Hi Mr. 1774,
I have to agree with you on everything u've mentioned. I've been in the industry for 7 years.
Everything you've said is true and that's why I'm quite fed up with the unhealthy environment for animators in Malaysia. Anyway, last year when I was in a post production house. I've spent most of my time in the company and end up having some health problems.
Took an advice from friends to switch to video games industry. I've joined codemasters since april 2007 and I can say this is the best working environment I've ever experienced in Malaysia.
No need for late nights and I can be able to reach home on time. All I can say the life is getting alot more well balanced now.
So for TOA students, fret not. There's plenty of video games asset companies starting up in Malaysia.
The challenge in the job is actually the requirement to reach high quality work for every assets that we worked on. It has to be perfect from every angle before it can be sign off. Working hour wise is reasonable and most of the time we are not required to work on weekends.
Money wise, I think it's very reasonable for what they are offering in Malaysia.

Our boss is very generous that he allow us to play pool, video games (usually the latest) and company trips for us. There's even benefits to join an english class to improve our language.

From my experience working both in post production and video games. I can say post production evironment is alot more stressful than video games. Post production can earn alot more if u are running the business on ur own. video games has got higher requirement for skills, but less exploits in working environment. what u can expect in video games creation can be alot more enjoyable than post productions. Heard that gamebrains hired a cook to cook for their meals. MFX has got cook too. but difference is Gamebrains doesn't require u to work over night while MFX is very common to work late or over night.

Anyway, for the lubang thing. if u are in the industry long enough. there's for sure a chance for u to pull off the stunt.
for newbies pls don't expect for it yet until u have higher ability to be responsible for it.

If u've already picked this industry. Don't be regret and give up just yet. There's alot of talented artist in Malaysia that's earning heaps. So to get there u got to work really hard and be smart with ur work. (if u guys think i also talk like a lecturer, in fact I am. I'm a guest lecturer for TOA)

Tong1774, I really think we need an animator/artist union to fight for our rights.

btw, anyone wanted to look for a job in video games industry can send me a PM. I do some recruit during my free time.

Cheers.

From what I can see in the movement of industry. Digital Animation could be the way to go. but if u are enthusiastic enough. take illustration and study 3d art on ur own.
illustration is cheaper but what u can learn from it is alot more than other courses.

I used to be in same class with Junning, Zhe Lin and Wei Chuan (all of them are illus lecturers, not sure I spelt their name wrong).
We all compete furiously for atleast 16-24 pieces (we experimented with various sizes) a week and try our best to get it picked for best of the class.
8 was our minimum for the submission in class.

I'm not really happy with the leeway for new students. I don't understand what the student can learn with 2 pieces a week.

for some of the ppl mentioned above about lecturer pilih kasih.... I don't think that's the issue. Student usually fail for not handling their work, done very badly in their projects or didn't do well with attendance.

sigh... seriously sad for students nowadays.

when they came out and start work. they'd blame the school for not teaching them enough to be good artist. in contrary, students should learned to learn from their job instead of spoon fed.

morning dude.
Perhaps this isn't a good topic to get in to a debate for it. I won't get personal for this but I guess it's a good time to share my personal encounters at work.

students used to trained in to old way tends to be a stronger work force because they know the amount of work that they have to handle and be able to take more pressure.

The students are not necessary to strictly drawing portraits for the rest of their college life. I think they can somehow gets creative from the 2nd year and starts using their sketching skills on other subject like concept art.
back in the old days, I only see people who has the habit to draw more than 8 pieces has got better sense of experimenting with composition. which is another thing that u can't learn by just observe by eye. We can learn better when we have the hands on experience and get critique by lecturer and college mates. I don't see previous students are any less creative by drawing more in a week.

I believe u are missing the point for the training. Drawing isn't an obstacle for creativity. Instead it's a great exercise to learn for putting visuals in ur mind on to paper successfully. U should see how hard our work can be when we meet art directors in the industry that can't even draw properly.

Some of the recent graduated that I've met has got very little idea about color and mood study, composition and even photography (shutter, f-stop, bokeh and other stuff). How do we explain to that? does more time make them a better artist?

With the lower standards that have been set. students are free to decide how good they wanted to be. But for people who wanted to gets better, please don't take it for granted.


