CGI and Visual Effects with Placement
Solent University (Southampton)
UCAS Code: CGV2 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
From a minimum of 2 A Levels
Accepted when studied alongside other Level 3 qualifications
Access to HE Diploma
Pass in Access course with 60 credits overall including 45 Level 3 credits passed with a minimum of Merit.
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
HNC (BTEC)
HND (BTEC)
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
OCR Cambridge Technical Diploma
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
Pearson BTEC Diploma (QCF)
Pearson BTEC Extended Diploma (QCF)
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
T Level
UCAS Tariff
From a minimum of 2 A Levels or equivalent qualifications such as BTEC Extended Diploma or OCR Extended Diploma. For detailed information on accepted qualifications, please view our Course Entry Statement (https://www.solent.ac.uk/how-to-apply/documents/course-entry-requirement-statement.pdf) Solent University is a proud champion of widening participation. For further information about our contextual offer, please visit our website (https://www.solent.ac.uk/how-to-apply/what-next/contextual-offers)
This qualification is accepted when taken alongside other qualifications.
You may also need to…
Present a portfolio
About this 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.
Modules
YEAR 1 - CORE MODULES
Architectural Visualisation
Digital Visuals
Introduction to 3D
Introduction to Animation
Introduction to VFX
Real Time CGI
YEAR 2 - CORE MODULES
CGI/VFX Commentary
Compositing
Digital Character
Set Capture
VFX Simulation
Advanced Drawing
YEAR 2 - OPTIONS (please note that not all modules are guaranteed to run each academic year)
Advanced Drawing
Technical Art
Technical Art
PLACEMENT YEAR
CGI/VFX Placement
YEAR 3 - CORE MODULES
Final Major Project
Pre-Production
Production Brief
Professional Engagement
YEAR 3 - OPTIONS (please note that not all options are guaranteed to run each academic year)
Dissertation
Art for CGI/VFX
Scripting for Graphics
Assessment methods
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.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
Extra funding
Solent University offers a number of bursaries, grants and scholarships. For more information, please visit https://www.solent.ac.uk/finance/grants-bursaries-scholarships/bursaries
The Uni
Solent University (Southampton)
Department of Film and Media
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Computer games and animation
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Computer games and animation
What are graduates doing after six months?
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.
Top job areas of graduates
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.
£20k
£26k
£27k
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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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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