Reasons you should be aware of

Creator Schools in Japan

Matumit Sombunjaroen

2015/01/11

Introduction

I came from Thailand,

And had receive education from

Thailand, Japan, UK, USA, and Australia

Introduction

By Creator School,

I`m not referring to Christian Creationism

I`m referring to schools that educate

students to join the Creative Industry

Here lie the issues

The Issue

Japanese Creative industry is such a

Gargantuan that there has never been

enough supply of personnel

The Issue

As such,

Creative Schools sprang everywhere

to feed the industry

The Issue

HOWEVER

Even the School itself require Personnel

that the industry don`t have enough of

The Issue

Therefore,

It is a common practice to prioritize and hire

people with field experiences

…. Regardless of teaching skills….

The Issue

This, +Japanese highly praised level of

tolerance and perseverance,

Result in under-average teaching staffs

Being hire occasionally

The Issue

With the objective of joining

Japanese Creative Industry,

There are also large number of foreign

students who enrolled in these schools

The Issue

Bad Mouthing School

amongst foreign students

Became a common conversation topic

Because Foreigners

don`t have as much tolerance

The Issue

Even though they are caused by minority,

They are enough to bring bad reputation to

Japanese education system

The Issue

BTW

I happened to be the same kind of person

with bad teaching skill,

which is why I will no longer pursue a

teaching career

Personal Experiences

Personal XPs

Originally a reason why I created this slide,

a teacher was complaining why I did not

participate more in his class and online

community

Personal XPs

I was tired at the time,

so I gave out a nonsensical answer that

I can`t even remembered what I said.

Personal XPs

Now that I think about it…..

Fine!

I will participate in his community,

With this Slideshare

The Reason

1st and foremost,

The reason that I did not

participate in his community is this……

I have better things to do with my life

Here are the List of things that happened

Statement No.0

“You have knowledge,

Participate with the class community,

it will be good for you”

Statement No.0

Problem No.1,

I participate in Professional Community

and

The class was below Amateur level

As a matter of Time and Priority,

It has little attending value for me

Statement No.0

Problem No.2,

It must be done in English

If it`s in English, there are people out there who

can say things much better than I do,

And you should go see those people instead of

being in there or listen to me

Statement No.0

Problem No.3,

The teacher didn`t know what he was

talking about

Problem No.4,

Most student just study to pass

Statement No.1

“If you use Game Engine like Unity making

Game will be easy”

Statement No.1

……………….

Statement No.1

Even if you don`t use Unity,

if you`re a Game Developer you should

know how laughable that statement was

Statement No.1

Game Engine make things easier,

But Game Production itself

is still nowhere near easy.

Common

production components

provided by Game Engine

Things that you still have

to manually created no

matter how useful the

engine is

For those of you who are not Game Dev,

Here`s the reason

Statement No.1

I posted it on a Pro Dev community,

and it became a popular laugh of the day.

Statement No.2

“Pre visualization is something that you do if

you have lots of money”

Statement No.2

……………………………….

…………………

………

………I might be wrong……….

I could misheard things,

But I will assume that is

actually what I heard.

Pre-Production

Let me give a lecture about

Production plan

Pre-Production

There are several production methods

available

Waterfall

Complete

things in step

Iterative

Review and

fix often in

short

intervals

Anything else in between

Pre-Production

Regardless of which one to use,

They were all designed with a common

objective in mind

To Maximize Outputs while

Minimize Production Loss

Pre-Production

Here`s the thing,

Human make mistakes,

It is near impossible to

always get a perfect production result

Pre-Production

HOWEVER,

Pre-Production

A Proper production Plan

will result in minimize loss

Pre-Production

Let me show you a common misconception

ClientProduction

Team

Please

fix thisWHAT!?

When a client asked for something to be fix,

They usually thinks its an easy task

It`s just a

few fixed

It`s only

10%

WE HAVE TO

RE-DO

EVERYTHING!

!!

Pre-Production

In the case of Game Production

Light Works

Design Document

Conceptual Design

Heavy Works

CG Models

Scripting

Making Programs, going smoothly

Nah, we don`t want it anymore change this

MY ENTIRE WORK JUST GOT WASTED!!!!

Pre-Production

For this reason,

something like this will happen

Final

Production

Result

Production

Loss

Due to poor

Production

process

Pre-Production

Why is this bad?

IT`S BECAUSE

EVERYTHING COST TIMES AND

MONEYS DAMN YOU INCOMPETENT!!!!

Pre-Production

Production

Team

THAT`S IT! I QUIT!!!

IT ALSO MENTALLY STRESS OUT

PRODUCTION TEAM!!!

Pre-Production

SOMEONE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND

THE IMPORTANCE OF PREPRODUCTION

CANNOT BE TRUSTED!

Pre-Production

FIX ALOTS,

FIX OFTEN ON

LIGHT WORKS,

SO THAT

FIXING HEAVY WORKS

WILL BE MINIMAL

Pre-Production

Let us get back to

Pre-Visualization

Pre-Production

Invented by great pioneers of the industry,

Basically,

They are methods to minimize production loss.