Now here's the reality. When u are new to the industy, there's always someone above u that is going to make the creative decision for u. to stay competitive in ur beginning of career, u have to be a good artisan before u are recognised in the industry.

I agrees to ur comment on greater aspects to learn from other than the traditional skills. Choosing ur skills based on subject isn't wrong either. I wasn't trying to be harsh on anyone in this thread but seriously what's left in their skills when they are starting to be selective with stuff that they learn? are they going to start regret it when they got rejected in a job interview because the other applicant has got better skills than themselves?
sadly the art industry has always been hiring people based on their skill. that's how cruel the industry is.

For interviewer, it's always great and delightened when we see applicant who can show us a creative idea in their demoreel or artworks. However, creative works that doesn't exhibits strong skills are only easier to get hiring in advertising firm rather than game industry, feature films and post production house.

Sorry for speaking too much in the tone like an industry people. that's why I might sound harsh for u. I only hope to inspires more people to practive with their drawing to stay competitive.

dude,
U've made ur own choice on the path that u want to take.
There's no strict path to be a good artist in the end. Masters like Davinci would definately tell his students to draw as much as they can to master the skills but Paul Rand wouldn't tell u to draw more instead of spending time to be creative.
So, it's all basically back to the question of who u want to be.

Lowering the assignment to students now would be a good way to let those students who wants to go for the design route to have time to be creative. while the rest of the people who wants to go for the skilled path would have to spend the time they have to draw as much as they can.

I hope u get the point here. I didn't say I want students to have more work from beginning. It's always nice that student can have the freedom to choose. but I always see people taking things for granted.

"It's the baseless amount of work that does, really what is the objective?"
to counter this, baseless amount of creativity which never translated to results would never make you a successful artist either. And the result would always require someone who has got talent and skills in crafting the final product that people would buy. For an artist who is passinate enough for what he does, he would never thinks that the amount of work is given to be burden or being at work himself. True artist would always thinks that creating an artist is more like having fun than grinding on mindlessly.
When u started to work in the industry. u will immediately missed those days that u can have fun with ur work in school.

if you really can't enjoy it. better reconsider the subject that u are taking.

Peace.

3d programming is not included as essentials here.
this is more like an art school compare to technical school where u'll learn all of the coding for the projects.

3d models are very dependent on the skill of artist in pulling off the best possible result. however, if u are working on 3d models for games, u'll need to have sufficient technical knowledge to make a game ready model.
this means that u'll need to know the amount of polys to use and the textures space required or acceptable by the engine side.

basically the engine side will have all of the coders to take care of the developement and inplementation of new effects and graphics performance.

one academy covers that art part alot more than the coding.

however, in 3d animation course. There's some mel scripting or expressions required for some special effects classes. Max script is possible to be learned but due to the reason that most of the seats in one academy are maya so i think this is depends on the lecturers.

I remember in MM course u'll have chance to learn HTML, action scripts and etc. so basically there's some art oriented programming language to be learned.

there's not much chance to touch the lower level codes where u get to access the hardware capabilities or even compile ur own applications.

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Added on June 28, 2010, 3:13 pmAssignments is essential if u want to be successful in art industry.
no matter where u go, as long as u want to set foot in it. Assignments are the best way to learn ur crafts.

eventhough u are told to submit ur work and u have to do an X amount of work. there's no need to fear it and it's the way to go.

just think of it this way.
There's no "EXAMS" like in other courses?

accounting, engineering, medical, IT and etc do have to go through a series of intensive exams to be production ready.

while being an art students do enjoy the freedom to do ur work to work ur skills up and worry free from exams.



This post has been edited by kfc: Jun 28 2010, 03:13 PM

For DG students who is going to be in animation class.
Please be sure that you don't join any graduation campaign.
It kills the career of DG students every time.

Many DG students can't be able to come out with anything worth showing in graduation. There's no point to join any of it unless you use your skills in 3D to make money for the campaign.

Yeah.

this campaign killed many talented animators I've taught before.
some just lose interest in the end. and some struggle for months after graduation trying to complete the animation.

it's not worth it mate.

I'm a guest lecturer for DG. if u are DG student u'll see me in the last lessons.

U can ask Seamus Tan about me.
Everybody call me KFC since the beginning.

This post has been edited by kfc: Sep 9 2010, 06:54 PM

I have totally no idea about it.
Don't really care where the building is as long as I can find car park.