Emphasis Objectives
•  Understand the history and theory of animation
•  Create characters using both 2D and 3D methods
•  Model simple and complex 3D forms in the computer environment
•  Apply lighting, shading, and textures to simple and complex 3D forms
•  Animate simple and complex 3D forms in the computer environment
•  Composite digital video with 3D animation in the computer environment
•  Create natural and man-made special effects to be used in 3D animation

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Careers in 3D Animation: Game Design

Designer
A designer - or artists - can be an animator, 3D artist/modeler or 2D artist/texturer. Salaries range quite widely, and that doesn't necessarily depend on experience. The reason: some designers just have the right look that is highly sought-after at that moment. Studios will pay big bucks to entice those designers, regardless of their background and experience.

Level Designer
Though it sounds similar and uses some of the same skills as a designer, Level Design is a job unto itself. This involves placing and organizing the structures that make the game world, a feat which is much easier said than done. To create a design that looks natural but striking, a great amount of general knowledge is required. Level Designers need to have some art proficiency, but must also have good spatial awareness, organizational skills, lightning effects knowledge, and even some familiarity with architecture. This position can often pay quite well.

Producer/Production
Personnel Production is ensuring that the job gets done in the end, on budget and on time. Production workers can be anywhere from the producers who conceive and oversee the entire project time to the office administrators. With project budgets in the multiple millions of dollars and involving dozens of programmers and designers, simply organizing the project can be an incredible challenge. This can involve writing the documentation, tracking the work and checking the final product for errors.

Audio
An audio artist is in charge of doing the audio engineering, sound effects design and musical composition. An audio artist could also work with the production team in recording and editing voice-overs. Support Game development teams rely on other departments within their company, as well as other, smaller firms, to handle the tasks of getting the games out to the public. That can include marketing, customer support and packaging. Finally, the gambling industry needs creative and technical people to create and maintain arcade games, online gambling features and casino games.

Careers in 3D Animation: Where the Jobs Are

Being skilled in 3D Animation doesn't necessarily mean a career with video games. With training in multimedia, art and programming, a designer can easily succeed in other fields.

Education
The academic field and publishers of educational software and games are seeking creative types who are comfortable with multimedia software. Publishers of educational materials need people to design, program and come up with the concepts for CD-ROM games to help Johnny learn to read and write.

Corporations
Corporate publishing firms need people to create training and simulation software to teach their workers. For example: airlines use flight-simulation packages to keep their pilot skills up to date. Military defense contractors need software to educate their technicians on how to operate satellites, telescopes and other hardware.

Gaming/Gambling Industry
The game industry needs creative and technical people to create and maintain arcade games, online gambling features and casino games. The gambling industry needs people who can design and maintain games that are fun, but based largely on luck. As the Internet gambling industry expands, online casinos are looking for more thrilling games to attract gamblers.

Advertising
As Internet advertising expands, companies are looking for better ways to attract people to their websites. Interactive ads are becoming a popular way of doing that. Similarly, companies include fun, interactive content on their sites to draw traffic and enforce brand loyalty. Or... use your own creativity...

Related Sites in 3d Design and Video Games

Gamasutra- The Art and Science of Making Games
Register at this site (it's free) and visit it as often as possible. This is the insider look at the game industry with real statistics and real information. Editorials are nice, but Gamasutra offers facts.

Gamespy- Mod World: Volume 6
A good overview of pitfalls that need to be avoided to create a successful mod. At UAT, we have a good number of successful projects. We also have a lot of failed projects. Each of the things mentioned in this article has happened to at least one UAT project. Learn to avoid these pitfalls in your mod.

Layout Galaxy- Flash Game Tutorial
A step-by-step tutorial on creating a game with Flash. Flash is an increasingly popular tool for developing simple but fun games on a low budget. Give yourself a bit of experience with the program and visit this site. Creating your own game should be much simpler after completing this.

And after you've learned all that you can from that:
http://www.gotoandplay.it/ is a site dedicated to Flash games. If you can't figure out how to do it, chances are someone on this site already figured it out, used it, and wrote an article about it. Also, it doesn't hurt to take a look at the games on the site.

Mod Database
Information about nearly every game out there (or at least, every game you can mess with). It also has a myriad of articles and tutorials to help you put together a mod, or at least learn how the process works. Some profanity, but it's too good to pass up just because of that.

HTML Goodies
A good site that'll help you put together a page to display your game. A webpage is like a game's box, and you wouldn't buy a game that came in an unmarked, cardboard box now would you?

High End 3D
This site has tons of information about numerous different 3D modeling programs, including a bunch of great tutorials. If you're planning to do much in the way of modeling, you can learn the basics (and a lot of the not-so-basic) here.

Linux Encyclopedia
Proficiency with Linux continues to be requested by all sorts of companies, game development or otherwise, across the nation, so it wouldn't hurt to brush up on it a bit. This site has more stuff than you'll need to know, but familiarizing yourself with the basics would be a good idea.