Epic Games Educational Spotlight - Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Games + Animation
School: Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Games + Animation
Department: Games
Program Description:
For over twenty years, Gnomon has educated many of the world’s best digital artists. Called "the MIT of visual effects" by Fast Company magazine, Gnomon offers a variety of educational options to help students reach their goals in the entertainment industry, with both degree and vocational certificate programs, specialized courses for high school students and over 100 individual courses for professional enrichment.
Visual effects artists launched Gnomon with the support of the entertainment industry to help meet the demand for well-trained creative talent in the growing field of digital entertainment. Gnomon's graduates are professionals working on the latest blockbuster films and games, and have positions at film and video game studios around the world.
The games curriculum combines Gnomon’s one-of-a-kind core digital production education with an emphasis on game art, design, and tools.
With a balance of design education and software-based technical training, Gnomon’s games courses offers students an extensive and in-depth skill set relevant to the demands of the industry.
Instructor Spotlight:
Featured Educator – Anton Napierala – Anton has an extensive background as a Maya artist, with clientele including Disney, Mattel, MTV, and Miramax. As a senior environment artist on Sony’s first-party game Major League Baseball, Anton was responsible for creating game assets, training and mentoring team artists, and aiding in developing pipeline and procedures. He brings a wealth of experience in games development to his classes at Gnomon.
Featured Educator - Nick Reynolds – Nick has extensive experience in video game development as an environment artist. He balances creative drive with organization and discipline, which has made him a sought-after artist in the field. Nick brings these skills to his instruction here at Gnomon.
Student Spotlight:
Individual Student Work - Julian Elwood – Although Julian is very tech-oriented with his game art skills, he’s also a very talented artist with a great eye for both realistic and stylized artwork. He is the president of the Gnomon Games Club. Julian recently placed in Blizzard’s Student Environment Art Competition with his Unreal based stylized “Haunted Chicken Coop”
"Julian is extremely talented, and I can’t wait to see what types of professional projects he works on," said Anton Napierala
Looking Glass from wssszsss on Vimeo.
Group Student Work - Looking Glass - In Anton’s level design class, a group of students as part of their final project, put together a VR experience, "Looking Glass,” in Unreal Engine. Players travel back and forth between the real world and a dark and twisted mirror world, as they attempt to escape from a haunted bathroom. They built everything within four weeks.
Core Team members:
Game Design & Blueprint - Josh Rose
Texturing & Modeling & Lighting - Mido Lai, Rico Suyang Wang
Instructor - Anton Napierala
Sound effects - Jin S. Wong
External Talent:
Music - 'Dead Inside' By Beatowski Beats
Gnomon is committed to being on the cutting edge with industry software and trends, which is why they teach Unreal Engine as their premiere engine in Games Creation courses. There are too many amazing student projects to share within one article, so you are invited to view their Student Showcase at www.gnomon.edu/showcase.