Hardcore skills include 2D illustration, 2D/3D animation, game graphics/realtime rendering/technical art.

Minimal: course: CMU 15-462 textbook: The Animator’s Survival Kit assistance: Pixar + Blender + LearnOpenGL

2D software: CSP(mainly 2D ACG) + PS(processing) optional: Krita(free open-source powerful)

3D software: Blender + Maya(Large Industry standard) Game Engine: Unreal + Unity Others: Houdini

CMU 15-362/662: Computer Graphics https://15362.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2026/

Khan Academy: Pixar in a Box (anime industry) https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/pixar

Blender Studio Training / Open Movies (animation movie, production workflow) https://studio.blender.org/projects/

GPU Gems - game graphics tech wiki https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/gpugems/part-i-natural-effects

LearnOpenGL - API practice https://learnopengl.com/

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Physically Based Rendering - modern standard rendering book https://pbr-book.org/4ed/contents