Where is Sydney is a good place to study animation?

[LordGaz]

Man I haven't been back here for ages! Please excuse my laziness in recent months to produce any new works, I've been to lazy.

I'm about to finish my degree in Fine arts soon, but I really want get myself into animation. Which colleges are good for studying animation? Are Tafe courses any good at all?

[ADAMBLACKdotNET]

Hi Gaz,

I studied 3D and animation at Mad Academy in Sydney http://www.madacademy.com.au/ and of all the places I looked at Mad was the best for me as I could get specific training in key areas and in a very short time frame and very affordably. Many Tafe courses are over several months/years which in my opinion is too long for what they teach you. In my opinion doing a course for more than a year is too long. Software and how it is used changes a lot in 2 years.

I currently work in the games industry and most of the people that I work with are self taught. You can learn to animate/model just from reading books, reading tuts on the net or watching tutorial vids (www.thegnomonworkshop.com) but it can take a while to get the basics down. My advice would be to do a beginners course to learn what your chosen software package is capable of and how you can go about making something then just go nuts and start reading everything you can get your hands on and just practice like crazy with the software.

No matter what course you end up doing though just make sure you shop around a lot before you decide. The first place I went to wanted $60K for a 2 year course. The place I finally decided on, taught me enough to land a job from 2 months of training and cost me around $3K. Which meant I was out working sooner and saved 22 months and $57,000.

Also it doesn't really matter which program you first learn to do 3D on just as long as you get the fundamentals of how to produce the assets. I have changed software packages 3 times in my career.

Finally, make sure the teacher for the course has industry experience. I cannot stress enough how important this is. It never ceases to amaze me how many training companies out there hire trainers with no industry experience. They often just hire the best student from the class that graduated the previous year which is just silly and of no use to you.

I hope that helps. Good luck!