Oh Ekydus...

[old.LandShark]

Let's not continue the closed threads thing, eh? I always get a mental image of various mods sitting around sharpening knives and plotting my demise when this happens.


edit: lol, goddamnit, thread won't close. Me = owned.

 

[Ekydus]

Damn right.

IBTL!

 

[Ekydus]

Oooh, I may be going to Teesside aswell LS, waiting for Uni responses now.

It's between Kent and Tesside TBH, otherwise gap year it is.

 

[old.LandShark]

lol
Canterbury vs Middlesbrough...
Christ, you poor son of a bitch >_<

 

[Ekydus]

Well I live in Essex... I don't really care if I don't go to Oxford. Looking at courses. Although I'm scared of a middle aged nervous breakdown, and for some reason a career on computers is playing on my mind a lot.

Kent - Computing / Economics
Teesside - CGP / CGD

What to fuck I want to do with my life I don't know. :/

 

[Sharma]

More people to M'bro PLEASE!

 

[Ekydus]

That would mean I'd have to meet Sharma though, wouldn't it?

- You going to Uni BTW Sharma?

 

[old.LandShark]

I blame the parents for kids who manage to get to university age with no ambitions whatsoever. I'm not saying you want to bum around and smoke weed, but having no ambitions is just a wierd idea to me, personally. Aren't you interested in anything? :/

edit: posting in self-mockery-

 

[Ekydus]

All I know is that I want to be happy and enjoy what I do.

Computers give me enjoyment in a way I guess. But I am getting to the stage where I really have had enough of the bastards.

I thought about taking Psychology, as to further to a career also, but then I think about the career. Doesn't appeal to me. Hell, I've never had imbitions... I want them, it'd make life a lot easier and richer.

Can't really blame my parents though. They'd support what I'd choose, can't really do more than that.

 

[old.LandShark]

I dunno, I've always been fascinated by any number of things. My mum has always helped me appreciate the humanities and my dad has always encouraged me in the fact that I just love learning. I think I'll be happy whether I graduate and manage to get into journalism, or graduate, work as a programmer somewhere and then take a second degree in marine biology or some other form of oceanology and then go into research. Whatever. Frankly, I could handle a fairly poor job provided it brought in enough cash that I can keep pursuing my drumming and diving. Beyond that I'm more worried about who I spend my life with than how I spend it.


edit: About the courses at teeside, btw... (bear with me, just writing)

Computer games programming is looking like a solid technical course, from where I'm sat. The optionals ain't bad - I can give you the full course specification if you haven't found it on the UT-SCM website, along with what the various options are - and with a year in industry practically guaranteed (if you aren't too lazy about looking/applying, when the time comes) it's likely to give you a good qualification when you leave.

Games design, the BA, now that's a little different. Atm I believe they're doing animation history and what an American would probably creative drawing 101. They later go onto stuff like character modelling, scriptwriting, 2D rendering (textures, sprites, effect design etc) and I think they can take stuff like world creation (mapping, essentially) as optional modules. However, it seems to me and indeed to my CGD friends that it's a course you'll do well in life with if you graduate with an impressive portfolio. Impressive in both size, quality and quantity; it's one of the most heavily-subscribed courses in the uni and it has equivalent courses at nearly all other unis that offer anything games-related. There's going to be a lot of competition for jobs in that market, and I'm pretty sure no one graduate will know his animation history better than the next; it's going to be on portfolio vs portfolio.
So I think you might be wasting your time with CGD unless you're a fair to moderate artist already and you know there's some creativity lurking around in y'head.
You ought to consider virtual reality (which, not that it's immediately relevant, is the only one of these courses than also exists as a PhD), where I believe they do a fair bit of the visual programming that games programmers do, but minus much of the sound and physics. They start close to us - graphical mathematics, graphical programming, they also learn C in the first year - but then they go onto world creation, advanced world creation and have far more optionals than us, including photorealistic animation, "creative digital imaging", post-production, character animation...

I'm waffling. Anything specific you want to know? I've got the course booklet in front of me. ^^

 

[Sharma]

Originally posted by Ekydus
- You going to Uni BTW Sharma?

Of course and Teesside Uni is first on my list for a Game Programming course (I suck 200% at Design but i can make good code).

