[Adam Soulraider]

Hello im planning to go to CDIS ( www.artschool.com ) next year and I was wondering if any one in the forums is or did go there. Im planning to take the Game Designer courses and hopefully get a job as a concept artist/modeler/animator. Thx

[Lev]

Yeah I'm wondering too, should I bother spending time with their first Character Animation course which "introduces" students to the programs that professionals use, or skip right to their digital animation master course if I can get in? Or should I bother at all, heheh...

[DarkUncle]

Well now, just registered so I could give you guys the info. I currently go there and am entering into the DAMP ( after finishing CAP ) and I have to say, if your willing to spend the money, go right ahead and join. For the digital masters, you have to know how to use both softimage xsi and maya. I'm not sure about video game design though. And be prepared to have only 1 class ( in a particular subject ) per week. And sometimes they even have the scheduling messed up. In my first semester I had to go from 9:00 - 9:15 on tuesdays.. not fun at all.. So ya, anymore questions, just reply in this thread.

Dark Uncle

[Adam Soulraider]

Thx for the response. Is the school worth it? Do they teach you all you need to know? Could you also post some work youve done at CDIS? thx again

[DarkUncle]

Well, I would say it is worth it. They have teached me what i've needed to know and more. Some work... sure.

These were made with softimage xsi 1.5 Made the way our teacher taught us. We get plenty of tutorials and help. The teachers really do care about the students.. ( the admin doesn't though ) Sometimes the network is down and people lose their work ( which sucks alot ) and sometimes you can't logon. Maybe it's because of the new campus, but they've been in the business for 20 years so you'd expect them to know what there doing. Anything else, just ask.

[Lev]

Hey, thanks for answering, I've got a question..could you have learned all the stuff you learn at CDIS at home if you had the opportunity? Or are they providing something which you wouldn't be able to do at home other than the provision of softimage/maya?

[DarkUncle]

Well, for our Maya class, almost all of it is right out of the Learning Maya 3 book ( which we have to buy and it's $80 ) so for Maya we could have learnt it at home. But for Softimage, we have a very kick-ass teacher. He's been around Soft forever.. he's one of the top beta-testers.. so we learn a whole heck of alot in that class. In the DAMP program we get to learn with the some guys who work at MainFrame... so we should learn alot more in those classes as well. Since we had to take 2d stuff, all of that was new to me.. like animating... the principles, walk cycles, weight force, camera zooming/paning.. stuff like that.. but that's only 2d stuff. So, hopefully that helped.

[Adam Soulraider]

Thx again for the responses. If you have any other general info, pls post it. thx again