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Program Standards

Game Art Certificate program standards

The goal of the Game Art Certificate program is to prepare you for a professional career as a video game artist. In the program, you will develop the technical, creative/visual, and communications skills for entry-level professional work. You will also begin to develop a portfolio of individual creative work you can present to potential employers.

Launch the slideshow to the left for an interactive overview of the Game Art Certificate program standards.

Listed below are the Game Art Certificate standards you are expected to meet as a student in the program.

#1 Game Development

You will develop an understanding of the components of the game development industry and the way in which games are designed. You will be able to discuss the roles played by different game industry professionals and teams in the development of a game.

#2 2D Game Art

You will learn how to use Photoshop for a range of game art projects including coloring concept art, textures and texture maps, painting environments, and texturing characters. You'll show the ability to apply the fundamentals of art, color, and composition to your work as well as test your Photoshop art in Maya.

#3 3D Modeling

You will be able to construct 3D models in Autodesk Maya, creating and editing primitives by moving, rotating, scaling, and grouping them. You will know how to manipulate objects by selecting components, and rotating, scaling, and transforming them and using Boolean objects to combine or extrude shapes.

#4 Tiling Textures

You will be able to develop tiling textures for video games from reference photos or other source material. You can test and apply textures to 3D objects and environments and apply tiling textures to a range of maps commonly used in video games.

#5 Lighting Design

Your work shows the ability to apply basic three-point lighting techniques in Maya and use shadows and highlights to affect emotion. You can apply ambient, directional, spot, and point lights in Maya and modify their controls for position, intensity, and color, as well as develop and apply shaders that create realistically lit surfaces with color, gloss, reflection, and other characteristics.

#6 Character Animation

Your work will show your ability to apply basic principles of animation with Maya such as squash and stretch, anticipation, and follow through to basic characters and objects. You will be able to develop a believable character walk cycle and use posing within the cycle to create mood and personality.

Each of the six Game Art Certificate program standards in the core of the Game Art Certificate program can help guide you through the foundation topics of the program curriculum. Take a tour of course materials to learn how projects and critiques help you meet the standards.