 

[Ekydus]

Hmm... would that mean I'd be in the same class as Sharma?

 

[old.LandShark]

Mercifully I'd be in a different class. You young whippersnappers, you.

Oh, also consider BSc visualisation; a more creative version of CGP. For example, they replace principles of computing (I'm doing that atm; boolean logic, binary arithmetic, floating point arithmetic, assembly language) with creative drawing. (they draw. xD) but they still share a lot of modules - all the maths, most of the programming, advanced visual simulation, etc etc.

 

[Ekydus]

Originally posted by old.LandShark
Mercifully I'd be in a different class. You young whippersnappers, you.

Oh, also consider BSc visualisation; a more creative version of CGP. For example, they replace principles of computing (I'm doing that atm; boolean logic, binary arithmetic, floating point arithmetic, assembly language) with creative drawing. (they draw. xD) but they still share a lot of modules - all the maths, most of the programming, advanced visual simulation, etc etc.

How would you do that if the code listings aren't on UCAS or TS website? :/

 

[Ekydus]

Oh, I am a talented artist.
I just hate doing the artist research, it's pointless. I'd rather draw etc in my own style.

 

[old.LandShark]

I'm going to look now. If they truly aren't there, I will go to my course leader and demand that ass be kickethed. It'd be outrageous ffs, and it'd also explain why we have 10 BSc visualisation students and over 300 BA games design.

edit:

Originally posted by Ekydus
Oh, I am a talented artist.
I just hate doing the artist research, it's pointless. I'd rather draw etc in my own style.

Such stlong arrogance.
Such stlong Visualisation course codes found approximately 43 seconds after entering "visualisation" into their website search
Oh hey, it's the computing and multimedia courses overview. Every single course page has the codes on it, dude :/

 

[BrassMonkey]

Im on the final year for the BA Comp Games design at teesside and all i can say is im thankful im older than you lot, theres a whole shitload of 1st and 2nd years snapping at my heels ready to steal potential jobs, that's why i skipped my year in industry and went straight onto 3rd year, get the jobs before the peeps behind me do.

Unfortunately people who want to work on computer games come a dime a dozen so like landshark said, it's all gonna be in the portfolio. To be honest i doubt my degree will be worth much when it comes to hte crunch at interview, that's just creative talent. However it will give me an extra string to pull on and help me get my foot in the door.

Knowledge of 3ds max is a good thing on this course

And a run down of what i've learnt/learning this year:
Modelling environments
Modelling characters
Texturing
Digital Imaging (photoshop)
Narrative Structure
Character animation
General animation (2d hand drawn stuff and 3d)
Games design/Production

And oh yeah....3rd year sucks! So much work it's just cruel

 

[Ekydus]

Originally posted by old.LandShark
Mercifully I'd be in a different class. You young whippersnappers, you.

Oh, also consider BSc visualisation; a more creative version of CGP. For example, they replace principles of computing (I'm doing that atm; boolean logic, binary arithmetic, floating point arithmetic, assembly language) with creative drawing. (they draw. xD) but they still share a lot of modules - all the maths, most of the programming, advanced visual simulation, etc etc.

Cheers dude. Kinda like that idea.

Last minute change to my application.

 

[old.LandShark]

Originally posted by BrassMonkey
Unfortunately people who want to work on computer games come a dime a dozen so like landshark said

What I can't help but wonder is, what's the portfolio equivalent for those of us doing programming courses? I mean, there's still over 100 people on computer games programming, although I can think of about 5 different people in my group alone who've already failed C programming this semester, already

Incidentally, do you play UT in the games labs ever? I'm just trying to place you :>

Originally posted by BrassMonkey
thankful im older than you lot

Git. I'm not one of the idiots who shouts every time anyone kills him in UT, I don't deserve such comments.

 

[Ekydus]

If I go to Teesside I'm going to join the Gamers society so I can pwn everyone at every game, ever.

Especially Counter-Strike.

 

[old.LandShark]

Originally posted by Ekydus
Cheers dude. Kinda like that idea.

Last minute change to my application.

Here are the modules by semester (2 sems. per year) for BSc. Vis... (holy shit, lots of options ^^)

Semester 1: C programming, creative drawing one, computing mathematics. (comp math. is AS-level standard.)

