Advancing 3D Visualization Education: Training by Industry for Industry

NICKLAS BYRIEL: Hello, and welcome. My name is Nicklas Byriel. I am head of 3D visualization at CG Spectrum. And I'm here to talk a little bit about advancing 3D visualization education, and training by industry for industry.

As I said before, my name is Nicklas Byriel. I have well over a decade's worth of experience teaching visualization in general before joining CG Spectrum as head of department for visualization specifically. I taught 3D visualization at a school, a very local school here in Denmark, where we take in just local students.

In my time being at that school, we were actually awarded best architectural visualization school in the world multiple years in a row by the rookies. I have been running my own creative studio for the past 13 or 14 years. And I am a certified Chaos V-Ray Instructor, meaning that I teach V-Ray as the primary software for 3ds Max. I'm also the co-host and speaker for 24 Hours of Chaos, and one of their shows on YouTube called from Zero to Hero.

So CG Spectrum at a glance is a online service provider that does training, or training provider that does training for the industry. We've been in this game for more than a decade, and had a decade of growth. We have become a world-class international education Institute that trains students and employees in a wide range of creative technologies.

We're also authorized training centers by Unreal Engine and Epic. We're an academic partner with Epic with Houdini. We're a Houdini-certified school and authorized training center at ATC Toon Boom, and Chaos academic partner.

We embody an extensive network of industry experts offering an intimate and personalized learning model inside a vibrant global community. CG Spectrum is the go-to educator for film, gaming, and 3D visualization industries in the most tech-forward content academic excellence and industry affiliation.

Our main mission is that CG Spectrum transforms thousands of lives through its accessible pioneering, curricula, and uniquely intimate structure and community. When we say uniquely intimate structure and community, a lot of it is driven around the fact that we do mentoring. And even though it's an online service provider, or teaching facility, meaning that it's not just videos, it's not just paid tutorials, essentially. We're actually trying to do something different. We're trying to do a lot more, and provide mentoring and other things that I'll get back around to later on in this talk.

We reach and support aspiring creators from diverse backgrounds, empowering them to pursue their passions, enhance their expertise, realize their ambitions, and embark on rewarding professional journeys. So our main focus area is, for sure, to ensure that there's room for everybody. We emphasize that everybody can get within-- into these industries. And a lot of our terms, or essential terms, which are the introduction classes, evolves around the fact that you don't have to know anything about 3D or any of the industries beforehand. So you can actually go from basically Zero to Hero.

Our core values at CG Spectrum is commitment to academic excellence and integrity, meaning that we foster an environment where knowledge is pursued with rigor and ethics. We transform through high-impact learning. We believe that in empowering growth through immersive learning. So in, like I mentioned earlier, it's not just online tutorials. It's not just video tutorials. We use mixed media, blended learning. We use everything from quizzes to having mentors being there on a weekly basis doing Q&As and helping students get into the mindspace of whichever industry they're working up against.

We nurture community-forward learning environments. We have a high focus on community connections, equipping students with the skills and mindsets needed to succeed, utilizing our industry professionals as mentors and also having a strong focus on didactics, as well as blended learning, mixed learning, all of these tool sets that we could use to teach people. We don't just make something as simple as an online tutorial. It is more of us trying to really dive into the individual student and figuring out what they need specifically to make sure that they succeed.

Forging strong industry partnerships. We have a strong passion about building relationships and collaborations with our industries. A lot of this is also evolved around this talk today, which is about our advisory board for the 3D visualization industry, which is what I'm going to get around to later on.

We enable equity, equitable access to education. We are advocates for equal education opportunities. Every student has a chance to shine. Again, we don't really see any limitations. We don't test students before they join. We do, but we do that to make sure that they get into the right track to begin with. So everybody can get a chance, but it's a matter of figuring out, are you a student that should start off with essentials or can you go straight to foundations if you already have some 3D knowledge within that respective industry that you're going for.

We're tech driven, and apply adaptability as much as we can. We embrace innovation, equipping our students with the skills needed to thrive in the ever-changing world of technology and industry advancements.

We take a huge pride in having our mentors and staff being able to actually work a lot within all of the different types of softwares, and keeping up to date with all of the amazing updates that comes along all the time for all of these softwares. And it's tough keeping track of all of it, but we also have quite a lot of mentors. So that obviously helps us divert some of that knowledge into specific people.

