Certificate Program in Game Design

A formal programme in gaming has been identified as the necessary tool to boost talent pool availability for the Indian Gaming Industry. Young aspirants who are passionate about an international gaming career have been looking for a professional programme that equips them with an international certification as well as cutting edge skills. The choices available to students after 10+2 are limited. Besides going abroad for studies other choices available to them, is to take up programmes in multiple institutes in part-time mode simultaneously with poor integration. In order to address this, Picasso Digital Media who made pioneering steps to bring the world class animation education to India with International partnership has introduced a full time Game Design Programme. This programme for the first time integrates international certification and workshops by International Game experts along with industry demanded skills in a comprehensive and seamless manner with participation from Indian and Canadian academic institutes and inputs from gaming studios.


DETAILS OF CURRICULUM :

Module I: Art and Design Foundation:

The art foundation module has been designed by creative experts who have many years of experience in this industry. Strong creative foundation skills prepare students to develop and unleash their creative potential.

Module II: Intro to Game Art Design:

Students will go through all aspects of game design. From visualizing a concept to playing it in the game. Students will create Characters, Weapons, Levels and transfer them to the game engine. They will also learn about game types and analyze game play.

- Game Taxonomy: Analyze games based on the game play and narratives. We discuss game taxonomy to create a strong foundation of
game knowledge. Level Objects Modeling: We get into modeling techniques by creating different kinds of objects. Modeling High Res and
Low Res Characters: With a strong focus on human anatomy, students learn to create high poly realistic game characters. They then learn
to model low poly meshes following the right techniques and correct mesh flow.

-Texturing for Games: Students learn material editors, unwrapping in 3d application as well as Photoshop to create game textures. Game
Lighting including Baking light maps: Students understand the lighting theory, application and techniques.

Module III: Rigging and Animation:

From biped to bones to skinning, students learn different ways to rig a character. Students are exposed to the 12 principles of animation. They work on learning oriented projects like animating bouncing balls, sea weed, etc.

Module IV: Specialization:

During this module, students can choose their area of specialization. All assets that students create will be exported in game engine to see how they look in the game. Choose your area of specialization from the following fields:

Character Modeling : Students learn to create detailed characters using Z Brush. They optimize these high poly characters to low poly
for the game engine and finally unwrap them to texture.

Level/Scene Modeling: Students create awesome game art by modeling and texturing weapons, vehicles and environments for games.

Texturing and Lighting: Advanced lighting and texturing brings out the realism or depth of surfaces. Texture/Maps generation, Realistic
texture creation are some of the many things that students will learn in texturing. Students learn different tools for unwrapping and creating
bump/normal maps like UV Layout, Crazy Bump. Students light scenes and levels to create different moods, situations and time of the days.
They learn to work with limitations of game lighting by combining static and dynamic lighting.

Rigging and Animation: Students will work on different game characters to learn bone and biped skeletons, skinning different Level Of
Detail(LOD) characters, facial rig setup, jiggle effect with bones. Students learn character animations like walk cycles, loop animations, etc.
They also work with MOCAP files for animation blending and animation cleaning. Students will work on structured projects which are based on
the work flows used in gaming industry. This process helps them understand industry pipelines better.

Module V: Project Portfolio and development