Game Design course prospects

Personally I think the idea would be great, and appeal to alot of people, but only if you teach current generation stuff. Teaching people how to make games developed for the last generation of visuals and gameplay is a good start, but I guess it's totally up for debate.

Last generation game design would be fine, and would be much easier to create for, where as current generation would be more useful.

If there is a hard game design prospect, the best way to do a game design course would be to actually have the class develop content for a specific game engine, as a group(for example, making a game where your character has to drive a car through all the rings to win the game, doesn't have to be complicated to the point of narrative and plot).

The blender engine may be ok, but I feel it could be pretty sub par compared to an actual engine. Many games come with a software development kit that allows people to create their own content, the most well known is the Unreal Tournament series of games. The games are built on modding and user created content, and the ediitng tools are by far the best, and the easiest to learn. The good part, is that if you for example purchased a copy of Unreal Tournament 3, it comes with the full suite of tools used to create custom content that the game developers themselves use. The only difference is, you don't have a licence to sell your mod or game you create within it.

However, you can use the games default librarys of content (textures, models sounds etc) to make maps and levels, but if you want the class to be able to create content for the engine, you'd probably have to look at another kind of 3d modelling package, one that is assured to work with the engine. Introdducing that also means you'd have to have someone who could teach that specific 3d suite such as 3DS max, which creates a dilema.

As far as I'm aware, there is a blender plugin that exports to the Unreal Editor (the Unreal Engines ediitng interface) but I haven't researched it much. Anything is possible I guess.

It all comes down to resources and how much funding is assigned to the course.

Gtroup Dynamics

I find the class has a good group workflow, allthough the class is seamingly split down hte middle in terms of age, we still all co operate and help each other when they need it. Generally though, the younger part of the class sticks together, and In ways I think its beter that way. As far as I know, there are no leaders or chiefs of the group, we all sort of have our times where we contribute more, but as a whole everyone brings something different to the plate.

There also seems to be a good range of talents and speciaties within the group, I myself have a broadened awareness of game development and anything 3d and 2d, whereas other people are better with coding and audio. I think it's a great balance and I'm glad there aren't 8 3d modellers in the class.

Number Types

Skills Audit

Name	Dane Brennand
Qualifications	Self taught in Photoshop CS2 and CS3, advanced user, texture painting, matte painting and design Self taught in Autodesk Maya 8, 3DsMax 8, Bodypaint 3D and Mudbox
Other Qualifications	Next gen material set ups, rendering occlusion maps, normal maps, coloured specular maps and mask bitmaps
Education	II Cert 2, self taught digitally
Significant Life Experiences	Sister died in 07, work with the most well known mod team for Halo: Custom Edition, and currently a texture artist for Warm Gun, an Unreal Tournament 3 mod
Things you really like	Texture painting, rendering, drawing, concept design, guitar, singing and listening to music
Work Experience
Voluntary	All my mod work is voluntary
Personality	Open minded, quick to learn, enjoy working in teams, appreciate good art, believe heavily in constructive criticism
Artistic Skills	Pencil drawing, digital drawing, digital painting
Technical Skills	Material compositing, rendering, painting material bitmaps (normal, specular, ambient occlusion etc)
“Creativity”	I like to look within implied space, to think of space and how it can be filled, I like to design patterns and shapes
Musicality	I like dissonant harmonies with simple but layered melodies, with offbeat irregular time signatures
Inventions	Never invented anything, but I would like to think I am reinventing my art style all the time
Design Skills	Design wise, I like anything intricate, small details, being founded by large strange ones. I have a love for alternative colours, I rarely use Primary colours and tend to go for inbetween shades, teals, oranges, maroon
Project Management skills	Managing a project isn’t really my forte’, at this stage I have a “when it’s done” philosophy in mind, but I do always manage to get my work done on time and to quality
Time management skills	Time management, I’m fairly steady in, but I need to learn to work faster, physically
People management skills	I can deal with people easily, but only if they can handle my direction
Levels of expertise in which software packages	Photoshop: I’d like to think very advanced, knowing much about perfectly creating great realistic, yet stylised matte paintings. 3d programs, I am quite a novice, but only in the modelling and animation sides of things. Materials and rendering, I am intermediate
Talents	Guitar, drawing, ability to learn quickly, multitasking
Maturity level	I would like to think I am quite mature in mind, but I act openly eager to people to make them feel more comfortable around me
Weaknesses	I find it difficult at times to initiate conversation, being a visual person, I get very frustrated with myself if I look like a dogs breakfast on occasion
Type of Intelligence	I believe I’m as intelligent as I’ve been allowed to be.
“I believe…….” (personal motto or core belief)	I believe the world isn’t as complicated as we all see, that we the people are all one and share a collective unconscious, the real god is the mind and we are merely a dream experiencing ourselves subjectively