CGI and Visual Effects

UCAS code: CGV1

Here's what Southampton, Solent University says about its CGI and Visual Effects course.

Want to bring your artistic skills to life? Solent’s CGI and Visual Effects degree helps to develop artists for a competitive, high-tech industry that offers challenging and creative careers. The degree brings the latest cutting-edge techniques and industry standard software into the curriculum as well as offering you the flexibility to apply your learning in almost any field.

Building upon classical art training, creative problem solving and ideas generation, this course offers an industry-oriented exploration of all the core 2D and 3D disciplines embodied across a range of exciting careers. You may come to us with no 3D or compositing experience, or you may have been producing your own models or animations before, either way our small group sizes let us work with you individually to develop your CGI and visual effects skills to meet industry expectations in your chosen direction.

Being aware of industry practices and in contact with industry artists is vital for developing your future career. We support you to build an industry network during your degree to help you find that first entry-level position through good social media practice, guest speakers and our weekly forums, annual events such as CGFX, Viz. Arch Viz, and our Graduate Show, as well as a range of trips. Alongside this you will have access to Solent’s many incredible facilities and will attend regular weekly feedback sessions using our industry Rushes pipeline in a recognised course ranked as one of the top schools in the world by The Rookies.

Our course is designed to help you evolve from being a learner to a practitioner with strong creative and technical awareness. You will explore many different areas of CGI and visual effects to help you build a wide skill base before focusing on a more specialist area with exactly the skills your chosen industry requires.

The course has no exams with all assessments primarily coursework driven and with great opportunities to drive learning.

What does this course lead to? This course can lead to many exciting careers in current or emerging markets. Students build a solid portfolio perfect for a generalist or entry-level position in the film, TV, video games and architectural visualisation sectors.

With emerging markets, we are increasingly seeing exciting opportunities in simulation, virtual/ augmented reality, visualisation, military and many other industries that we are excited to present to our students.

Who is this course for? Solent’s CGI and Visual Effects course is ideally suited to students who want to learn and develop a range of skills for entry into a range of exciting careers. Applicants should have a portfolio of design or technical work to show at interview.

Although students are not expected to have examples of code, this is a perfectly valid portfolio choice for students choosing to pursue a more technical career path in the visual industries, particularly video games or visual effects.

YEAR 1 - CORE MODULES Architectural Visualisation Digital Visuals Introduction to 3D Introduction to Animation Introduction to VFX Real Time CGI

YEAR 2 - CORE MODULES VFX / Simulation Set Capture Digital Character Compositing Set Capture CGI/VFX Commentary

YEAR 2 - OPTIONS (please note that not all modules are guaranteed to run each academic year) Advanced Drawing Technical Art

YEAR 3 - CORE MODULES Production Brief Pre-Production Final Major Project

YEAR 3 - OPTIONS (please note that not all options are guaranteed to run each academic year) Dissertation Art for CGI/VFX Scripting for Graphics

This course is assessed via briefs, live briefs, sketchbook, PDF and video submission of digital work, written assignments and some presentations.

Regular formative presentations take place across this course referred to as ‘Rushes’, these require no preparation and are constructive in nature.