[Bf-education] Taking Cues From Other 3D Companies Already Doing Ed.

[jseaver at smm.org]

Hi all,
Sorry I've been so quiet. I was preparing for--and then took--a 6 week vacation from work. Now I'm back and I have reviewed all the posts so far.

My reactions to things up to now:
I still believe that focusing on a certificate or diploma or whatever it is for the initial "trainers" is the most important thing to start before we issue certificates to the general public.

A review of current approaches:
I thought it would be helpful for people to take a look at what's out there by the commercial companies if you haven't already.

The two 3D software companies really working hard to sell educational materials--Caligari and Alias--they have taken two completely different approaches. In case you haven't visited these sites lately, it's worth a look to see how they're approaching it. I've linked below.

Alias has gone the book and DVD route. I have won several of these items from our local Maya User group and they work very well for me. They hover around $69 USD per book or DVD. The benefits of a book or DVD of course are high-resolution and not having to worry about bandwidth or loosing your place. Not to mentional tangibility. They also offer support packages, but these don't include any free tutorial access, just tecnical support. These start at $149 USD annually.

http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/learningtools/index.jhtml

Caligari offers courses on Truespace from their site at a standard price of $79 a pop (each being around 1 1/2 hours with support files). 

http://www.caligari.com/products/trueSpace/ts5/Courses/spirit.asp?Cate=Courses

Individual tutorials can be downloaded or viewed directly with a 100 Kbps connection streaming from the web site directly. You can subscribe to their Proteam service for $895 USD for an annual subscription to all the material. 

http://www.caligari.com/store/proTeam/default.asp?Cate=STproTeam

They've broken their tutorials into two categories: "Fundamentals" and "Master Series", which falls into line with what has been suggested previously.

Obviously we wouldn't necessarily be charging such prices for our services to the community, but this gives you an idea of what it out there. 

I don't have time to continue right now, but I thought this might generate some additional discussion.

Thanks Rui for keeping this going,
Josh


Joshua Seaver
New Media Manager for Learning Technologies
Science Museum of Minnesota
651-221-2523

Tag along on NASA's recent historic missions to Mars and see the Red Planet as you've never seen it before. "Mars 3D" is only in the Science Museum of Minnesota's 3D Cinema. 

October 8, 2004 through spring 2005.

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