Course

Materials at rmcad

To succeed at RMCAD and in your professional career beyond, you'll need access to industry-leading software and course materials. RMCAD outlines program-specific course materials below to ensure you have the technological tools you'll be working with in your field.

course materials by program

TECHNOLOGY PACKAGE INFORMATION

On-ground students are required to maintain a laptop that meets the degree specific requirements, online students may choose either a desktop or laptop, but a laptop is recommended.

2D ANIMATION

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire Office 365 at their discretion as well as Autodesk.

All 2D students are required to acquire the following applications/hardware on their own:

Wacom, X-Art, or Huion Tablet (Recommend a Wacom Intuos pro line or better)
Toonboom—Storyboard Pro, and Harmony

Online 2D students are additionally required to acquire the following materials:

Lightbox
Animation Peg Bar
Animation Paper (Acme Punched)
Flatbed Scanner

Windows
– Multicore processor with 64-bit support
– Microsoft windows 7 with sp1 (64bit) or newer
– Dedicated Nvidia or AMD Graphics Card (Nvidia recommended)
– 8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
– 1280×800 display minimum 1920×1080 recommended or better
– 7200 rpm Hard drive or Faster, RAID or comparable SSD
– 512 GB Hard Drive, solid state hard drive recommended with at least 60 GB of free space to hold software.

Mac OS
Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
MAC OSX 10.10 or newer
Dedicated Nvidia or AMD Graphics Card (Nvidia recommended)
8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
1280×800 display minimum 1920×1080 recommended or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or Faster, RAID, or comparable SSD
512 GB Hard Drive, solid state hard drive recommended with at least 60 GB of free space to hold software.

3D ANIMATION

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire office 365 at their discretion as well as Autodesk.

Students are required to acquire the following or equivalent hardware on their own:

Wacom, X-Art, or Huion Tablet (Recommend a Wacom Intuos pro line or better)
Toon Boom- Storyboard Pro
Substance Painter

Windows
Multicore processor with 64-bit support
Microsoft windows 7 with sp1(64bit) or newer
Dedicated Nvidia or AMD Graphics Card (Nvidia recommended)
8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
1280×800 display minimum 1920×1080 recommended or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or Faster, RAID or comparable SSD
512 GB Hard Drive, solid state hard drive recommended with at least 60 GB of free space to hold software.

Mac OS
Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
MAC OSX 10.10 or newer

Dedicated Nvidia or AMD Graphics Card (Nvidia recommended)
8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
1280×800 display minimum 1920×1080 recommended or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or faster, RAID, or comparable SSD
512 GB Hard Drive, solid state hard drive recommended with at least 60 GB of free space to hold software.

ART EDUCATION

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire office 365 at their discretion.

Students are required to acquire the following or equivalent hardware on their own:

D5200 Nikon

Windows
Multicore processor with 64-bit support
Microsoft windows 7 with sp1(64bit) or newer
8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
1280×800 display or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or Faster, RAID or comparable SSD
at least 60 GB of free space to hold software

Mac OS
Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
MAC OSX 10.10 or newer
8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
1280×800 display or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or faster, RAID, or comparable SSD
at least 60gb of free space to hold software and OS.

ILLUSTRATION

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire office 365 at their discretion.

ArtRage -Latest release

Students are required to acquire the following applications and hardware on their own:

Recommended: IPAD PRO with Pencil, 12.9″
Alternatives: Microsoft Surface Pro 6, Wacom Intuos Creative Pen Tablet, Huion Pen Tablet

Windows
Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Phenom 2 processor with 64bit support or better Multicore processor
Microsoft windows 7 with sp1 or newer
4gb of ram (8gb recommended)
1280×800 display or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or Faster, RAID or comparable SSD
at least 40 GB of free space to hold software and OS.

Mac OS
Multicore Intel processor
MAC OSX 10.9.5 or newer
4gb of ram (8gb recommended)
1280×800 display or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or faster, RAID, or comparable SSD
at least 40gb of free space to hold software and OS.

ILLUSTRATIVE DESIGN

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire Office 365 at their discretion.

Students are required to acquire the following applications and hardware on their own:

FASHION DESIGN

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire office 365 at their discretion.

RMCAD will provide the Optitex software.

Windows

Intel Core i5 or better Multicore processor
Microsoft windows 7 with sp1 or newer
8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
1280×800 display or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or Faster, RAID or comparable SSD
at least 40 GB of free space to hold software and OS.
128mb or better open gl nvidia card (NVIDIA Fermi Architecture GPU 2GB VRAM or better recommended) (NOTE: As of this document optitex does not support the pascal generation harware, GTX 1080/70, nor the Quadro P5000, P6000)

We do not recommend Mac for our Fashion Design Program.

FINE ART

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire office 365 at their discretion.

INTERIOR DESIGN

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire office 365 at their discretion as well as Autodesk.

Windows

Single or multicore Xeon, I series processor ,or AMD Equivalent. (Recommended up to 16 cores or better for near photorealistic rendering operations).
8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
1280×800 display or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or Faster, RAID or comparable SSD
at least 50 GB of free space to hold software and OS.

We do not recommend Macs for our Interior Design Program.

GAME ART

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire office 365 at their discretion.

Students are required to acquire the following applications on their own:

Autodesk Maya
Pixologic ZBrush
Unreal Engine
Substance Painter
Substance Designer

Windows
2.5GHz or faster Quad core Intel or AMD processor
Microsoft windows 7 with sp1 or newer
Dedicated Nvidia or AMD Graphics Card (Nvidia recommended)
8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
1280×800 display minimum 1920×1080 recommended or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or Faster, RAID or comparable SSD
at least 50 GB of free space to hold software and OS.

