BA (Hons) Computer Animation - University of South Wales

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UCAS Code

WW26
Start Date

September
Location

Cardiff
Campus Code

B

Fees

Home students

£9,535*
International students

£15,850*
Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

Overview
Module Overview
Course Highlights
Entry Requirements
Fees and Funding
How to Apply

Build your skills and create your future in the film, TV, visual effects, and game industries with this practical and technical course.

Accredited by:

ScreenSkills

Career paths:

Animator  
Game developer  
2D artist 
3D artist 
Art director

Skills taught:

3D modelling 
Drawing 
Rendering  
Project management  
Collaboration and teamwork

We make a difference in practice, not just on paper. Our courses are designed by people who offer jobs - and taught by people who have real work experience.

Students in motion capture studio wearing motion capture suits while simulating a fight scene

Course Highlights

ScreenSkills tick

Accredited by ScreenSkills in both animation and game categories.

Certified course

Internationally recognised and accredited by “The Rookies” as a Certified School for Digital Entertainment Media.

Industry connections 

Meet and network with some of the industry's top professionals through studio visits and day trips.

Advanced facilities

Use industry-standard computer graphics (CG) production software, compositing packages and game engines.

Module Overview

Kick-start your career, through a range of technical, practical, and theoretical classes. You’ll have the freedom to design and create your ideas in 3D CG art and animation. Take advantage of vital work experience to hone your skills and grow your network.

Year One
Introduction to Animation and 3D CG Art Techniques
Body Mechanics and The Human Form (3D CG)
Creature Creation and Animation (3D CG)
Characters and Scenes (3D CG)
Visual Studies: Animation

Year Two
Preparation and Previsualisation 
Character Creation, Animation and Implementation for Games 
Creature Creation, Animation and Implementation for Film/TV/VFX 
Personal Project (3D CG) 
Collaborative Project (3D CG) 
Narrative Forms in Animation, Comics and Computer Games 
Work Experience/Placement (optional) 

Year Three
Minor Project (3D CG)  
Final Major Project Pre-Production (3D CG) 
Final Major Project Production (3D CG)
Industry and Employability  
Critical Research: Computer Animation
Scriptwriting: Computer Animation
Work Experience/Placement

In your first year, you’ll experiment with 3D CG art and animation, to discover what you enjoy most. You’ll work towards an industry-facing specialism, becoming a “CG Student Expert”.

Introduction to Animation and 3D CG Art Techniques
Introduction to the fundamentals of 3D CG Animation, Modelling, Texturing and Lighting.

Body mechanics and The Human Form (3D CG)
Experience animating the human figure, as well as modelling, rigging, skinning, and animating a human hand.

Creature Creation and Animation (3D CG)
Discover the complete CG creature pipeline, from prep work to modelling, texturing, rigging, and animation.

Characters and Scenes (3D CG)
Explore character-focused acting and animation, or character and environment modelling, texturing, and lighting (depending on your chosen specialism).

Visual Studies: Animation
Develop your human and creature drawing skills, helping build on your visual communication skills.

Contextual Studies: Animation

In your second year, you’ll develop skills and techniques in 3D CG art and animation, creating and designing your ideas, and working with students in related courses. There’s the opportunity for work experience in the animation, games or VFX industries, helping prepare for your final year.

Preparation and Previsualisation
Developing design and preparatory techniques for 3D CG art or animation, depending on your chosen specialism.

Character Creation, Animation and Implementation for Games
Create 3D CG art or animation assets for games, integration with games engines and pipelines.

Creature Creation, Animation and Implementation for Film/TV/VFX
Create 3D CG art or animation assets for VFX, integration with post-production techniques and pipelines.

Personal Project (3D CG)
Create and design your own ideas for 3D CG art or animation, depending on your chosen specialist area.

Collaborative Project (3D CG)
Work with students in other years or related courses to create 3D CG art or animation assets to build your knowledge and skills.

Narrative Forms in Animation, Comics and Computer Games
Develop your skills and further understanding of narrative theory, storytelling and scriptwriting practice for animation, comics, games and VFX.

Work Experience/Placement (optional)
Gain experience to define your place in the animation, games or VFX industries, building networks to prepare for your final year.

In your third year you’ll work on a live client project, as well as your own final major project, building a strong portfolio for when you graduate. You’ll develop and design a final showreel in film, games or VFX. And you’ll have the chance to undertake work experience to strengthen your network.

Minor Project (3D CG)
Further develop your specialist skills by getting involved in a live client project that includes mentoring from some of the UK's leading CG animation, games and VFX studios.

Final Major Project Pre-Production (3D CG)
Develop a design and preparatory work for your final major project.

Final Major Project Production (3D CG)
Develop your CG skills for a final show reel, in a film, games or VFX-orientated project.

Industry and Employability
Build your professional profile, personal brand, social media strategy, and CV by understanding industry opportunities and career planning.

Critical Research: Computer Animation
Explore fantasy games through developing your own concept artwork, then research and write about a topic of your choice.

Scriptwriting: Computer Animation
Learn how to develop a script by getting to know your story, character, world and theme, though animation and games writing.

Work Experience/Placement
Gain invaluable experience helping define your place in the animation, games or VFX industries. Build your network in preparation for graduation.

