor and Dope Sheet to create natural-looking, overlapping animated action. Develop a believable walk cycle and use posing within the cycle to create mood and personality.
Grading System:
Confirmation of Completion awarded with passing score.
School Description:
Offered in connection with a college or university near you, our self-paced, online career courses are designed to launch you into your dream job.
Begin your course anytime. Textbooks are included, and you will have access to student support via phone, email, and chat 24 hours a day.
Click "Enroll Now" to find the partner school for the career course you want to take.
Instructor Bio: Nat Stein
Nat Stein is a modeling supervisor and CG artist at Anzovin Studio. He’s worked on animation for games such as Sid Meier's Railroads and Halo 2, as well as a variety of TV shows and movies. Nathaniel attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst , where he also taught programs in animation and modeling after his graduation. Nathaniel co-authored the book Visual Quickstart for Maya 7.0, and is currently working on a new book. He received his B.A. in computer animation from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Todd Gantzler is a game artist, educator, and writer. Todd has worked as a 3D artist on such games such as Gex 3D, Cyberia, and Akuji the Heartless, and he has specialized in game design work and character animation. Todd has served as program leader for game development degree programs at the Media Design School in New Zealand and at the University of Salford in England. He’s been designing and teaching game art and design classes since 2000. Todd's first book, Game Development Essentials: Video Game Art was published by Thomson Delmar Learning in July 2004. Todd moved into games from work in graphics and animation for TV and film; his film credits include The Pagemaster (1994).
Cristin McKee is a character animator at Anzovin Studio, where she has worked on a number of high-profile projects, including the features GI Joe: Valor vs. Venom and Action Man: X Missions, game cut scenes for Halo 2, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Da Vinci Code, and Sid Meier's Railroads, as well as a number of television projects and short films. Cristin has spoken about animation on panels at Siggraph and Northampton Film Festival and taught animation at Hampshire , MA. Cristin is currently co-directing an animated short. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire , MA.
Jesse Brophy is a technical artist who has worked at a range of game design companies, including Atari, Breakaway Games, and Sony. He created all the lighting, rendering, camera work, compositing, rigging, some of the modeling and texturing, and all particles for the Dungeons & Dragons Heroes Xbox video, in addition to leading the art team in its creation. Jesse currently is developing Xbox games at THQ in Phoenix, AZ, where he serves as a technical artist and character artist. He has a B.F.A. in drawing and visual communication from the University of Arizona.
Alex Jimenez is a veteran game designer and vice president and lead designer of Tesseraction Games. The creative force behind the original Dungeons & Dragons games by Capcom, Alex has contributed to the concept, design, story writing, and development of a host of high-profile licenses, including X-Men: Children of the Atom, Army Men Sarge's Heroes, Darkstalkers 1 and 2, Super Street Fighter 2, Battle Tanx 1 and 2, Marvel Super Heroes, Enigma: Rising Tide, Minigolf Maniacs, and Alien vs. Predator. Alex has implemented projects on a wide range of platforms, including PS 1 and 2, PC, N64, and coin-op formats. Alex has lectured on game industry topics at conventions and to students, and he both created and taught video game development programs to high school students.
