Unity Training and Certification

the_audio_guy

Hi

Just as a matter of curiosity, how many of you would like to receive training in Unity and become certified by Unity?

Riaan

Sigh_Leeeee

I'd consider it.

krazysh01

I'd be up for it. Could be interesting what you'd learn.

Tuism

Certified by whom? By Unity themselves? https://certification.unity.com/get-certified

the_audio_guy

I have financing for starting a certification centre in Johannesburg. The centre would function predominantly as a testing centre but with the right staff (some of you dev guys) I could create a training centre too, only one in Africa.

the_audio_guy

From Unity themselves correct.

mikethetike

Btw, there is a special on at the moment on Udemy for all courses. There are a lot of Unity and even Unity certification courses. (I think it's just the training, not the test)

the_audio_guy

I bought a few, but the certifications still need to be done on site. (which means a flight to NZ or Spain or NY)

Lisa_Chen

I'd be interested too :)

KleinM

It would be nice, but the downside is that the certification is only valid for 2 years.

the_audio_guy

Yeah, but one can always create a loyalty program i'm sure it's to keep up with the version changes.

Elyaradine

I'm in pretty big support of people who're in content roles learning to use Unity. I think it's a pretty big help to a team when the artists, audio folks, writers or whoever can add their own content to the game without needing so much support from programmers. I think the quality of the portfolio still matters, but I think complementing those existing skills (assuming they're pretty good already) is quite a nice way to improve the value of a job applicant.

But having said that, I'm pretty jaded about the cert itself, though it might be their using exaggerated advertising-speak. Learning to use Unity is just one piece of a puzzle, where imo almost all of the other pieces are more important. Getting Unity cert is imo not going to get you a job on its own. (The one place in the game industry I think you could maybe find work is with startups who have no game dev experience -- in which case they're unlikely to pay well, and unlikely to offer you the opportunity to learn from people better than you, which makes those jobs unattractive. Outside of the game industry there might be some use, with more media-related companies being interested in game technology, and who have skills in everything else but simply lack someone who knows how to use a game engine, if you're interested in non-game work.)

There's no harm in doing the cert! I just want to manage your expectations about how useful this piece of paper will actually be with getting a game job.

SkinnyBoy

I think the best way to learn is to teach yourself... Read books, watch video tutorials, make prototypes and pass out...

For me making games has never been about the job, but making games because I love making games... I don't care which tool I use for as long as if will archive the goal. And having a certificate or degree does not mean that you know how to make games. I have lot of computer science graduates who don't know how to program but have only crammed the course work... Most industry professionals have dropped out or didn't even go to college and have made great games or technology. Examples are the guys in "Indie game- the movie"... So if you really love something, you don't have to be certificated to be good at it. And life shows that most people are certificated in things that they really hate. They just do it to pay the bills, while some of us have sacrificed our lives to do it, and we can never rest if we skip the day without doing it.

critic

Having formal education does not guarantee that you will be able to perform the function that you have been thought better than someone that doesn't have that training. However formal education teaches you a discipline from many angles and it teaches you how to approach problems and further learning in that discipline.

Taking construction as an analogy, you can teach yourself how to lay bricks, how to install windows and doors, but what use is this if the house is in a flood plain, on unstable ground or has doors leading nowhere. That's why engineering disciplines exist, sure you can even teach yourself on that level, but who will trust a skyscraper designed by someone without formal education.

I personally think that formal education plays a vital role in building a foundation for a profession, you don't need to have it, but it's better if you do.

SkinnyBoy

Hi, @critic, what is formal education? What is not formal education? Is passing tests and getting certificated means you have formal education? Lets take for example "Stockfish" a chess engine. Lets say it was build by someone without a computer science degree of which it was... Does it mean the creator didn't spend time formalizing his Artificial Intelligence knowledge? Can you really build that sophisticated engine by trial and error. If you have never heard of something called adversarial search, can you really build a simple chess engine? Well I know lot of CS students and grads with so called "formal knowledge"!! Who can't build a simple tic tac toe and self taughts who will build tic tac toe in two hours... So what is this formal knowledge that self taughts don't know about???

Minecraft was build by self taught "maybe Markus is not so formal with $70m house he owns, but I am sure his algorithms are 100% formal...

Whatsapp is formal again build by seltaught.

Facebook is formal "dropout not so formal"

Twitter is formal

Dropbox is formal...

And it seems that most 90% of formal technology that we use on daily bases were started by dropouts who are not so formal...

I can go on with the list, even the richest man in the world who made a "formal flipping pan cake algorithm is not so formal"

Even oculus rift . Best vr headsets made by a 20 year old dropout!!! When did he become formal???

Maybe its because formal is not so formal or certification makes it seem formal or just something is being overrated here.

(And on the discipline issue, I don't think you can build something great if you are not self disciplined) so something else is being overated

critic

You are looking at the extremes and the very rare, for 99.99% of people a degree is a good choice.

SkinnyBoy

@critic, I disagree... I wasn't looking at extremes, I was just giving examples that are close to everyone. Look I we can talk about tech industry, 80%-90% of it made by dropouts... That is not extreme... From now on when you open an app or a game, check who is the founder and if 8 out of 10 the founder is a droput, how is that extreme...

Your stats is extremely wrong and that is extreme... You said 99.99%... Start redoing your research and recount and tell me who is extreme

Bensonance

@SkinnyBoy Your statistics are dubious too. For every example of a dropout success story there is equally one with a university degree. The founders of Google created the search engine as part of their PhD; Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX and PayPal has a degree from Stanford. Jonathan blow dropped out just 6 weeks before he graduated, so he fully benefited from university.

A lot of the most promising, award-winning young independent game designers are graduating from the New York University and University of Southern California programmers. It's pointless to compare examples about who and didn't go to university, and I'm guilty because I frequently cite the examples you do. University is valuable for some, and not for others.

Despite having both gone through a game design degree, and having taught on one - I'm far from the biggest proponent of University education. I totally agree that you can always learn something better outside of a formal education system. There are some things Universities really do teach better than you can learn on your own - or at least, University teaches you things you don't even know you'll find useful. The best advantage of University is actually the community it provides - a bunch of people interested and studying similar things to you. Even of the examples you cited, most of those dropout examples, the people those same drop outs went on to start companies with - they met at University. Personally, I probably gained more from being in the community of university, than I did necessarily learning straight-up game design. Especially now I'm trying to do the indie thing, I can see how valuable that community was/is.

Returning this conversation back to the OP - getting certification doesn't mean you're using it to learn either. Having some official certification, especially condoned by Unity, would give a lot of employers a short hand and quick evidence for seeing you are proficient in Unity. This does seem like a safe and back-up option really, though. Most companies will likely prefer a portfolio of games, but again - it's about what the individual wants and needs.

way to learn is to teach yourself... Read books, watch video tutorials, make prototypes and pass out...

Judging from Unity's extensive series of video tutorials, I'm sure they agree with you, and this is how they would prefer people to learn for the certification.

critic

SkinnyBoy said:

Your stats is extremely wrong and that is extreme... You said 99.99%... Start redoing your research and recount and tell me who is extreme

I probably shouldn't indulge, but tell me how many people with a degree are working at McDonald's, Checkers or Sanitary Services for minimum wage. That's where my 99.99% number comes from, something to fall back on in life, a piece of paper that will get you past minimum wage, it's sad but it's the truth.

Also, you can basically name the people that have succeeded, can you name the ones that have failed...

/edit
Sorry about the derail, but I don't really like discouragement of higher education.