Featured Institutes
Asian Institute of Gaming and Animation (AIGA)
Located in Bangalore, India, Asian Institute of Gaming and Animation (AIGA), offers international quality training, aiming to develop raw talent into inter-disciplinary holistic professionals with the necessary skills and expertise to meet the demands of the Gaming industry.
AIGA’s strengths are its experienced faculty from the Games Industry, its Industry relevant courseware developed in academic partnership with the University of Wolverhampton (UK), Middle East College of Information Technology, MECIT (Oman) and professionals from the Industry. Students have access to state of the art systems, game consoles, games, library of books and e-learning material.
PROGRAMMES
Game design, Game Art, Game Programming all being separate streams within Games, we have started with Game Art and Game Programming. At a later point they intend to introduce more streams and sub streams like Casual Online Game development, Mobile Game development, Game design. The Game Art courses at AIGA are being carefully planned and structured to cater to the Industry needs. The aim is to take potential raw talent and mould them into trained professionals on par with international quality benchmarks, who could be plugged into Game studios.
FACULTY & TEAM
AIGA’s strength lies in its people and their experience. The team is distinguished by their functional and technical expertise combined with their hands-on industry experience, thereby ensuring that learners receive the most effective and professional service. The learners shall also be engaged during their training by international experts and industry leaders on a continuous basis. The programme also ensures that the learners are professionally trained to work in groups as well as in teams that actually develop games. (See details at the bottom of the article)
WHO CAN JOIN?
AIGA’s learners would comprise of fresh talent and sponsored candidates from the industry. Students applying need to exhibit expected levels of art skills, aptitude and passion for games. The Game Art Professional Diploma is being offered to graduates and 12+ students with exceptional art skills.
FACILITIES
Situated on Airport road, AIGA is nestled in the heart of Bangalore, just 5 km from MG Road. Located in an area which is home to many IT companies, AIGA has a great social network with Cafes, Restaurants, Supermarket, ATMS, Hospitals and various other amenities within walking distance. AIGA is well connected by all modes of public transport, with the HAL Airport just 5 mins away.
* State of the art Labs and classrooms.
* Industry grade systems with Dual monitors and Wacom tablets.
* Fine Art studio
* Gaming area with multiple Game consoles
* Extensive Library of training DVDs, Books and Games
* 100% authentic software
* Mini-cafeteria
BATCH SIZE
To ensure individual attention each batch has been restricted to 25 students. New batches are taken in thrice a year.
COURSE DETAILS, DURATION & FEES
Foundation introduces students to software and tools in relevance to Game development. Traditional Fine art subjects are being taught to strengthen fundamental art skills.
*Foundation is free, subject to the candidate successfully qualifying for the Game Art Course.
(DURATION - Full Time: 3 months, Part Time: 3 months)
Game Art Core is a certificate program which exposes and teaches students various aspects within Game Art development. It consists of modules that are essential for any Game artist.
(FEES: 1.35 Lakhs. DURATION - Full Time: 6 months, Part Time: 9 months)
Game Art Professional is a full Diploma program which takes each artist beyond the essentials. Further to the core modules it allows students to specialize in subjects of their interest and strength. It enriches each student with complimentary subjects thereby creating a more wholesome game artist on par with International Industry expectations. (Fees: 2.53 Lakhs) (Full Time: 12 months, Part Time: 18 months)
Game Art Focus and Focus Advanced are top-up programmes available to students who have successfully completed the Game Art Core modules. It allows the students to selectively choose subjects that he or she would like to specialize in. For example, through Art Focus one could specialize as a Game Character artist or as a Game Texture artist and so on.
(FEES: 1.91 Lakhs. DURATION - Full Time: 8 months, Part Time: 12 months)
The Game Art Focus Advanced programme enables students to pick additional subjects from the pool of modules available.
(FEES: 2.42 Lakhs. DURATION - Full Time: 10 months, Part Time: 15 months)
Total Fee is inclusive of 12.36% tax.
All courses are being offered in full time and part time modes. Full time courses would require 40 effort hours per week from each student. Part time courses would require 25 effort hours per week from each student.
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
AIGA offers scholarships to deserving applicants. To know more, visit the AIGA website - Scholarship and Financial Assistance sections. check the Scholarship section within Admissions. Additionally AIGA assists students in procuring Bank loans. To know more check the financial assistance section within Admissions.
