How/where to Start in Gaming ?

One should know where to start his/her career in gaming. Some may be very creative in creating puzzles, some may be good at solving puzzles, some may be good at art and etc... Depending on his/her own area of interest one should make a clever choice in gaming in order to head up with out any break in future.

The main question is that when should one start a career in gaming? Well, this question can be answered in more detail manner.

For someone to start as an artist in gaming/animation should accomplish art related degree so that when takes up specialization he/she feels comfortable and learns faster and proper. The art related degrees are B.Tech multimedia, B.C.A(Bachelor of Creative Arts), B.F.A(Bachelor of Fine Arts), Diploma in Multimedia, Diploma in Fine Arts.

For someone to start as an programmer/technologist should accomplish science degree so that when he/she goes to game development specialization, could understand the actual underlying concepts clearly and can further learn and practice the methods of development efficiently. The science related degrees are B.Sc Computers, B.Tech/B.E Computer/IT, IIT Computer/IT, etc...

For the people who are interested in Game Testing should do diploma in testing tools so that basic knowledge in testing can be useful to start a fresh career.I also have a very good suggestion. that is you play more games and try to screw the game in all possible ways and find out the mistakes/mischievous things in game play. Also participate in gaming competitions when ever it is possible.

 Once you are out of your degree, the very first step is to find where to do specialization so that company's will take up you. Specialization is recommended as it lays a very strong base to one's success in future career.

For artist he/she should take up either one of the following as choice of specializing.

• Texturing
• Modeling
• Rigging and Animation
• Lighting and Rendering
• Concept Art ( B.F.A people will come to this category mostly, hence no specialization required)

For a programmer, their is no such sub choices in particular but needs to concentrate on all elements of gaming. Specially a programmer should have the following skills.

• Good grip on any one language
• Good debugging skills
• Fast learning skills
• Adoptable to new development environments.
• Good problem solving skills
• Command on Maths, Physics and Basic Art.

For a Game Tester, he/she is expected to be more avid towards gaming and should learn manual testing procedures as well as automated testing procedures.Specialization in testing is a good for any one before going into game testing. Similarly, their are some more fields in gaming like

• story writing, 
• Game designing, 
• Producing, 
• Marketing
• Audio making.

Most common tools/software's used by different people during game development are listed below.

For Art:

• 3DsMax, Maya, Soft-image,  Blender, Z brush, Adobe Photoshop etc....

For Programmer:

• DirectX, Opengl, ODE, Ageia Physx, Opengl, Game Engine(not compulsory). OpenAl, etc....

 For Tester:

• Test Director, Win-runner, Load Runner, Q.T.P,etc...

Their is an excellent idea for some one to start career in gaming, that is just join bachelor's course in gaming if you are a +12 passed person. For some one who completed Graduation should go for masters degree in gaming.

I hope this post has cleared most of your basic doubts. In my next post  I will give the information about colleges around the global where one can do graduation/post graduation in gaming and step into gaming industry efficiently.

Regards,

Editor :)