We have over 170 industry mentors working at CG Spectrum in basically any industry that you can think of, or at least most of them. We have had over 3,800 students served globally. There's, like I mentioned before, over 170 experts from industry mentors that we use. There's more than 500 study hours that is developed and available through our platforms. And we have an overall mentor score by the students at 9.42 out of 10, and an average NPS score in 2023 of 84.

Our global presence, in terms of staff is, as you can see on the slide here, is dominantly based around North America. But we have quite a few living now in the United Kingdoms. We have Denmark, which I'm representing. We have mentors in Hong Kong. And we have Australia as well, and New Zealand.

Our students, we hail from over 90 different countries, the United States being the biggest of those so far. But we have quite a lot of students coming from Australia, the United Kingdoms, Canada, and the rest of them is basically scattered around-- roughly over 30% is scattered around the rest of Europe, as well as South America and Africa and Asia, basically.

So the different programs and disciplines we have in CG Spectrum is animation, which covers both 2D and 3D animation. We have 3D modeling, digital painting, game development, 3D visualization, virtual production, and visual effects. Our curriculum software includes software like Unreal Engine, Maya, 3ds Max, Mocha Pro, Harmony ZBRush, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Photoshop, Redshift, Nuke, Houdini, Blender, Gaea, Visual Studio, V-Ray, and the list goes on. This is just more of the primary software. So we also, just in 3D visualization alone, we have Marvelous Designer and [INAUDIBLE] 3D as well Incorporated, as well as Corona Rendering Engines and more to come, actually, and depending on where the industry goes. We try to keep up with the industry itself by talking to people like you guys, the industry itself, and keeping tabs on what's popular, what are people using as tools, and trying to really accommodate all of that, if necessary, in our lessons.

The benefits of studying at CG Spectrum would be that we have training focused on job outcomes. It's a big part of what our focus revolves around when developing new curriculums, is to figuring out what it should contain in order to be sure that it actually is appropriate training to-- that the student can utilize when they get into-- when they need to search for a new job.

We have work and learn with flexible schedules, meaning that since there is a lot of videos, there is a lot of mixed media, and even written media in terms of our lessons. You can really work and learn at your own pace in whichever hours of the day that you shall wish. It could be at night. It could be in the mornings, in the evenings. It doesn't really matter that much. And we can even help accommodate specific hours where the Q&A, the live sessions, would need to be with all of the different types of mentors that we have on staff.

We offer payment plans and upfront discounts for students, as well as we have live weekly Q&As, calls with mentors, which is a huge benefit for the students having access to an industry professional that follows their learnings and their lessons all the time, giving them feedback during the weeks in most cases as well, and then meeting up on a weekly basis, talking about where they're at, and where they're heading, and what they want to achieve-- the individual student, what they want to achieve with their lessons, basically.

Industry insights and network opportunities. We take a huge pride in inviting the industry into CG Spectrum, and doing talks, open sessions for our students, having the industry meet our students if so needed, as well as having students meet the industry itself, and try and set up opportunities with and for our students.

There's a lot of hands-on education. And it's a 100% online education, so you can study from anywhere in the world. It doesn't matter if you're from one end or the other, as you can see. We have staff almost represented in most countries, or at least in most major areas in the world, which helps us a lot having classes that can go on at all different types of hours no matter where you're from.

Inspiring and supportive community. Our community is a huge part of CG Spectrum. We use Slack as our main platform, and have thousands and thousands of alumni still hanging out in our Slack channels, discussing and helping each other, former and past students and new students along, and again, doing open sessions and invites with people from the industry to come and talk to them and give them some insights in the communities as well. Yeah.

We do one-on-one, or small group classes of maximum four students for all of our classes. This ensures that every student gets a lot of time with the personal-- with the mentor every time. So you don't necessarily end up in a class of, let's say, 20-plus students, where the mentor, even though it's a weekly thing, having Q&As, you don't only have a few minutes with the mentor in-- on average, because your class is consisting of, like, 20 different students. So we really want to keep it intimate, and small groups, but still offer classes for the students who want to be in a class, or you can pay for one-on-one lessons and have the mentor all by yourself. So there's really something for everyone there.

The mentoring part of CG Spectrum is something that we really do focus on a lot. It means that you have direct access to our industry mentors who have worked on major films and games, as well as projects for in terms of 3D visualization. We have live weekly calls with the industry mentor for the students. Our mentors are actively working in the industry. So most of them actually have jobs on the side. They're not just full-time mentors, which keeps them on their tails, right? This means that they always have something new to bring to the table for the students if they have questions for-- about the industry that they're going into or wanting to go into.

