VFX: Visual Effects and Concept Design

• A specialist course aimed at producing designers / artists for the film or game industries
  

• Excellent industrial links - both in UK and abroad
  

• Creative studio-based atmosphere supported by excellent facilities, workstations, games engine and CINTIQs

• Read VFX: Visual Effects and Concept Design course information (PDF, file size: 313.45KB)

VFX will be an official partner at the 17th Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia in Stuttgart, Germany (8th-11th May)

http://www.fmx.de/

May 2011 - VFX graduate, Peter Salter is working as a Match Mover for Moving Picture Company, who have contributed to blockbusters as Pirates of the Caribbean 4, On Stranger Tides and the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part two. Read more

VFX : Visual Effects and Concept Design is predominantly about ideas, concept generation and content for the film and games industries - ranging from characters, vehicles, products, clothing, sets and environments. Applicants usual have either 2D or 3D aspirations upon enrolment, and these skills are developed over the three years, as well as exposing them to allied skills that will improve their work-flow and productivity.

Practical ‘design’ projects are supported by dedicated modules focused upon 3D modelling (using Maya), 2D digital presentation (using Photoshop / Painter), digital content for games environments (using Maya : Cry Engine 3 pipeline) and post-production / compositing using our green screen facilities and After Effects, PF Track and NUKE software. By the final year students have usually focused upon either 2D, 3D or post-production biased projects.

Design methodology, concept origination exercises and speculative design projects will provide credible ‘scenarios’ to propose ideas against. Hand drawn and digitally derived artwork will be generated to develop ideas, whilst software such as Autodesk’s Maya, Crytek’s Cry Engine 3, or the Foundry’s NUKE software will provide more contemporary means for visualising concepts, statically or dynamically via animations. The award is supported by high end workstations running both Cry Engine 3 and Maya, and is currently the only one in the UK to own and use a Spheron VR AG HDR camera system to support academic delivery and commercial project work. Students will experience the workflows associated with this system in the final year.

Project work will be undertaken individually and as part of a team, with opportunities for placement work in the vacation period, or by taking a year out. There may also be opportunities to study abroad during the second year.

This award will provide a direct career path into mainstream CGI visualisation, gaming or films (set / prop design) or post-graduate study. As with our other awards there will be a high degree of transferable skills, enabling graduates to enter other areas of design, teaching and further study. With an award as practical as VFX, the expectation would be that graduates would seek employment within the film and games industry or any other area demanding visualisation of ideas to this standard e.g. architectural or advertising material and commercials.

• Animation
  
• Stop Motion Animation and Puppet-making
  
• Product Design 
  
• Transport Design

View the latest videos from VFX at Vimeo

Image 1: Z-Brush ‘digital’ character development by Jason Brindley
Image 2:  Traditional character development by Jack Milton
Image 3 : Digital ‘set design’ in Maya by Ben Nixon 

• BA(Hons) VFX: Visual Effects and Concept Design Programme Specification (PDF, file size: 91.43KB)

For more information about VFX: Visual Effects and Concept Design (W200) please contact: