Games Art With Foundation Year BA (Hons)

In the first year this programme offers a level 3 foundation year making this a 4 year course. This is especially useful for students who may not have an art background, or who may not have achieved the required number of UCAS points for the 3 year undergraduate degree. It gives students an entry point into Games Art academia, and helps to prepare them with some fundamental art knowledge and skills.
In the second year you’ll start to develop your 3D modelling and texturing skills by designing and developing a mobile environment, and a next-gen diorama for the Unreal games engine. You’ll develop a sketchbook which shows understanding of art and design principles, art theories, and the understanding of contemporary culture to the practical work of 2D and 3D games art and environments. You’ll develop your understanding of shape, form, volume and anatomy through life drawing and seminars on fundamental art skills. You’ll have the additional option to choose between: hand-painted textures in an Introduction to Texturing, learning Animation and Motion Capture, or studying 3D Game Engines. Alternatively, you could study CGI modelling techniques in Maya – an alternative modelling software to the standard 3ds Max.

In the third year, you’ll use digital sculpting techniques to create fully textured game characters. This will focus on using the digital sculpting and painting program, ZBrush, to accurately sculpt the human figure and anatomy. You’ll create photorealistic sci-fi and terrain-based environments using a combination of ZBrush, 3ds Max, Photoshop and the Unreal Engine. You’ll take part in a group games development project as a Games Artist, to understand how you’ll work in the games industry. The options will allow you to hone your skills towards a particular artistic discipline. These include: Character Concepts, Character Animation and Motion Capture, and Hard Surface Modelling. There is also the opportunity to explore a technical look at Lighting and Rendering.

In the final year you’ll begin to compile your final portfolio. You’ll further develop your portfolio skills with advanced 3D modelling. Here you can specialise to your own career path and learn specialist techniques and game engine implementation. You’ll have an individual project and portfolio to develop over the year which you’ll be able to use to help you find your first job. You’ll also be a senior member of a collaborative games development team. This will allow you to put your art skills to the test by helping to control the art style, direction, and quality of the art in your team’s game.
View a detailed course structure in the Games Art Course Handbook

Level 4 Modules
The strategy for teaching is to formally support the Level 4 students in the form of lectures and tutorials. Often a method of combined lecture/ tutorial is used, where lectures are delivered in a lab alongside tutorial style interaction. Concepts are discussed and then techniques demonstrated and attempted by the students. There is a lot of teaching support at this level and 'Traditional Lectures' are kept to a minimum
Learning is primarily achieved during direct contact time with the lecturer. This is designed to ease students into university life and successfully make the transition from schools/college to university. At this Level subject specific skills are learnt in the form of principles and technologies that underpin the subject. Transferable skills in knowledge and understanding are of primary importance at this level to provide a solid foundation for learning at higher levels
Level 5 Modules
The Lecture/Tutorial scheme continues but students are encouraged to seek out their own sources of research material and this is demonstrated in such things as log books. Students are expected to engage to a greater extent with resourced based materials such as video tutorials available through the virtual learning environment.
Learning time is split between lectures/ tutorials and the students own learning using such things as video tutorials. Subject Specific Skills are learned by applying the principles and technologies from the previous level and building up more advanced knowledge and technical skills. Transferable skills in problem solving and application to real world scenarios are emphasised at this level. Presentation skills and skills at group working are developed and milestones are used to introduce students to working to intermediate deadlines, as they will be expected to do in industry.
Level 6 Modules
Students will be given some combined lecture/ tutorials, but the expectation is that they drive their own learning and the formal teaching element is replaced by tutor support when needed. This support is given by the Project Supervisor and module tutors and students are guided very much by the assignment criteria for each module. Self-guided study is heavily emphasised
Learning is done mainly outside of the lecture/lab environment and led by the student themselves. By this point in their university career students will have had time to reflect upon their strengths and are encouraged to exploit those strengths in their project choice. Interest and strength in a subject is a very good self-motivator. Subject Specific Skills in applying the more advanced knowledge and technical skills learned at the previous level and applied especially in the Individual Games Technology Portfolio module.