We offer private one-on-one or small groups, as mentioned before. We have classes that are 100% online. So you can study from everywhere. And we record our video critiques with the mentors as well. So you actually don't have to just remember all of it. You can actually download all the recordings afterwards and look through it again if you forgot what it was that the mentor mentioned or even showcased, if they're opening up a program to solve problems or whatever it might be for the individual students.

We also offer career support at CG Spectrum. So we have a personalized job-focused training-- career training and support, even after your graduation, meaning that we have staff helping with all of these different things. So additional career services, including career planning, CV and portfolio reviews, job application help, and interview preparation as well.

We do career coaching as well. So you can get career coaching on resumes, cover letter help, mock interviews. So we can help with that thing. And networking and portfolio tips, as well as career advice and general direction. So it is not uncommon for a student to have an idea of which industry they actually want to go for when they start at CG Spectrum, and then maybe even changing their mind on which industries really talks to them in terms of what they want to work with. So we do have coaching for that specifically, and helping students in getting on the right path in general.

Our online community is something that you will be a part of when you enroll. You'll automatically become part of the supportive online community of students, alumnis, and mentors all around the world. Again, as mentioned earlier, we use Slack for that.

You get feedback on your work. You can get answers to questions when you're stuck, and the opportunity to build your professional network from day one. So all of the other students, all of the other alumni is already there, and even the mentors. You can interact with everyone through online chatting, through huddles on Slack, and joining up on video calls with them at any hour almost. There's almost not an hour where I can't open up Slack and I can see some students, or even mentors and professionals being part of a huddle, just talking about a problem a student might have had, or showcasing something because they thought it was cool. So it's really a great place to be at, and that really helps all of the, especially, new students, as well as the old alumni when they might need a new job, or whatever they might need.

We have a lot of community initiatives. So, exclusive guest speakers and webinars. We do peer-to-peer feedback and support. We have department challenges and activities, and local meetups and study groups.

Not that long ago, we did a meetup in London, actually. And quite a few students turned up who were near London. And I know a lot of the other local channels. I don't follow them as much, because, again, I'm not from the US or whatever. But we do have a lot of local channels within our community itself, and they arrange local meetups all the time, and they meet and get a little bit out of all of that only being online part, which really helps on getting faces on all the people that you talk to and interact with on a daily basis.

We also do industry collaborations. CG Spectrum engages in business-to-business training and we help upskill for other companies. So we don't just teach students. We actually do teach and make lessons and curriculums and terms and so on for business-to-business, meaning that we've done several courses for Epic Games, and Activision, and Warner Brothers Discovery, which are mentioned on this page. We partner with key industry stakeholders to deliver training programs for these, and can really help any company make sure that they get the right amount of the right type of new employees. So we can help set up a training program that makes sure that they get into the gist of it for that new company, and make sure that they have the knowledge that they need for this.

We also have this visualization advisory board, which is actually the main thing that I wanted to talk a little bit about. The future of visualization in itself is that the-- meaning that visualization and 3D rendering software market is projected to hit $7.43 billion by 2028 according to a report by the Insight Partners. We see a strong demand and growth within this industry in itself.

And really, when-- so I'm from Europe, and I've been around visualization quite a lot in especially the European markets. But when looking at the US market, I see a huge potential of more companies coming along and using visualization as one of their tool sets. And we really want to be a part of that, and help provide new people and new students to get into those industries, and be ready for when these companies are raising their demands for more and more visualizations, regardless of industry.

The demand for 3D visualization artists is continuing to rise across various industries, whether it being digital fashion, which is one of the newer industries. We don't currently have a curriculum for digital fashion, but it is actually one of the areas that we're currently working on on the side. So even though it's not part of the current curriculum, it will be in the future, and it will be something that we already have experts working on as we speak.

We have specialized education programs that are critical for equipping artists with up-to-date knowledge. Yet there are such a few programs out there. So we really see a need for having this type of education. There's actually not that much out there in terms of other educations that you can take if you wanted to get in 3D visualization in general. A lot of the people who work in 3D visualization today are self-taught or from the old-school of reading forums all the time, or whatever it might be, and looking at what is being provided out there for young people who wants to get into this industry.