TEAM AIGA
Kiran G. R. - CEO
Kiran G. R. is the CEO of AIGA. He is an Electronics and Communication Engineer and a University topper in MBA. He has done his M.Phil (Applied Economics) from Jawaharlal Nehru University and is currently in an advanced stage of his PhD at the London School of Economics. He was earlier the Mission Coordinator in the IT Mission, Government of Kerala in charge of e-governance and has headed projects like FRIENDS, Akshaya and State Wide Area Network. He also heads the Centre for Post Graduate Studies & Continuing Education at MECIT.
Hanif Mohammed - Director Biz Dev
Hanif is Director Business Development and Operations at AIGA. He is a post graduate in Management from the University of Glasgow, UK, specialising in International Finance. Hanif has a strong background in Business development and prior to moving to AIGA worked with Integral Solutions and MECIT, Oman. Hanif has been a part of the core team at MECIT, since its inception. Hanif continues to be a Director at eVolution Consulting Pvt Ltd, India.
Shailesh Watsa and Joshi Mark Premnath
Joshi Mark Premnath - Art Director and Erol Shailesh Watsa - Technical Director
Joshi and Shailesh were among the first to get into game development in India and have been in CG since 1993. Joshi, a fine arts graduate with strong creative skills has been pivotal to successful completion of many Art intensive International game projects. Shailesh’s strength lies in his ability to blend between Art and Technical, an unrelenting eye for quality and vast experience in managing International game projects and teams.
Their individual experience in Game development spans nearly a decade each having worked with older consoles like N64 to current gen XBox 360 and PS3. Joshi and Shailesh have been part of Dhruva Interactive, one of India’s leading game company, almost since its inception and together lead the PC Console Art division as Creative Lead and Head of the Studio respectively.
Over the years have successfully worked with leading International game companies and contributed at various levels to AAA games like Grand Prix 4, Toca Race Driver, Mission Impossible 2, Terminator 3, Toca Race Driver 2, Forza Motorsport, TRD3, Asterix and Obelix XXL2, Project Gotham Racing 3, Battle Field 2 Modern Combat, Forza Motorsport 2 and Colin McRae Dirt.
Sensing the overwhelming need for quality game professionals in the Indian market, decided to move into training after having worked in CG for over 14 years. Drawing from their rich blend of experience and strengthened by the University of Wolverhampton, have designed the Industry specific course to help aspiring students understand and reflect international quality expectations.
Niranjan Shivling Mhamane - Faculty Fine Arts
Niranjan Shivling Mhamane heads the Fine arts department at AIGA, bringing with him a rich background in fine arts, having graduated from the renowned art institution in Pune, Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya. He has Studied the art of illustration from legendary Mr. Pratap Mulick and has developed his fine arts skills with guidance from Mr. Ravi Paranjape and Mr. Milind Mulick, specializing in figure drawing, watercolour, acrylic painting and composition.
Niranjan loves working on story illustration and comics and for the last seven years worked with almost all the major publications in Maharashtra including Sakal Papers, Baalbharati. His works for Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels won critical acclaim. Niranjan is the winner of many state level and national awards in painting, including the prestigious travelling scholarship by Camel Art Foundation. He visited many museums in Europe through this scholarship and had the opportunity to study original works by old masters. He is a winner of the international drawing competition organized by North Light Books, USA. Niranjan’s drawings are included in the international publication “Strokes of Genius: the Best of Drawing”.
Milind Mulick - Fine Art Advisor www.milindmulick.com
Milind is a renowned painter, who divides his time between painting and teaching. He has authored 4 art books and written many articles in various art-related magazines. He is a visiting faculty member for the India Art foundation. He has won awards in International artist magazine competitions and has been selected for the annual show of American watercolor society for last 3 years consecutively. Milind has been part of many group shows throughout India, and has conducted several one-man shows in Mumbai, Pune and Stockholm and Sweden. His paintings are in the collection of many private individuals and a few Corporate houses in India, USA, Europe, as well as Japan and Singapore.
Mr. Arun Shankarappa - Academic Consultant
Mr. Arun heads the Department of Computing at MECIT. He is an M.Tech in Computer Engineering from VTU with over 12 years of extensive experience (10 years in Teaching and 2+ years in the IT Industry). Earlier worked for SLK software services and Ampersand software applications limited Bangalore as project lead and was responsible for Analyzing, Designing, Developing and Implementing Enterprise wide web based applications using J2EE for US clients. He is also pursuing his PhD in computer science and engineering from UK.