Accredited by

In partnership with

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

UCAS points: 96 (or above)

Typical qualification requirements:

A Level: CCC to include a relevant art and design subject
Welsh BACC: Advanced Skills Baccalaureate Wales Grade C and CC at A Level with a relevant art and design subject
BTEC: BTEC Extended Diploma Merit Merit Merit in a relevant subject
Access to HE: Pass the Access to HE Diploma with a minimum of 96 UCAS tariff points
T Level: Pass (C and above)

Additional requirements include:

The University normally requires a minimum 5 GCSEs including Mathematics/Numeracy and English at Grade C or Grade 4 or above, or their equivalent, but consideration is given to individual circumstances

How to apply

International applications welcomed:

We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.

English language requirements

International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 72 overall and a minimum of 18 in reading, 17 in listening, 20 in speaking and 17 in writing or equivalent.

Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.

If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.

If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

Contextual Admissions Policy

Fees and Funding

UK Full-time Fee

£9,535

per year*

International Full-time Fee

£15,850

per year*

Further Information

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy. We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

Fees and Funding Scholarships and Bursaries Cost of Living Support

Additional Costs

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.

* Obligatory

Cost: £150 - £200

We will normally cover costs of local trips. We may ask students to cover costs of transport for optional trips further afield.

Cost: £0 - £50 per year

Media Loans

You can hire a range of equipment, for your assignments and practical work, for free from our Media Loans facility.

Media Loans

At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.

If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.

Course Highlights

How you’ll learn

We’ll teach you everything you need to know to become a confident, creative practitioner. Our assessments vary for individual assignments. Through a combination of lectures, seminars, workshops, studio visits and supervised projects you’ll work individually and as part of a team. 

Each year we organise visits and collaborations with studios such as Painting Practice/Bad Wolf Studios (film/VFX), Wales Interactive (games) and Cloth Cat Animation (3D CG kids TV). We also organise a two-day trip to London, so, you’ll visit some of the top VFX and animation studios in the world. 

Teaching staff

We’re an enthusiastic team with a vast range of experience who continue to work in the industry, making sure that our curriculum remains current and forward-thinking across the degree.  

Dr Brian Fagence, Lecturer

Dr Leonie Sharrock, Senior Lecturer

Charles Rawlins, Technical Instructor

Graham Griffiths, Lecturer

Gustavo Arteaga, Technical Instructor

Jonathan Edwards, Lecturer

Matthew Gravelle-Eagles, Senior Lecturer

Nick Hood, Lecturer

Stan Evens, Technical Instructor

Placements and work experience

Take advantage of work placement opportunities during your second and third years. 
 These are competitive, so you might have to apply and submit a showreel to gain a place. We’ll guide and support you through this – it’s good practice for when you’re in the real world.  
 
Companies who have provided placements include the infamous Lucasfilm/ILM, MPC, The Mill, Double Negative, Blue Zoo and Cinesite Studios.  

Facilities

We offer industry-standard facilities for you to use throughout your course. Our high spec computers are fully loaded with CG production software, compositing packages, and game engines. You’ll have access to a motion capture suite that contains an18-camera Vicon and Xsens systems, VR equipment with HTC Vive and Oculus Rift systems, a fabrication workshop which includes 3D printers and laser cutters and a life drawing facility. 
 
Take advantage of using our computer animation studios with 4K projectors, Wacom Cintiq tablets and high spec PCs. They all support a wide range of software that is used in the film, tv and game industry. 

Top in UK

Animation and Game Design at USW is top for Teaching Quality and Assessment in the UK (Guardian University Guide 2025).

Top in Wales

Computer Games and Animation is rated top in Wales for overall student satisfaction (NSS 2023)

Careers and Employability

Graduate careers

With the breadth of experience and transferable skills taught on this course, many of our graduates have gone to work for some of the most prestigious studios throughout the world. These include ILM, Dreamwork’s Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks, working on productions such as Stranger Things, The Lion King, Star Wars, and The Mandalorian.  
 
We’ve had graduates start their careers with entry-level roles in TV animation, VFX, product design, 3D animation, and even set up their own companies. You can continue studying at the University of South Wales, through the MA in Animation or MA in Games Enterprise.  

Careers support

We’re here to help you build a solid foundation for starting your career in computer animation. The film and television industry in Wales is growing rapidly, providing more and more opportunities each year. Through our workshops, external visits (studios, performances, museums), and guest speakers, we provide the opportunity to network and build contacts. 
 
Personal Academic Coaching is now in place across the faculty for your first two years, and in your third year you have a designated personal tutor. 

Industry partners

USW's BA (Hons) Computer Animation degree is recognised in the industry as one of the top UK educational providers for 3D CG Animation and 3D CG Art. It’s one of only two degree courses in the UK to hold ScreenSkills Accreditations in both the animation and games categories. This gives us the opportunity to provide you with studio visits and opportunities to gain experience needed in today’s film, television and games industry. These are great chances to network, build your industry contacts and learn how to work professionally in the industries.

How to apply

All applications for full-time undergraduate courses or foundation degrees should be made via UCAS. Take the next step: Apply through UCAS. You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, if you’re seeking advanced entry or you’re an international student. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time.)

Advanced entry

If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.

International admissions

International applicants can apply to us directly. If the University has an in-country team in your region, your application will be assigned to them for assistance.

Life at USW

Halls are a big part of your student experience and there’s accommodation at all three of our locations. If you don’t want to live near the campus, there are great transport links to keep you connected.