Game Animation with Integrated Foundation Year

Develop your skills by entering the creative industries on an Integrated Foundation Year degree.

If you’re interested in taking on a new subject that you’ve not had the opportunity to study in depth before, or have been out of education for a while, then our Integrated Foundation Year courses might be for you. These four-year courses include an introductory year to help you build the core skills needed for specialist degree-level study.

This is a chance for you to let your imagination run wild and explore your creativity, expand your professional skills and develop enhanced subject knowledge in the domain you want to study. We’ll help nurture your expertise in problem solving, risk-taking, designing and making as you develop your abilities through five core modules.

After your foundation year, you’ll have a deeper knowledge of your subject, a clear understanding of your strengths, a developed practical and technical skill set and the confidence to excel in your chosen degree subject when you join other students for the rest of your course.

Specialise as an animator working on games. Specialise as a games animator, one of the games industry’s most sought-after roles. If you have the passion, we’ll teach you what you need to know – from mastering core animation principles in a game development context to rigging and animating characters in real time to implement into major game engines.

On this Game Animation course, you'll work in studio-style collaborative teams mirroring industry practice as you work through full implementation of the game animation pipeline. You’ll graduate with a rich portfolio of work, ready to launch your games career.

You will:
Develop technical, design thinking and production skills in your chosen specialism.
Learn teamwork, leadership and project management skills through a variety of learning environments.
Develop critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills through the development of unique and innovative projects.
Complete your chosen degree over a four-year period.
We’re ranked as the number one university for game design in England (Princeton Review, 2023) and have some of largest and best-equipped dedicated student game-making facilities in the country 
You’ll learn from professional game animators, developers and artists who have worked on titles like Hitman, League of Legends, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XII
You’ll collaborate in multi-skilled teams to create real games from the outset, keeping the Intellectual Property (IP) of any games you produce
Our graduates have worked in animator roles for Respawn on Apex Legends and at Creative Assembly, Frontier, nDreams and Ubisoft

You'll build up your core skills as an animator, learning game pipelines and the roles of different specialisms within the games industry. You'll then work on team-led projects and work closely with artists, you’ll rig and animate models following the animation pipeline to bring your ideas to life.

Foundation Year:
In your foundation year, you'll study five core modules: three short modules in the first study block and two in the second (one short, one long). These are all designed to help you explore the foundational elements of both creative practice and your chosen specialism. You'll gain relevant technical skills, learn to experiment and take risks, develop an understanding of professional practice, have opportunities to work across disciplines and collaborate with other students on live project briefs.

After your foundation year, you'll have a deeper knowledge of your subject, a clear understanding of your strengths, a developed practical and technical skillset and the confidence to excel in your chosen degree subject when you join other students for the rest of your course.

Modules:
Explore
Technique
Apply
Industry
Launch

Year one:
You'll learn what it takes to make an animated game, including asset creation, project management and development pipelines, pitching ideas and considering theories about what games are and how they engage players. Developing your skills in animation, you'll enhance cross-disciplinary groups as you pitch a game and build it as part of a collaborative team.

Modules:
Development Foundations
Digital Creativity
Game Animation 1
Reading Games
Multidisciplinary Teamwork
Game Animation 2

Year two:
With greater confidence in your skills, you'll mirror professional game development as you tackle a larger game project in a multi-skilled group. Over the course of the year, you'll research and experiment with various approaches and create innovative features. You'll investigate strategies to enhance the player experience and learn what drives industry trends and developments from visiting professionals. Throughout the year you’ll continue developing your specialist game animation practice.

Modules
Game Form and Player Experience
World Building: Pre-production
Game Animation 3
World Building: Production
Portfolio Development

Year three:
During the final year of your game animation course, you'll produce a complete and potentially publishable game as part of a team. By pitching it to industry professionals, you'll receive reliable and insightful feedback. You'll also research a topic relevant to your project and build an online portfolio with a clear centrepiece, sharpening your real-world insights and building valuable career contacts.

Modules
Experience Design
Future Skills
Professional Portfolio
Future of Games
Major Collaboration

As part of our process of continuous improvement, we routinely review course content to ensure that all our students benefit from a high-quality and rewarding academic experience. As such, there may be some changes made to your course which are not immediately reflected in the content displayed on our website. Any students affected will be informed of any changes made directly.

Foundation Year assessments are 100% coursework based.
Assessment will take place at the end of each module, and you'll get feedback and evaluation throughout the year. You'll be assessed through visual, verbal and written assignments, including your portfolio and a reflective journal. In your foundation year all assessments are pass/fail to encourage students to take risks and engage with the feedback provided.

Progressing in your specialism
Students studying on courses with an Integrated Foundation Year must successfully complete and pass all foundation modules before they can progress to the next stage of their course.

Your specialism
100% of your assessment will be coursework.

Assessment methods
Teamwork features heavily to reflect the industry
Game making is the primary form of assessment
Continuous assessment with no formal examinations
Visual, verbal and written assignments
Portfolio of project work