Semester 2: second half of C prog, graphical maths 1, and then any of the options: creative drawing 2, digital imaging, business organisation, scriptwriting, introduction to games, intro to games tech, intro to VR, formal methods 1, intro to 3D modelling for games, european language.

Semester 3: graphical programming, graphical maths 2, optional module from: advanced electronic imaging, computer animation technology, sound for animation, image manipulation for games, games design, games software design, C++ for games programming (also takes up sem4's option slot), world creation (likewise), numerical programming, object tech 1, formal methods 2, functional programming, user interfaces, 3D modelling for games (takes up sem4's option), european language continued.

Semester 4: second half of graphical programming, programming for visual simulation. Optional from: creative digital imaging, character animation, games interface design,, games production, APIs in games engines, second half of C++ for games, second half of world creation, second half of 3d modelling for games, object tech 2, virtual reality for the web.

Final year: (all modules take both semesters):

Practical project. Optional stuff: post-production, photorealistic computer animation, advanced character animation, games development, games futures, games physics, games AI, online games programming, creative VR, human-computer interaction, programming the web, advanced graphics algorithms, advanced visual simulation, plug-in production, 3D effects for games.

So, er, yeah. Hope that's in any way useful. If you want to know more about any of the degrees, I can give you the course path (as above) for it and ask around and try and find out more...

 

[lakih]

I was thinking of reading a year abroad, you guys have any recomendations? i was thinking of reading some computer programming (games) and stuff like that... just no drawingclasses or so. I hate drawing, cant draw, and cant be teached how to.

Im currently reading systems science, and going for lots of programming courses and some teaching aswell.

The thing is i would like to go to school in England, but dont know anything about any good school, or nice towns there

 

[old.LandShark]

Well, I know we have a few swedes here, both living here and doing the full degree, and just taking a year here to improve their english, I guess. God knows.

Originally posted by Ekydus
If I go to Teesside I'm going to join the Gamers society so I can pwn everyone at every game, ever.

Especially Counter-Strike.

Heh, yeah, with a bit of luck we'll shortly have more than just UT2k3 and UT on the network. Half-Life being the first priority just for the sheer weight of mods you can get for it, then they wanted a strategy game and a racing game. Anyhooooo...

 

[Danya]

Originally posted by old.LandShark
Git. I'm not one of the idiots who shouts every time anyone kills him in UT, I don't deserve such comments.

Hush whippersnapper!

Kids today.

Originally posted by old.LandShark
What I can't help but wonder is, what's the portfolio equivalent for those of us doing programming courses

For games? Make a demo, 3d is better obviously. Rip some art off a random commercial game etc.

 

[Hargh]

Canterbury has much nicer weather.

 

[old.Tohtori]

School...for games...?

Why bother?

I might not be older then you lot.

I might not have a fancy degree.

I might not have the technical mumbo in check.

But one thing is for sizzle, i'm one of the top game developers in finland *grins*

EDIT: Don't know about the top devs worldwide but i haven't been in the business -that- long. The top names have been around for 15 years so, i'll get there

EDITx2: Oh and one thing about game industry:

Fu*k your diploma.

Fu*k your fancy drawings.

Fu*k your "reallife sim animation(tm)"

One thing that is different from the topnotch and the basicgrudgrinder is released games.

 

[BrassMonkey]

Originally posted by old.LandShark
Incidentally, do you play UT in the games labs ever? I'm just trying to place you :>

Nah hardly ever, only time i might dabble in it is on a wednesday 12:00 - 13:00 in IT2.39 cus we've got games futures tutorials and that entails pretty much fuck all.

Always makes me laugh, you can tell a first year by the fact that they're smiling when playing UT Just look for it next year hehe

 

[Danya]

Originally posted by old.Tohtori
But one thing is for sizzle, i'm one of the top game developers in finland *grins*

So that's why you never hear of any good games coming from finland...

 

[old.Gombur Glodson]

Max Payne? ;o

 

[old.LandShark]

Originally posted by old.Tohtori
EDITx2: Oh and one thing about game industry:

Fu*k your diploma.

Fu*k your fancy drawings.

Fu*k your "reallife sim animation(tm)"

One thing that is different from the topnotch and the basicgrudgrinder is released games.

Yes, well I'm sure SOME employer will forgive people for not having already released games before they apply.