Most of the programs out there, or courses out there, are all masterclasses, and kind of assume that you already know 3D to a certain level. So the only way to actually get introduced to it, if you wanted a more formal education, would be to go take a modeling class for VFX, or for game engines, or whatever it might be, and then jumping industry at some point and going into visualization. There isn't as much that only focuses on visualization. That's basically the gap that we're trying to close here. So we're addressing this with a new career-focused visualization pathway, which is | by industry and for industry.

Our 3D visualization pathway consists of a 3D visualization essentials, which is the first term, as being three-month long. Then you head over to 3D visualization foundations, which is another six months, meaning two terms. So we have three terms in total for the whole of foundations, or what we call foundations.

After that, you're able to specialize within visualization. So one of them could be, as mentioned in the graphics here, architectural visualization as a specialization. But we also have product visualization and industrial visualization. So there's really, really trying to cater all of the different types of industries out there, and later on, probably sometime in 2024, we will be-- we're expecting to offer digital fashion as part of visualization as well. But it might be structured a little bit differently in terms of essentials and foundations. It will still be free terms, but it might not be part of the same current free terms just because that industry in itself has quite a few different approaches to everything.

Whereas architectural visualization and product visualization, as an example, have a lot of the same type of skill sets that you need for each, meaning that we don't need to diverge too much into them in terms of the foundational skills. We do specialize in them to the specialization parts, but that's more focused around the lessons themselves, and making sure that you get into the industry that really interests you.

We do comprehensive visualization courses, and they will equip you with the skills to plan, build, and render stunning 3D-realistic 3D scenes from scratch. We do also have a strong focus around real-time visualization. Currently, we have courses evolving around using Unreal Engine for visualization as well, and can obviously also provide these for companies who wish to upskill their employees if they're doing more traditional, let's say, 3ds Max, and V-Ray, or even other types of 3D software right now. Some of them might use SketchUp or whatever it might be out there. We can help them integrate real-time visualization as well into their workflows, and look at their workflows and pipelines, and figuring out the best approach for that company specifically. So that's also something that we do provide and offer as a service.

You start with foundations and visualizations with latest visualizations, as mentioned earlier. And the idea is that you can have zero technical skill. You don't have to have any expertise within 3D to begin on the essentials course, especially. So that's an introduction to 3ds Max as a program, and later on V-Ray, and all of the different skill sets that you might need or will need for doing visualization as a whole.

We have our advisory board, where you can learn about building an education to employment model that supports both new 3D talent as well as recruiters looking to attract and retain them. The idea is to invite the industry, and be part of this advisory board, and to have a open forum where we can all talk and discuss the future of our own industry. We basically-- the idea was to invite the industry to be more talkative and be more open into what is needed out there because there isn't that much education going on for this industry. So we want to make sure, providing this education, that it actually fits most companies and their workflows and pipelines, and we want to start discussions about software, and as well as not just hard skills but also soft skills, what is it that is needed at whatever company that we're talking with.

So the idea is to create this advisory board and to invite companies to be part of it, and while also not using too much of your time. Your time is valuable, obviously, so we really want to make sure that it's not too much of a hassle to be part of. So we're-- I'm aiming for it to be a quarterly meeting where we're invite everyone who's part of this advisory board, and have them come on to a Zoom call online, and a few of the members can do a presentation and talk about what they do, and their challenges as well, as well as we'll obviously be providing talks and discussions about some of the insights that we are doing currently at 3D CG Spectrum, and what we're aiming to do in the future. So what our plans are and what our lessons are actually consisting of, so that you can have a say in if you agree or disagree in the way that we're currently doing things, and try and help and shape our curriculum basically all the time to be the best that it can be.

It'll help you to gain insight into our current curriculum, as mentioned, and influence the future career path for the students. It'll help with developing and influencing appropriate solutions to standardized workflows and for the visualization industry in general.

The idea with that is meaning that we really do want to make sure that the workflows and pipelines which are definitely not standardized across the industry, as far as I know, and all of the different companies that I've talked to so far, they all kind of have their own ways of doing things. There are definitely some standardized workflows that people use.

But there's also a few asterisks to that. One of the things that I've stumbled upon a lot is the post-processing of doing architectural visualizations-- what kind of software are you using for your post-processing? Are you using AOVs or are you not using AOVs? Are you going straight directly from Renderer to Photoshop, or are you going into After Effects and trying to do all of your post-processing there? Or are you utilizing software like Nuke, which might be a little bit much, too much for some companies, where others might use DaVinci Resolve Fusion for their post-productions.