Mac OS
Multicore Intel processor
MAC OSX 10.9.5 or newer
Dedicated Nvidia or AMD Graphics Card (Nvidia recommended)
8gb of ram (16gb recommended)
1280×800 display minimum 1920×1080 recommended or better
7200 rpm Hard drive or faster, RAID, or comparable SSD
at least 50gb of free space to hold software and OS.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire office 365 at their discretion.

Students are required to acquire the following applications and hardware on their own:

Nikon D5200 (with accessories)

PHOTOGRAPHY

Current Package Contents:

Adobe Creative Cloud (latest release) Student Contract

Guides to acquire office 365 at their discretion

Equipment Purchase Requirements

Students enrolled in the Photography BFA Program will be required to purchase an entry level Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) or Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera (MILC) and 2 head studio strobe light kit. There are many options at a variety of price points. The following lists provides recommended equipment for appropriate models of camera and light kits.

Entry Level DSLR/MILC Model Recommendations:

Canon EOS Rebel Series with 18-55mm (T7i)
Nikon XXXX with 16-55mm (ei. 3200, 7200, etc.)
Sony Alpha (A) Series with 16-50mm Lens (Mirrorless a73, a6000)
Olympus OM-D Series with 12-40mm Lens (Mirrorless OM-D E-M10, OM-D E-M5)

Lighting Kit Brand Recommendations:

Elinchrom Studio Strobe Kits (4/4 Softbox to Go Kit)
Paul C. Buff Alien Bees Studio Strobe Kits
Godox Studio Strobe Kits
Adorama Flashpoint Studio Strobe Kits
Profoto Studio Strobe Kits

Mac OS

Computer: Macbook Pro Processor: Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support

Operating system: macOS v10.12 (Sierra), macOS v10.13 (High Sierra), or macOS v10.14 (Mojave) RAM: 8 GB of RAM (16 GB recommended)

Hard disk space: 2 GB of available hard-disk space (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash storage devices)

Graphics processor acceleration requirements:

AMD: macOS 10.12, macOS 10.13, or macOS 10.14 with Metal support.
Intel: macOS 10.12, macOS 10.13, or macOS 10.14 with Metal support.
NVIDIA: macOS 10.12, macOS 10.13, or macOS 10.14 with Metal support.
OpenGL 3.3-capable video adapter for GPU-related functionality.
1 GB Video RAM (VRAM).
2 GB of dedicated VRAM (4 GB recommended) for large, high-resolution monitors, such as 4K- and 5K-resolution monitors.
OpenGL 3.3–capable video adapter for GPU-related functionality.

Monitor Resolution: 1024 x 768 display

Windows

Computer:

HP ZBook Studio G5 DreamColor
Dell Precision 7720
Dell XPS15
Microsoft Surface Book 2

Processor: Intel® or AMD processor with 64-bit support; 2 GHz or faster processor Microsoft Windows 10* with 64-bit support (Version 1709 or later)

RAM: 8 GB of RAM (16 GB recommended)

Hard disk space: 2 GB of available hard-disk space for program installation

Graphics processor acceleration requirements:

AMD: Radeon GPU with DirectX 12 or OpenGL 3.3 support.
Intel: Skylake or newer GPU with DirectX 12 support.
NVIDIA: GPU with DirectX 12 or OpenGL 3.3 support.
OpenGL 3.3 and DirectX – 10-capable video adapter for GPU-related functionality.
1 GB Video RAM (VRAM). 2 GB of dedicated VRAM (4 GB recommended) for large, high-resolution monitors, such as 4K- and 5K-resolution monitors.

Monitor resolution: 1024 x 768 display

For help accessing your student version of Autodesk, please download this document.

For help accessing your student version of Microsoft Office 365, please download this document.

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Online learning

Learning Management System (LMS) – Your Online Classroom

Whether you’re an on-campus or online student, you’ll spend time working in our Learning Management System (LMS). The LMS is a powerful online environment that serves as the primary means by which students participate in online courses to view course material, communicate with instructors, interact with peers, submit projects, receive feedback, and track their work progress.

RMCAD’s Learning Management System offers the following features:

The ability to send direct and group messages within the LMS
A notifications system that allows activity/grades tracking for projects and courses
An internal discussion/critique board
The opportunity to use a variety of file types for work submissions

Online LMS Tech Specs

Package Contents

Operating Systems

Internet Browsers

Bandwidth

Operating Systems

OS X 10.6 or above ;
Windows 7 or above.

Internet Browsers

Mozilla Firefox v24.0;
Google Chrome v30.0;
Apple Safari v6.0

Bandwidth

Minimum: 5 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload;
Recommended: 10Mbps download/ 2 Mbps upload

Windows
Computer with a 1ghz or faster processor
1gb of memory
16gb of disk space free
dx9 graphics device with wddm 1.0 or higher driver

Mac
Computer with Intel processor 1.6ghz or faster
1gb of memory
5gb of disk space free
dvd drive for installation

Visit the RMCAD Apple Store

Course Books

Required textbooks are listed under each course description in the catalog. If there is no required text listed, there is no book. Students should check with their instructors for information regarding additional materials and supplies for each course. At RMCAD, you’ll be able to select your preferred textbook format and corresponding price range—hardback, paperback, electronic—or public library checkout, where available.