Entry requirementsThis course is designed for those with artistic talents wishing to gain entry to the growing games industry. The course provides you with a high level of practical and conceptual art and animation skills.
Academic titleMA Animation for Computer Games
Course descriptionYou harness your existing talents while learning the skills needed by the games industry such as
• traditional drawing skills
• character design and animation
• special effects
• games design
We have many established links with the games industry, creating opportunities for enhancing your career prospects. These links enable you to meet and work with industry professionals.
Our links with companies and organisations include • Sony Computer Entertainment Europe • Codemasters UK • Sumo • Game Republic. We regularly invite guest speakers to provide insights into the latest development techniques and to teach specialist aspects of the course.
The main areas of study include
• developing game elements, such as graphical components, characters and animations, using industry-standard tools such as 3D Studio Max and Maya
• developing game concepts and ideas, and then illustrating these using methods including storyboards, video clips, hand-drawn sketches and models
• generating game prototypes and analysing human-computer interaction techniques for game software
• the structure and operation of the games industry including the stages of game production and intellectual property
• project management techniques
During your studies, you complete various realistic projects. This enables you to practise the skills you learn and develop a portfolio of work to show prospective employers.
You complete projects in collaboration with our industry partners. This allows you to work with mentors from companies and develop solutions to real challenges. Previous students have been able to launch their careers at companies such as • Electronic Arts • Citerion • Blitz Games • Rare.
We encourage you to work with students from MSc Games and Software Development, which is a technical course covering programming and software development for the games industry. You gain much experience and insight by working with programmers.
Associated careers
This course has been developed with advice from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and Codemasters UK.
These leading UK games companies advised us what the industry requires from graduates, and this course is designed to satisfy these requirements.
Completing the course provides you with a good chance of gaining employment in the industry.
Potential careers include
• animator
• artist
• game designer
Course content
Postgraduate certificate
• 3D animation • character animation • interaction design for entertainment software • observational drawing
Postgraduate diploma
• games design • realistic animation • integrated production project
plus
one from • sound design • management of entertainment software projects
Masters
• research methods • dissertation • seminar programme
Entry requirements
Typically you need a second class honours degree or above in a • traditional art • digital art • digital media • games design • multimedia or a related subject.
We expect you to be artistic and motivated to produce high quality game assets. You must also demonstrate that you have an appropriate level of skill in art or animation by presenting previous work, show-reels or portfolios.