7 Great CGMA Courses for Aspiring 3D Artists & Game Developers

1. Environment Art for Games in Unreal Engine

In this class, you will explore the complete process of creating a creative environment pipeline, covering every step from inception to completion. Throughout the course of 10 weeks, you will gain comprehensive knowledge about the essential stages involved in bringing an environment concept to life, employing widely recognized tools and techniques utilized in the industry.

By the end of the course, you will possess a deeper understanding of crafting top-notch assets that seamlessly combine to form a unified and visually appealing scene.

2. Creating Stylized Game Assets

Through this 10-week course, you will acquire the skills to produce stylized and hand-painted 3D artwork specifically tailored for video games. The curriculum encompasses the entire artistic journey, commencing from concept ideation and progressing to modeling, texturing, and ultimately delivering a polished asset.

Along the way, you will engage in various smaller projects that foster practical experience, as well as undertake a larger scene project designed to align with your individual career aspirations. Additionally, the course culminates in a stylized art test during the final week, providing valuable insight into the expectations and requirements for pursuing opportunities in the realm of stylized game development.

3. Character Texturing for Games in Substance 3D

In this class, you will learn how to effectively utilize Substance 3D Painter as a powerful tool for texturing game characters. You will study the essential techniques, including character UV mapping, map baking within Substance 3D, and setting up the scene. Additionally, you will delve into the process of texturing props, clothing, and the skin for a character's face and body. By the conclusion of this class, you will have acquired the skills to present your textured assets seamlessly within your preferred game engine.

4. Intro to Unreal Engine 5

With this 6-week course, students will be introduced to the Unreal Engine, transforming users with little 3D experience into proficient users of the Unreal Editor. You'll learn project creation, UI customization, asset preparation, and importing. Topics include viewport navigation, actor manipulation, naming conventions, material creation, PBR texture pipeline, texture types, and their representation in Unreal. You'll also explore using Blueprints to create a custom turntable for showcasing assets. In the second half, you'll focus on creating a small scene with lighting and post-processing.

5. Intro to Production Modeling

The objective of this course is to familiarize you with the essential elements required for success as a 3D modeler in a professional work setting. Throughout this class, you will gain valuable insights on optimizing your workflow to become a speedy, proficient, and impactful 3D artist. This course will also guide you in understanding the expectations for production modeling and provide an immersive experience of working within a production team.

6. Character Creation for Games

In this course, you will learn the fundamental steps to create attractive and production-ready 3D characters. Starting from the initial blocking and sculpting of your character, all the way to retopology, UV mapping, texturing, and presentation, you will gain the skills necessary to produce a character render that is portfolio-worthy.

7. Stylized Character Art for Games

This course provides comprehensive instruction on modeling and texturing stylized, hand-painted models. Throughout the span of 8 weeks, you will acquire the essential principles and workflows necessary to create a detailed bust using a variety of industry-standard tools such as ZBrush, Substance 3D Painter, 3DCoat, Photoshop, and Marmoset Toolbag.

The course covers a wide range of topics, including dynamic subdivision and ZModeler techniques in ZBrush, the generation of greyscale maps in Substance 3D Painter, painting techniques using 3DCoat and Photoshop, as well as rendering and presentation skills using Toolbag. Additionally, students will gain valuable insights into fundamental concepts like shape and silhouette, value range, and color theory.

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