Digital Animation

The preliminary and intensive Integrated Foundation in Art and Design is designed to develop your ideas, skills and confidence in readiness for progressing to year one of your degree programme.

This year provides you with the opportunity to identify, apply for, and secure professional experience, normally comprising one to three placements over a minimum of nine months. Successful completion of this module will demonstrate your ability to secure and sustain graduate-level employment.

By completing the module, you'll be entitled to the addition of 'with Professional Placement Year' to your degree title.

Before your Professional Placement Year, you'll work to secure your placement, constructing a development plan with your module leader and your placement coordinator from our Careers and Employability team.

On your return to University for your final year, you'll submit your Placement Portfolio, detailing your development on your placement, for assessment.

Digital Animation explores the changing face of a popular art form: bringing images to life.

You'll explore the fundamentals of animation practice within the latest technological advances and trends, and, over the three years, learn core skills that will aid you in becoming an employable graduate.

These fundamental skills will include drawing, image making crafts, computer graphics, stop-frame animation, coding, 3D modelling, 2D motion graphics and compositing.

You will test these skills through a variety of modern applications such as outdoor projection, virtual reality, augmented reality, film, TV, online video, computer games, the web and mobile apps.

The combination of these technical skills with research into the contexts, history and theory of animation and narrative practice will ensure both practical ability and critical literacy in our Digital Animation graduates.

A range of summative assessment tasks will be used to assess your understanding in each module. You’ll deliver a varied and balanced collection of artefacts including (but not limited to) showreels, portfolios, interactive stories and web apps. Project work is supported by contextual essays, reflective commentaries, sketchbooks, reports, pitches, presentations, debates and b/vlogs.

You’ll be taught through creative workshops, seminars and project sessions. These sessions are supported by individual and team tutorials throughout your degree programme.

In seminars you will be encouraged to critique and develop new ideas.

The course is supported by skilled technicians to guide you with technical problems and training.

You'll also experience theoretical lectures and have access to a visiting lecturer series.

• Animation and Image Making Fundamentals
• Computer 3D Modelling and Visualisation
• Coding Animation
• Motion Graphics and Sound
• Introduction to Visual and Material Culture: Design

• Real-Time Animation and Interactivity
• 2D/3D Character Animation
• Projection and Performance
• Experimental Animation
• Virtual and Augmented Reality
• Digital Animation: Contemporary Issues and Practice
• Professional Placement Year

• Animation Practice
• Professional Showreel
• Visual and Material Culture: Final Study
• Major Project

Our Art and Design courses are based at our Locksbrook Road (2019) and Sion Hill campuses.

You’ll benefit from access to:

• New, purpose-built facilities, specifically designed to encourage creative cross-disciplinary encounters with other artists and designers
• Specialist Art and Design library (Sion Hill)
• Dedicated subject librarian
• Writing and Learning Centre
• Virtual Learning Environment
• Apple iMac suites, with industry-standard digital design packages, prototyping tools and Integrated Development Environments
• Special facilities at Newton Park, such as MediaWall, an 8m high video wall of 30 screens located in Commons, and a range of specialist equipment such as VR headsets, outdoor projectors and electronic sensors.

• Exclusive access to a collection of top-spec 4K Windows systems with CPU and GPU water cooling. These machines are networked to dedicated external storage and are offered with Unity, Unreal, 3ds Max, Blender and Spine installs.
• Excellent e-learning provisions and a personal ‘software bible’.
• An equipment loan service that offers a wide range of audiovisual production gear, interactive devices, and peripherals.

Students can apply for Erasmus+ and Exchange programme opportunities offered by Bath Spa University.

We have links with a variety of companies, including specialists in web and digital design, media and animation. During your animated Art and Design portfolio project, you will be specifically asked to engage with external clients and organisations. We are also developing links with a limited number of local animation industry courses.

You’ll have access to countless collaborative possibilities. Join forces with students studying animation, film-making, publishing, dance, music technology – the list goes on – to create unique and compelling digital work.

We encourage you to participate in regional game jams, animation festivals and sandbox events. A programme of internal ‘build’ competitions provide chances for you to test out new ideas and collaborate with peers or creatives pursuing other subject areas.

Project Pickaxe
An ongoing MineCraft build of our Newton Park campus.

MediaWall
Creative Computing students design and contribute to installations for MediaWall.

Serious Games
Collaborations with Bath Spa’s Institute of Education on multiple games that tackle real-world problems. These projects almost always combine aspects of animation, gaming and software development.