So we're really trying to figure out what would be the-- trying to standardize it to a certain extent. But we're also, obviously, we need to make room for everyone to have their own workflows, which is more than fine. But if I had to create a student that was interesting for the most type of companies, well, obviously, then it becomes a bit of an issue if they're all doing their own thing. So we do want some things there to be something we can aim for, basically.

We want to help solve some of the most common challenges in education. So we want you to help us solve some of these challenges in education. And that's the real-world experience versus the education training. And by that, I mean that it's so typical for education to have this issue where I have to develop a program or a lesson for a student about--

Let's just take an example and say, to model out from a CAD file. But I find it hard to find correct CAD files that actually comes from a client, an end client. And using that as a good example of how that type of work might-- what that type of work might entail. Because when you reach out to companies, they all don't really want to share these files. Some of them could be because of NDA reasons and so on, which is understandable. But there are also-- some of them are just not a bit-- maybe ashamed of how the file

Actually looks, what it looks like, and it's really that part that we need the students to have some experience with, because if we give them perfect case scenarios every time, we want some of the horror stories out there. We want the students to experience some of those challenges in terms of dealing with not the client, necessarily, but at least with the files that comes from the client, or whatever it might be, and some of the feedback that might come from that client. We want to try and give the students as much experience from that as possible, because I think we've all been in that situation in the beginning of our professional careers where, all of a sudden, it's not the perfect story anymore.

You have this client which has a lot of change to the project that you're doing, or the files that you get to work with are not perfect in any way. There's a lot of cleanup and all of these things. And those are really hard to mimic as a teacher for a lesson. So we need some of these examples. So that's one of the biggest things that I want to try and have a talk about, and see if someone can help with, to a certain extent, and be part of, basically, for CG Spectrum, and our students, especially.

The benefits of joining our visualization board is definitely the networking with other leaders, emerging talent, and industry peers. We're not aiming for a advisory board of just a few members. We're actually aiming for this to be quite a big advisory board, to make room for everyone, to hear both the big companies out there. It could be Autodesk, could be Chaos, could be IKEA. But we also want to talk to the individual artists, the freelancers out there. We want to talk to basically everyone and have them have a say if possible to make sure that we're on the right path as much as possible.

Obviously, we can't cater to everyone, but I really do want to try and cater to as many as possible. And different countries have different ways of doing things as well, and so on. So we really do want to emphasize that.

You'll be able to keep up to date with the latest visualization trends and technology. This will help us as well. And by inviting all of these members to talk from time to time, and talk about what they're currently looking into and doing, will help us all understand and keep a bit better up to date on what's actually going on in the industry as a whole. And we might learn all-- everyone might learn something from it.

We want to invite people to come and help develop education solutions, to address industry needs and challenges. Obviously, we'll probably be the ones that actually do the development part. But we definitely want to hear your ideas, and we want to listen. And if you have any, and try and implement this into curriculums, basically.

We also give the opportunity to influence and standardize the 3D visualization education globally. Since there isn't that many other out there that actually offers education within this, this is a great opportunity to actually help shape that future. You can directly impact and inspire the next wave of 3D artists.

So we would use our advisory board to reach out to the industry and ask, come and join us. Come and be part of this. Come and talk to our students. Come and give a talk to them if you want. Present your own company and what you're doing, and inspire them.

You can partner with other innovative partners and develop training solutions for industry needs and challenges. So you can be part of that. And you can engage as much or as little as you actually will. You can also just be part of the advisory board and help promote the cause.

And our challenge, obviously, is going to be get more and more students, and to grow. But as we grow, we want to have the companies be part of this, and grow with us as well, and help the industry itself grow.

So if you want to be part of this, and bring our industry to the world, let's work together and to shape the 3D visualization education. You can use the QR code here provided, and scan it with your phones, and use that to get directed to our advisory board landing page, which will give you an opportunity to sign up for it if you so wish. And through that, we will get an email with your details, and you will hear back from us, whether or not if we see you fitting our advisory board and our ideas, basically.

So yeah, that's the main part of all of that. We would like for you to stay in touch. And you can visit us on our website at cgspectrum.com. We're on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, which is not called Twitter anymore. It's fine. Or you can write us an email at hello@cgspectrum.com.

And that's basically it for me. And thank you for listening.