Video Game Design at the GameInstitute.com

Over the last four years, innumerable Game Institute students have written in to ask “where can I find quality art assets for my demos?” Unfortunately, for the student, amateur, or hobbyist game developer, the outlook is generally grim. Hiring artists and animators for small projects and demos is typically way too costly. This is especially true when those projects are simply for learning purposes and are never intended to see the light of day commercially.

More often than not, student demos wind up littered with boring and unattractive programmer art or filled with one-off pieces of artwork downloaded or purchased on the internet that lack any consistent overall theme because they were created by separate artists. In the end, students create maps and levels that are filled with “placeholder” artwork that never actually gets replaced!

Working with properly designed game art assets allows the student to focus on their code and game play mechanics without getting sidetracked into playing the role of project artist. It also allows for a more accurate and helpful code benchmarking, since the scenes are generally more complex than those that are designed to be placeholder, placing a higher stress level on the engine. And not to be overlooked is the incredible feeling of satisfaction that the developer gets when working with quality game art from day one. Their own projects look and feel much more like the professional games they play every day and are one day hoping to build. During times of intense study, this can certainly provide a much needed morale boost to keep a student motivated.

Because we know how hard it can be for students to go out and find skilled designers to work on their projects, we have decided to bring the designers to you. Recently, Game Institute has sought out professional game artists, animators, and sound designers working in the games industry and asked them to develop high-quality content that we can make available to our students at a price that won’t break the bank. In the end, our Multimedia Department was born, and our first set of assets is ready to roll out the door.

One of the major hurdles faced when students attempt to put together artwork for their demos is consistency of theme. It is easy enough to find individual models and textures and even the occasional animated character or two, but making sure that all of these pieces look good when placed together in the same scene is quite a challenge.

Our asset packs offer a complete and affordable solution to the student developer. They include fully textured and lit environment and structural assets with polygon counts suitable for real-time rendering. They also include fully skinned, rigged, and animated characters, weapons, and vehicles that fit the overall theme of the pack.

Our Asset Packs are designed to save you both time and money; two things which the aspiring game developer rarely has to spare. They also serve to allow for easy assembly of very attractive demonstrations that would be perfect for any student portfolio.

In the coming months, more game packs with various themes will be released. We will also be releasing add-ons to existing game packs and expanding out their features and capabilities. If there is a game pack theme that you would like to see released, please write in to let us know.

For those who wish to explore the dark arts of 3D game art and animation, we also have a number of art and design courses currently in production with launch dates scheduled for later this year. More information will be made available in the coming months.

If you are a professional game artist, animator, sound or level designer looking for an opportunity to earn additional income, please contact us at mmdept@gameinstitute.com to discuss the available options. Please be sure to include a resume and a link to your portfolio.

This asset pack was designed by some of the top professional game artists in the field, with dozens of commercial game titles under their belts. It was conceived and created from the ground up to let you go wherever your imagination takes you. By using our modular “snap-together” components for building both indoor and outdoor scenes, you are afforded the opportunity to be as creative as you want to be and assemble unique level configurations quickly and easily.

The asset pack is perfect for Game Institute students who are looking to find affordable professional quality game art assets and animations for their demo reels.

Over $75,000 worth of ready-to-use art assets are now available to you for the incredibly low price of only $249.99. This is the deal of the century!!

Creating your next game level has never been easier! This art pack includes modular components for building both indoor and outdoor scenes. To build your indoor scenes, just lay out the hallways using our simple snap together design. All components include wide doorways and crawlspaces so that you can construct all sorts of game design scenarios. Once done, snap on fully constructed structural pieces like the barracks, generator, or motor pool sections to create larger points of interest or arenas for deathmatches. All of the pieces are fully detailed, lit, and textured both inside and out. Outdoor levels are just as easy. Simply choose the terrain pieces and rock formations you are interested in (flat terrain pieces, mesas, cliffs, etc.), line them up in 3D Studio MAX™, and merge them together. A short tutorial is included to walk you through the process.

After you have created your main level, it is time to add some detail. This asset pack includes various detail pieces such as containers, lights, beds, etc. that allow you to make the areas more interesting and enhance the overall look of your level.

After you have built your level, it is time to populate it with good guys and bad guys and begin creating your game scenarios. All of the characters in this pack come with several preset animations (walk, run, etc.). They are also fully rigged and enveloped for you to create new animations as needed.

In addition to environments, detail items and characters, this pack also includes weapons and vehicles for both the human and alien races!

The Game Institute Multimedia Department

The Game Institute Multimedia Department