Visual Effects [with Foundation year]
Anglia Ruskin University
UCAS Code: I702 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Anglia Ruskin University
UCAS Code: I702 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
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About this course
**Prepare for a career in technical art in the visual effects and video games industry. Develop your skills to meet demand for roles including technical artist, procedural content creator and technical director.**
Our BA (Hons) Visual Effects will help you become an artist skilled in the latest procedural 3D techniques, who can work alongside programmers, developers and other artists.
Using the latest procedural content creation software, you’ll learn to design and deploy solutions to problems encountered in the video games and visual effects industries.
As well as exploring the key areas of working with VFX and computer graphics, our course will keep you up to date with the latest techniques and trends. We'll also help you identify the supporting skills and knowledge that you’ll need to succeed in the creative industries.
ARU is the place to study Visual Effects. The East of England is a hub for games companies, including Jagex, Frontier Developments and Ninja Theory.
As a Visual Effects student at ARU, you’ll be based in our studio in the heart of Cambridge. This allows us to work closely with employers, organising live briefs, guest lectures and work experience opportunities to give you exposure to professional studio practice, and the latest technologies and techniques.
Working as a team is crucial to games development and so you’ll take part in collaborative projects with students from computer games courses, developing your skills in teamwork and project management.
Throughout your Visual Effects degree, our expert staff are on hand to offer support and feedback. They’ll help you create an online presence to showcase your work. All our lecturers and staff are researchers and practitioners, and their work reflects current VFX practice.
We also attend games jams, industry talks, conferences and festivals. They’re great places to make contacts in the gaming industry.
**State-of-the-art facilities**
All our Visual Effects students will:
- work in a computer lab with state-of-the-art workstation PCs
- use software and tools such as SideFX Houdini, Blender, Autodesk Maya, Unreal Engine 4, Pixologic ZBrush and Substance, increasing your career opportunities in the visual effects and games industries, as well as opening possibilities in other content-creation fields such as synthetic data, machine learning, XR, and architecture
- have opportunities to work with equipment including Wacom creative pen tablets to assist with digital painting and texturing; VR headsets; and a 16-camera motion capture system
You'll also get access to all our art, design and creative industries facilities, with full training provided, including a TV studio, theatre, and recording studios.
**Careers**
Throughout our BA (Hons) Visual Effects, you’ll develop the latest skills and knowledge for a career in 3D content creation. You'll also get the support you need to grow into a confident and creative graduate with a willingness for lifelong learning.
As a graduate, you will have tackled a variety of live VFX briefs, finding creative ways to use your knowledge and skillset and working with our industry partners. Recently, ARM, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Frontier and Just Flight have offered internships and work opportunities to our students.
You'll also have a strong portfolio of work to showcase your skills and specialisms.
Graduation doesn’t need to be the end of your time with us, of course. You might decide to stay at ARU and study for a Masters degree, such as our MA Computer Games Development (Art). Take advantage of our Alumni Scholarship and get 20% off your fees.
**Employability and personal career development**
Informed by employers, our courses support an integrated approach to employability. You’ll have opportunities to develop the skills and abilities they are looking for and gain a deeper understanding of how your academic learning relates to the world of work through Live Briefs and Ruskin Modules.
Modules
Year 1 core modules: Interactive Learning Skills and Communication; Information and Communication Technology; Creative Workshops 1; Approach to Design; Critical and Contextual Studies; Creative Workshops 2; Specialist Project; Composition and Style. Year 2 core modules: Introduction to 3D Art; Introduction to Procedural Content Creation; Introduction to Realtime Procedural Content Creation; Materials and Texturing Techniques. Year 3 core modules: Advanced Procedural Content Creation; Digital Practice for Technical Art; Realtime VFX Techniques. Year 4 core module: Major Project. Modules are subject to change and availability.
Assessment methods
With the help of industry live briefs, your assessments will be targeted towards technical challenges present in today’s visual effects, film and games industries. Throughout the whole degree, non-destructive procedural techniques will form the backbone of your planned assessments. At all levels, you will underpin the delivery of your work by producing solutions that follow these non-destructive methodologies. Using up-to-date tools, you’ll produce artefacts that are meaningful and effective to real world situations, evidenced by submitting documentation that backs up your thought processes, creativity, and solutions to milestones within the development cycle. You will also compile a demo reel from the body of work you create in years 1 and 2, which will showcase your specialisms and interests using the tools available in industry.
Tuition fees
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The Uni
Chelmsford Campus
Cambridge School of Creative Industries
What students say
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Computer games and animation
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After graduation
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Computer games and animation
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This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
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This is a newly-classified subject area for this kind of data, so we don’t currently have very much information to display or analyse yet. Over time we can expect more students to study them — there could be opportunities that open up for graduates in these subjects as the economy develops over the next few years. But at the moment this looks to be a good degree if you want to work on the technical side of film and TV and this is the most common industry for new graduates.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Computer games and animation
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£23k
£25k
£31k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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