Japan: Computer Graphics Art and Design Education M a s a Inakage The Media Studio, IncdCyberAgenz, Inc. Hiroko Inakage Women's College of Fine Arts The lack of computer graphics tenure track educators is another problem. Most of the tenure track professors in the Japanese colleges come from a traditional art and design background and have no interest in digital media. Tenure track professors are selected partially by age. Thus, young educators who are enthusiastic about pursuing digital media have almost no possibility to gain a tenure track teaching position. These young educators are asked to teach computer graphics courses as adjunct professors. Although there are no degrees offered for computer graphics, there are many courses in the art and design colleges that teach computer graphics. Many of these courses are treated as introductory courses within other departments, such as learning paint systems for graphic design and use of 3D graphics for environmental and product design. Many deparcrnental budgets can only accommodate low end personal computers with introductory level software products. Recently, new colleges have developed with the concept of "art and technology:' These colleges aim te teach both technology and fine arcs, to account for the emerging technology. These schools have installed state of the art multimedia workstations with high end software products. As a result, the works produced by the students in these colleges are of such technically high quality that is impossible for students in the u-aditional art colleges co compete. I believe that these new colleges will lead the next generation of art and design education in Japan.These new colleges include Kobe Design University and Tohoku Institute of Design. I have been teaching computer graphics art for nine years in the Fine Arcs Department at the Women's College of Fine Arcs. Here, computer graphics is treated as one of the major stream of art media along with the likes of oil painting and sculpture. Students will learn and experiment with the possibilities of computer graphics as an art medium. There are courses to teach 2D graphics using paint systems and photo retouch systems, 3D graphics using ray tracing, including animation and interactive graphics for multimedia.These courses typically have four hours of classes per week, with additional hours outside class in order to complete the assignments. Senior students will be able to choose computer graphics as a thesis seminar. In this seminar, students will discuss topics such as the difference of analog and digital art media and art in the digital era. This Fine A r t s Department is an exceptional case for computer graphics education within art colleges. media. These schools tend to teach courses with state of the art, high end systems. Because these schools are not considered as college education, the curriculum is focused on computer graphics. The down side of specialized schools is the level of students. In the Japanese society, students who attend specialized schools instead of colleges are viewed as dropouts. Thus, students who attend these schools in general do not have much enthusiasm toward learning. For this reason, courses teach the operation of specific software packages. Many graduates become computer operamrs in production companies. Fortunately, this is slowly changing because production companies are hiring many young talents from the specialized schools. There are also cases in which companies send their employees to specialized schools for training. Introduction Japan has been one of the leading countries in both computer graphics p r o d u c t i o n and research. In this report, we provide an overview of computer graphics education in Japan today, and conclude with types of job possibilities for Japanese students in the computer graphics industry. We begin with the Japanese education system in general. The Japanese education system is controlled by the Ministry of Education. Six years of elementary school and three years of junior high school are mandatory education, which allows all children to be equally educated. Three years of high school and above are considered as optional education. However, the majority of children will enter high school, and many will pursue higher education. The Ministry of Education has installed personal computers in most of the public elementary and junior high schools. However, in many cases, teachers lack computer literacy. It is very unusual to find computer graphics education taking place below the high school level, although there are some exceptions. The Japanese education system for higher education can be broken down into three categories: graduate level, four-year undergraduate level and two-year junior college level. In addition, there are specialized schools that offer certificates in specific areas. College exchange programs are not common in Japan. For example, art students in an art school are not able to take computer graphics courses offered at another university. It is also difficult for a student in one department to take courses in another department. The lack of cross-disciplinary education is a problem for computer graphics because the subject requires fundamental understanding in both art and design and computer science. Industry There is no Hollywood in Japan. However, there are many digital media contents markets utilizing state of the art computer graphics technology, in addition to computer graphics production houses that produce animations for "IV titles and commercials. One of the most demanding fields is that of game development for the PC and new game machines w i t h 3D graphics capabilities. Character animation is essential for these game contents. Artists are assumed to understand human and animal motion in order to create realistic animation. It is also important to know techniques such as how to reduce the number of polygons in a scene. Interner Web contents development also requires a computer graphics background, especially for new technologies such as VRMI, Java and Shockwave.VRML requires knowledge in 3D graphics similar to the game development_ These new businesses are constantly recruiting talented young engineers and designers with computer graphics backgrounds. Students who have experience in using high end systems have an advantage in ge~ng the jobs because companies do not have time to train people. Masa Inabge The Media Studio,Inc./CyberAgenz,Inc. Email:inakage@media-s-~die.ce.~ Hlroko Inakage Women's College of FineAr~s 2-24-7 5hichirigahama-Higashi Kamakur'a,Kanae~awa248 Japan Tel: +81-467-31- 1756 Fax:+8 I-4r,7-32-7943 cem Emaihhimko@cybemgen= Computer Graphics August1996 19 Art and Design Colleges There are only a few art and design colleges that offer degrees in computer graphics.To be more precise, it is rare to find a department or program thar has "computer graphics" in its name. This is due to the guidelines for art and design colleges that are administered by the Ministry of Education. Only recently have some attempts been made to revise these guidelines. Since computer graphics education has only about 15 years of history in the art colleges, it is not widely accepted as one of the mainstream areas for offering degrees. Specialized Schools There are many specialized schools that offer certificates in computer graphics and digital

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