FAQ
General
Agora Community is the branch of Agora dedicated to education and community. We see the value and innovation behind online learning and communities, and, as artists, we’re passionate about giving back to the community as so many of us know we wouldn’t be where we are without the generous help and guidance of others. We all want to pay it forward, and this feels like the perfect way to do it.
The short answer:
We envision Agora Community supporting everyone from entry-level newcomers to seasoned veterans. Beginners will have access to everything they need to start learning. Intermediate artists will find advanced challenges and collaborative opportunities that refine their skillsets. While industry veterans will have the opportunity to share their knowledge and mentor newcomers.
If you'd like a more detailed breakdown:
Education
The idea is that each piece of Agora Community will work together to support artists' creative journeys. Courses are where you can learn new concepts. Our assets will let you practice those concepts with studio-level rigs. You'll put your skills to the test in AnimChallenge, assignments, and other community projects. The mentors and community will be there to offer feedback. And then, when you've accomplished a goal, you'll have a community of friends and peers to share that growth with.
Besides Agora-created content, we also want to foster a ‘pay it forward' environment, where community members can contribute their own educational material if they wish. To keep our ever-growing courses easy to navigate, we're also creating structured paths, grouping courses together that complement one another and provide guidance of what steps to take in what order.
Personal Profile
We will continue to develop the user profiles into a platform that allows artists to easily showcase their various projects, growth, and skillsets. Eventually, we hope Agora Community profiles will become a tool for artists to attract recruiters and other artists interested in collaborating.
Gamification
We all enjoy learning when it feels like a game! Down the road, we want to incorporate leaderboards, badges, and points systems that reward you for completing assignments and helping others. We hope this will encourage personal artistic growth and positive contributions to the community.
Mentorship & Internships
We will offer various models to obtain private and public mentorship at reasonable prices, as well as specific creative projects tailored for internships. Moreover, we will enable community members to offer mentorship through our platform, providing qualified individuals with opportunities to generate income as mentors without having to manage the administrative complexities of private mentorship.
Search Tool
We're proud of all the content we offer! But we also know the importance of being able to find want you need...and fast. We'll be implementing advanced AI-powered search tools that will allow artists to find the resources they need quickly.
Competition & Community Projects
Artists flourish when they have fun and work on things they're excited about. We aim to create opportunities for artists to engage in friendly competitions and contribute to projects they're passionate about. In Agora Community's future, we envision large-scale competitions that are exciting for artists of all levels, eventual crowdsourced projects (short films, video games, etc.) that foster both creativity and production-level learning opportunities for artists… and more!
Expertise Diversity
While we're starting with animation, our goal is to eventually include the full range of expertise within our industry. In the long run, we want to open our community to all aspects of computer graphics and digital art, such as modeling, rigging, texturing, lighting, compositing, visual effects, and more.