Orange County,s Art Insitute of California has announced a new bachelor of science degree in Visual and Game Programming. The program is designed to train a new wave of technical artists for the animation and video game industries, and to let kids have their parents fund their way through video-game school.Art Director of Point-of-View Studios in Irvine, California said, “Local video game and animation companies are clamoring for employees with these specific technical programming skills. This major will be a great service to the local industry.”
Students will begin with a foundation in art and design before moving into more technical areas of programming for 3D animation. Learning the skills to solve technical problems and perform as a technical programmer as well as a creative artist, the students will have an advantage when entering the workforce. Possible entry-level positions include: technical artist, technical developer, assistant technical director, 3-D tools programmer, artist wizard, junior technical cinematic artist, data wrangler, rendering wrangler, or salami wrangler. Ok, we made that last one up.
To develop a game or animated feature film, it takes the work of both artists and programmers," said Larry Richman, Media Arts & Animation Academic Director at The Art Institute of California. "The artist creates characters, backgrounds and other graphics to make the game visually appealing and exciting. The programmer creates programs and scripts to enable the various movements and interactions of characters and objects. For both sides to work effectively as a team, it is critical to have a third party known as the technical artist."
The program was put together in collaboration from game and animation industry gurus, such as pros from the International Game Developers Association, Electronic Arts, Acclaim, Red Storm Entertainment, Digital Domain, Pixar Animations Studios, PDI/Dream Works, Microsoft, Stormfront Studios, BioWare and other companies.
Enrolment is open for the Summer 2006 quarter, which begins July 10th. For more information, interested students should call 1-888-549-3055 or visit www.aicaoc.artinstitutes.edu.