Pre-Production

“Pre visualization is something

that you do if you have lots of money”

THEY WERE MADE TO MINIMIZE SPENDING!

THEY ARE ESSENTIALS AND NOT

SOMETHING THAT YOU CHOOSE TO DO

OR NOT REGARDLESS OF FUNDING!!!

Level Design

This one came from an American student

“Please do Level Design in 3D”

( @ the point in time )

( Game Mechanic and visual theme was not yet decided )

Level Design

Before I continue to talk about

Level Design,

Let me say this 1st

Level Design

Peter,

I`m sorry for being an asshole

and pissed off at you,

When I should be an asshole and pissed of

at the teacher for not teaching you instead

Level Design

Level Design came in 2 major parts

Final Level Design

Game Play

Mechanic

Visual

Mechanic

Level Design

Game Play Mechanic

Super Mario Bros Stage1-1 is a Masterpiece

that was Design to teach Gameplay system

based on established Gameplay Mechanic

Level Design

Visual Mechanic

The Last of Us was a prime example of how

Visual design is not simply made for Aesthetic, but

got integrated into Gameplay itself

Level Design

Level Design CANNOT BE DONE,

Until these 2 parts received preliminary approval

Game Play

Design

Visual Theme

Concept Art

Game Play

Mechanic

Visual

Mechanic

Level Design

An experience from a Professional

Got told to do 50Level Designs by a French

Producer with absolutely no preliminary input

beside being told “It`s a Tower Defense Game”

Character

Character Design

The same goes for Character Design,

Game Play

DesignVisual Theme Settings

Telling the Artist to do character design WITHOUT

Preliminary inputs,

Will result in rework and production loss

Statement No.3

“Is Character and Story Important?”

My Answer =>“It makes the Game better but is not necessary”

=>He paused and asked someone else

then talked about how

using [One Piece] minimize Marketing Risk

Statement No.3

Here is why I got pissed off

using [One Piece] minimize Marketing Risk

<= This is Correct

But my answer was not Wrong

Statement No.3

“Is Character and Story Important?”

<= This was asked in relation as

A Product Design Question

Using One Piece minimize Marketing Risk

<= This is a Marketing Answer

Statement No.3

If he would asked

“Please explain the benefit of utilizing IP”

Then I would have give him the answer that

he was so eagerly waiting for

to prove his point

Statement No.3

Furthermore,

The session that this statement was made,Was a few weeks after the initial design already started

Meaning that

REGARDLESS of what was design,

Characters and Story

must be put in there to satisfy his class

Statement No.3

Tetris doesn`t need Character

Statement No.3

Unblock Me doesn`t need Character

Statement No.3

Even Mario was design through

Game Mechanic reasons!!!

Statement No.3

If story and characters were

mandatory for the class,

TELL IT BEFOREHAND

Statement No.4

Half way through semester

“I`m sorry, what`s your Name?

Do you follow me on Facebook?

Yes, oh Good

I happened to have 4000 friends,

so I couldn`t see your posts”

Statement No.4

……………..…..

….

Do I even need to explain

how annoying and fucked up

that statement was?

Statement No.4

Problem No.1His posts were totally irrelevant to my cause

I saw them, I know

Problem No.2He expected me to care about his class when it

hardly gave me anything beneficial

Problem No.3I don`t mind him about not caring who I am,

but that gave me no reason to care about him

GDD

Now that I`m at it,

I would like to talk about

Game Design Document

Because the lecture was insufficient

And taught so little about it

GDD

GDD - Game Design Document

Is a document use to communicate the

ideas to others regarding the project

GDD

In Japan, it commonly came in 2 levels

企画書 – Kikakusho

Contain general ideas and concept design

仕様書 – Shiyousho

Contain more specific data and designs

GDD

GDD has no set format

They are made on a Case-by-case basis,

based on the

Project itself

and circumstances

GDD

HOWEVER!!!

GDD

If you intend to use it to apply for a job,

Then it`s a different matter

GDD

Things to consider

GDD

You will have to compete against

thousands other people,

Who are also likely to apply to

same places as you are

GDD

As such, many companies utilize the 5pages rule

Meaning that,

no matter how good the contents are,

If you cannot explain it in 5pages,

They will not bother reading the rest of it

It`s too

thick!!!

GDD

As well as the contents itself

How you present and communicate make a

major differences in selection processes

Too much

words!!!----------------------

----------------------

-------

This is

Easy to

understand

GDD

The contents itself also matter

Just Designing an interesting Game,

Is simply not enough

What`s it about?

Who`s the Target Audience?

Production Cost?

Etc, etc

GDD

Level5`s Recruit Seminar in 2010

Was so damn entertaining, BTW

Experiences by other foreign students

CG Painting Class - “Paint in A1”

“I have 10years experiences,

You are nobody”

Told to just create something

Without teaching

Etc, etc

To Japanese Creator Schools

You should do something about these

before Japan`s education

got regarded any worse

Even though there are plenty of good

teachers out there,